~ Guy Fawkes / Bonfire Night ~

[vitamin-d]

I think it's about time Guy Fawkes got some publicity in Korea.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are taught by teachers from all nations; I urge you to do the same for Guy Fawkes Night this coming November 5th.
As I understand, it is still widely celebrated in Britain and South Africa, and remembered in Australia.

Please find attached the lesson plan.
All the information you need (internet links, etc) is in the Lesson Plan document.

As a quick run down, the lesson involves:

Greetings - Video
The Gunpowder Plot - PowerPoint (covers language and history)
Listening Exercise - Involving a worksheet and internet monologue.
Poem - Video & Worksheet
Gunpowder Plot Bomb Game

Even if you don't use this, it would be great to see some other lesson plans up.
This remains a fairly large festival.
The content alone (torture, explosives, fireworks) should keep the learners interested.

I hope this is useful to you.

- On the PPT, when a word is hyperlinked, to get back to the original slide you must click on the image of the word being described.
 
In the bomb game - to return to the question, click on the picture.
If points given are for a wrong answer, assume they are negative.


I would recommend installing Blue Highway Linocut font.
Otherwise this may look naff. 
http://www.getfreefonts.info/free_font.bluehighwaylinocut.html

Also, feel free to pick and choose what you use as there is more than enough for a lesson here.

Thanks.

* documents modified and re-uploaded
* listening test EDIT is half the length
* bomb game edit - stupidly, questions 2 - 10 were all answer C (also, now 18 questions)

[sambelina78]

thanks for lesson plan. why will you get each team to answer every question?

[sambelina78]

yeah, it does makes sense. thanks for this. i will let you know how it goes. i notice from the lesson plan you are doing this for an open class? good luck!

[sambelina78]

thanks for the lesson... it worked well for the first half... then it went down hill! This was not your fault though... i did this with my extra class yesterday. they are mixed grade, mixed ability. it's hard to know where to pitch the lesson at because if i go too low the able kids are bored, and if i go too high the low kids are bored. they are a really mixed group socially as well. Only some of them bring pens to class, so the listening exercise completely flopped as i had to go around getting the borrow pens from each other! then as we got to the end of the lesson and was about to start the game, i noticed one kid crying at his desk... he is a first grade kid who does not have the language to tell me what is wrong. So i asked two third grade students to translate - they said some girls had been picking on him. he would not lift his head from the desk. The girls denied it, and other girls were patting him to check he was okay. I stopped the class and told them they had to be nice to each other, bullying would not be tolerated etc... but the accused girls did not understand me anyway!! I have no idea what had happened. anyway i let them go two minutes to the bell, and took the crying kid to my co-teacher as he wouldn't tell me what happened (largely cos he couldn't explain in English anyway!)...

i guess if you have an open class the kids will have been told to be on their best behaviour... but i found that the listening exercise was hard work for them.

All in all however, it was a great lesson. You have obviously worked hard on it and i think it will work well... my extra class is a bit of a nightmare for me at times, so not the best example of how it could work!

[vitamin-d]

Hey Sambelina,

Thanks for your feedback. They're fair comments. I'm sorry this lesson was so disruptive for you 
These damn extra classes - mine are the same!

I must admit, having not yet attempted the listening exercise I don't know how it will run.
I'm using this lesson for more class than just the open class so you've got me a little worried...

Did you have the students work in pairs or small teams or alone?
I always have them at least work in pairs on exercises like this.
Also, because I know my students do not EVER bring pens, no matter what I do, I keep a box of felt pens and crayons by my desk for them to use.   

As for marking, I would probably let them listen to the exercise twice, then go through it as a class: stop and start the recording after every sentence and just ask volunteers what the correct answer was - again, that way hopefully they won't feel too much pressure on getting it right.

Again, sorry this didn't work so well for you.
It's a shame you didn't even get to play the game, though I hope, at least, your students got to learn something about Guy Fawkes 

[sambelina78]

I had them do the listening exercise on their own - pairs would have been better though, i wish i had done that now.

I like the idea about always keeping spare pens in class. it's a bit of a bug bear of mine as i remember when i was at school my best friend never had any pens and was always borrowing mine!! Clearly, i have never gotten over that!!

i think with extra classes i need to try to pitch the lesson so it is less academic, writing things don't go down well. Something i can work on.

I played the recording twice, and then got the students to shout out the answers as i read through the sheet. normally, when i have done fill in the gaps, i have the words on the screen in PowerPoint and then animate text boxes to fall into the right places after the students have shouted out. Most students are keen to fill in the correct word when they know it, so i guess for some they just don't get it!

I guess if you have a co-teacher in class with you the listening exercise may run more smoothly as there will be two adults to quieten the kids down and make sure they have a writing implement!

I asked the kids some questions at the end of the class to see if they remembered anything about Guy Fawkes and they did know some things....

Today I am attempting Halloween. I will see how that pans out!
Good luck with your lesson - i will be interested to see how it works out.

[sambelina78]

thanks for letting me know how it went. i agree with you about cutting the listening exercise down. I think if i did it again with an extra class (next year maybe) i will not use the listening exercise at all as i guess  extra class can be a bit more relaxed. normally the kids love games such as you have produced so i imagine it did work well. Good luck for Friday's open class!

[dwebsterlfc]

Hey thanks for this. It was an awesome lesson my kids loved it! They are very mixed ability but I put my students in to pairs to do the exercise and they helped each other out.

Also with the bomb game I adapted it a little bit to make it more entertaining. I had 6 teams in each class and therefore made them play kai bai bo with each other to see who got to answer the question. It went down a treat and they were all engaged.

Thanks again

[vitamin-d]

That's a great idea. I may give that a go this afternoon.
Seeing as I've scrapped the 'all teams answer together' idea, rock, paper scissors may work wonders.

