Home | Crosswords | Word Searches | Flash Cards | Verbs | Songs | Creative Writing | Work Sheets | Phonics | ABCs Potion Book | Spell Book | ESL for Adults | Ask Thomas | Lesson Plans | Young Learners | Jobs |
The Lesson Plan Archive
For more lesson plans visit the archive.
The Ask Thomas Archive
More questions and answers in the ATarchive.
Teaching the Crocodile's View:
Mimicking of Style to Overcome Grammatical Difficulties.
Creative writing is a much neglected tool for teaching ESL/EFL students. Colleagues often complain that their students are not imaginative enough or not advanced enough to do any serious writing.
While it's true that kids often do not have the grammar necessary for doing serious writing, it is absolutely not true that they lack the imagination. Mimicking the style of others is one way to overcome the grammatical shortcomings of child writers. When given a structure to work with, the students don't have to worry about forming correct sentences. Instead they can concentrate on the more colorful aspects of writing.
Lesson Preparation:
This lesson was originally taught to some advanced middle school grade one students. As well as being a good creative writing project, it also teaches environmental awareness. The results were astonishing.
Copy the creative writing sheet Beware of Humans. Prepare explanations for the more difficult words such as crafty, beckon, guile, treacherous, and reptilian. Beckon can be taught with gestures but you may need a dictionary for some of the others. And you will definitely need dictionaries for the creative writing segment.
Start a short general discussion about crocodiles: Where do crocodiles live? In the river, in Africa, In the swamp . . . What do they eat? Are they dangerous?
Read the poem, explain the difficult parts, and check their understanding. Reading the poem while guesturing a smiling, beckoning crocodile is effective.
Option1: In groups have the students memorize a line each and then recite the poem as a group.
Now start a discussion on the relation between humans and crocodiles. Ask who endangers who? Make a list of the ways that humans harm crocodiles. Answers may include: hunting, turning them into wallets (as one student wrote), taking away their land, taking away their fish, polluting their environment,and making too much noise.
Now make the students rewrite Jack Prelutsky's poem from the crocodile's perspective. There is a natural opening for their poem:
Beware the ________ human.
All of the students picked up on this. And this is why mimicking is effective. They don't have to labor over how to begin, or writing grammatically correct sentences.
After finishing this project, students can share their works with the class.
Finally, as a class project or as individual work/homework, make a list of rules for dealing with humans. Another option is to leave the whole creative writing project as a homework assignment. This has also worked well.
This Lesson Plan was prepared by Chris Gunn who teaches English at Inchon University in South Korea
The Crocodile*
by Jack Prelutsky
Beware the crafty crocodile
who beckons you with clever smile
to join him in the river Nile
and swim with him a little while.
His smile is not a friendly smile,
it springs from his dishonest guile
and treacherous reptilian style.
Beware the crafty crocodile.
Student Works (unedited)
The Human
by Crocodile's Elder Donghyun
Beware the sly human
who beckons you with tasty food
to join him outside of the river
and walk with him a little while.
His food is not a true heart food
it springs from his nasty trick
and aweful ape's style
Beware the sly human.
The People who Eats Crocodiles
by Joon-won
Beware the people who has fork and knife
He tempts you with the freshest food
and waits until you eat it
After all, he stings you with a sharp spear
His food is not a good food,
it makes you wound or die
Beware the cruel people.
The Crocodile's View
by Chang Hee
Beware the horrible human.
who beckons you with terrible smile
to join him in the hunting ships
and play with him a little while.
His smile isn't a kind smile
His face is a cannibal's view
and many people will kill us
If you want to live, thenyou are going to run away.
Beware the crafty human.
Rules For Dealing With Humans
Crocodile's Textbook
by Crocodile's Professor
Donghyun
(1) Don't go near humans unless starved for months.
(2) But you can eat them up in peace of mind if they don't have any weapons.
(3) You have to be careful with their weapon: especially the sticks which can fire the small metal things. (People call it 'gun')
(4) The best way to eat people who have their 'gun' is to attack them very swift so they can't use the weapon.
*The Crocodile was originally published in Zoo Doings
by Jack Prelutsky, Greenwillow Books, 1983