* and it did, thanks!

[benyah81]

This is a great lesson. However, it is WAY too long.

The fonts didn't work for me and I edited it all down. (will post later)

I also changed some of the quiz answers as they were confusing. One I remember in particular was that students got a well done for answering November 10th and a congratulations for November 5th which would obviously cause confusion.

However, it is a great idea and one that I have used with great results this last 2 days and will save in my files to use in the future.

I had the teams in 6.. Each team answered at the same time and then results were shown for their possible answers. I ended up with a winner in each class. However, team 1 always got a bad hand 

[vitamin-d]

Yea, I don't disagree about it's length. I often make more than I need and edit as I go along.
Sorry, I should have mentioned to pick and choose a little yourselves.
I find different classes go at different speeds so I make sure I have plenty.

As for the well done and congratulations, I gave a well done for them nearly getting it correct.
Afterwards I would make sure I clicked the correct date to show the students what they could have won.

I would love to see your edit, please do post.
Thanks for the feedback!

[hannahlumurphy]

I'm glad other people are keen to do a Guy Falkes lesson, it's totally overlooked but it's pretty exciting and my students love anything a bit gory!

[Emma]

I decided to do a lesson this week on Guy Fawkes as well.
I started with a powerpoint about what it envolves, why we celebrate it, who Guy Fawks was and so on.
Then there is the fill in the blanks sheet but i gave them a copy of the powerpoint so they could read along with me and then use the powerpoint sheets to help fill in the blanks. for the first years i highlighted the missing words to make it easier but not so much for the second and third years. After i try and get them to read the sheet but they dont seem so keen so i read it and they shout out the missing words.
Then we did the quiz at the end, i have a magnetic dart board which made it more interesting for them as they wanted to throw the darts so they made extra effort to read the notes and answer the questions.
Its been working really well so far and they seem interested in this 'British' celebration.

[vitamin-d]

Thanks for those, Emsy, they're great.
I'm dying for a glass of mulled wine now!

And Hannah, I couldn't agree more about the gore 
I mime being hung, drawn and quartered a few times and they love it...

[nancy]

I will definitely introduce my students to Guy Fawkes Night. Just so I am clear, was he burned on a bonfire or hung drawn and quartered? I am finding different versions of his death.
Also for you Brits, when I traveled to visit friends in the U.K. they took me to see a house somewhere in the Midlands that was related to Guy Fawkes. The house was in the shape of a triangle and everything on it was triangular. I think they called it someones folly. Am I remembering this correctly? Does it have a name?
Thanks for your help - love the lesson plan!

[vitamin-d]

To quote wiki:

On 31 January 1606, Fawkes and three others – Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, and Robert Keyes – were dragged from the Tower on wattled hurdles to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, opposite the building they had attempted to destroy.[52] His fellow plotters were hanged, drawn and quartered. Fawkes was the last to stand on the scaffold. He asked for forgiveness of the King and state, while keeping up his "crosses and idle ceremonies", and aided by the hangman began to climb the ladder to the noose. Although weakened by torture, Fawkes managed to jump from the gallows, breaking his neck in the fall and thus avoiding the agony of the latter part of his execution.[36][53] His lifeless body was nevertheless drawn and quartered,[54] and as was the custom,[55] his body parts were then distributed to "the four corners of the kingdom", to be displayed as a warning to other would-be traitors.[56]

Exciting stuff, eh?

I know that the listening exercise says otherwise.
I guess him being burned on a bonfire is more poetic?

I'm afraid I have no idea about the house you mentioned.
I've searched around for ages and have had little luck, unless you mean the Red Lion Inn in Dunchurch? Let me know if you remember it!

[disco]

just a note - the font link has expired:
http://www.getfreefonts.info/free_font.bluehighwaylinocut.html

thanks vitamin-d

[Epistemology]

I would just like to add something I made for the Poem, a disappearing dialog activity.

I used a modified version of your lesson last year at my old school for an after school class. This year I have no textbook at my new school so I will reuse the lesson again, but with some more modifications giving some background for why Fawkes did what he did, and Catholic and Protestant viewpoints on the Gunpowder plot. I'll post it up next week.

[SUTIIVE]

Hi,

Here's another version that I did last year and will do again next week.  I work in a high level high school and there is more emphasis on presenting and entertainment than any particular learning objective.  From what I can remember, this is how it goes

1. I start by asking them if they know the movie and then to listen and transcribe the questions, then I show them the slide to make sure they got them. 
2. I play the clip (this scene but I use a cut from the movie for better quality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBadSmt2CIY)  a few times, pausing when necessary (it's not easy, especially the last question). 

3. I then explain that this movie is based on a true story about an British hero and that after Halloween, we celebrate him.

4. I run through the poem and explain the vocab they won't understand along with a few other words and briefly explain what he tried to do and why.  I added an extra slide here about "people should not be afraid of their governments" and will get it translated. 

I have a print out of more detail related to the Gunpowder plot.  I use this as a speed reading exercise with the Big Wheel Game  I ask them a question, first team to find the correct answer gets to spin the wheel (I have a massive touch sensitive widescreen in my class to they can actually come up and touch the button to spin it, they love it!).  Teams take turns to spin the wheel for points if they have a right answer. 100/10/45 they can burn their friends points to zero or take the points. 

As a final activity I give each section of the class a line of the full poem to remember.  Before they can leave they have to read the poem turn by turn. 

Job Done. 

 

[Epistemology]

Ok, this is my powerpoint. It is aimed at Middle school students

I simplify the story and just say that he was burned in the fire. The students are too young to fully understand what being hung drawn and quartered means.

Even then, this was rather difficult for everyone but the highest level students