IDEA@theBass 4th Grade Language Arts Lesson Plans

Writing Grabbers

Inspired by the Egyptian inner sarcophagus, 802-596 BCE, painted wood, Bass Museum of Art

Tina Arenas, Curriculum Designer

Writing: Grabbers/ Lead sentences (LA.4.3.2.3 Creating interesting leads through the use of quotations, questions, or descriptions)Time: 30-45 min. (to be done after IDEA lesson on symbols)Objective: Students will be able to view and share written essays of their Egyptian symbols story and then brainstorm ideas for great grabbers or lead sentences within their essay. Materials: postcard, poster or disc with image, writing journal, pencil, and previously written story.

History: Egyptian, inner sarcophagus, 802-596 BCE, painted wood, 69x 17x 19i nches.This coffin depicts Osiris, king of the dead and various forms of the sun god as the sun moves across the sky. There are four distinct registers on the front of the coffin. The Abydos shows a pole topped by a case that encloses the head of Osiris. The second is a perching, legless falcon on the hieroglyphic gold-sign which represents the ferryman of the afterlife named Nemty. The third register is Re-Harakhty as a falcon with a sun disc on his head, outspread wings, and protective shen-signs (symbols of eternity) in each talon. The fourth register has a ram headed falcon with sun disc and shen-signs in its talons. The false beard of Osiris is missing but a square hole shows where it was once inserted in the chin. The carved face is painted red, another association to the sun, and suggests that the deceased is a male. Protective jackals are painted on the sides of the foot of the coffin.

Directions:

1. Show students visual of inner sarcophagus again. Have students reread silently their story they wrote about their symbols container. 2. Tell students that we are not rewriting our essays but creating better beginnings in order to grab our readers’ attention. There are several types of grabbers/leads that we can use: We will focus on four types today: dialogue, a shocking statement, a humorous statement, and onomatopoeia.3. Write or display definitions of each for students.

Dialogue- Conversation between two people in written form has quotation marks around it so the reader will know that people are talking.

A humorous statement- says something funny to the readerA shocking statement- says something unbelievable or out of the

ordinary.Onomatopoeia- Is a word that describes a sound.

Vocabulary: grabbers/leads- beginnings of story, coffins/ sarcophagus- container to be buried in after death, jackals-wild dog, deceased-dead

4. Have students take turns reading their papers to each other. 5. Then have students work in pairs to determine if they used a grabber/lead. If not, have them create one.6. Have students share their grabbers with each other.7. Ask students to share with the entire class voluntarily.8. Ask listening students to determine which of the four grabbers the student sharing has used. 9. Praise their positives! Display finished edited essays with their symbols container.

Other writing activities: Editing- Have students switch stories and create a second grabber for the paper. Students can write their suggestions onto an index card. You can switch several times and then the student gets the paper back with all the suggestions and can determine if there is a better grabber to use.

Give students a shopping list of previously taught lessons for them to shop with while editing. They will switch papers and shop for editing errors and add them up for a grand total. For example: If you have taught capitalization, proper nouns, punctuation. They can shop for those specific items. It is best when editing for students to edit a self-created written work rather than a photocopied exercise from a book.

Art connection: Have students write their name in symbols that they create by using things that represent them. Ex.: the “O” in someone’s name can be a soccer ball if they like soccer…Art lesson can follow IDEA concepts: Identify, Discuss, Envision, and Assess.

NEED: SYMBOLS - Students need to create symbols that express who they are or identify things that they use.

CHALLENGE: Create a picture or a container filled with symbols that will ltell a story.

The following slides illustrate the lesson plan that should be done with the students before you do the grabbers lesson

1 . IDENTIFY: Allow time for students to take a hard look at the

poster and all its details.

Your goal is to get every student to describe something. Suggested questions:

Tell me what you see on different parts of this box. What parts of a body do you see?

Is this a man or a woman?

What do you think the pictures and symbols mean? What kinds of animals are there on the box?

2. DISCUSS: Suggested questions:

Let’s brainstorm and think about the different symbols that we see every day in our homes or at school.

Symbols can help us find stuff or tell us what is good for us. What would happen if there were no stop signs or red lights?

Let’s make a list of the symbols that we can find on money, food containers, and on our clothes.

What messages can we create using symbols?

Would you want other people to understand your symbols, or would you want it to be a secret code that only you could understand?

3 ENVISON:Create a picture or a container filled with symbols that will tell a story.•Review discussion lists with the class before the children begin. •Create teams of 1 to 5 children. •Hand out pencils and blank paper, or found materials, such as cardboard or plastic bottles, tape, glue, crayons, etc.•Ask students to invent a story or a message. •Ask students to make a list of words or symbols that go with the key elements of the story or message. •Students may divide the work of drawing or constructing symbols and attaching them to their prototype. Or: Suggest that the children cut out both parts of the Egyptian sarcophagus poster, tape them together, and draw their own symbol-filled figure on the back of it.

4 ASSESS:

Ask students: Present your project to the class and explain what your symbols mean. Explain how you came up with the idea for each symbol. Student prototypes are not to be judged as final or finished works. By presenting their projects as an experiment, students are given a chance to co-develop the idea and get interested in it. Do not allow others to kill the idea – if the ideas do not meet the challenge, ask other students why and ask for suggestions on how to improve it. You can assess teams or individual students using the following criteria:

•Students listened to and accepted ideas of others•Students effectively illustrated their ideas •Students were able to explain their concepts•Students showed creativity

The delicately carved face is painted red. There is a scarab on the top of the head.

Khepra, the scarab, or dung beetle. On the desert the scarab can often be seen pushing a ball of dung, a food supplement, in case she gets hungry. The ancient Egyptians noticed that the beetle was born from a similar ball and assumed that they were one and the same. In the egg ball, which we now know, is always kept in the dung beetle's nest, the eggs eventually hatch and eat their way out of the ball.In Egyptian lore the ball represents the sun, and the beetle the motive force that moves the sun across the sky. The obvious coupling of the dung ball and rebirth also aids the religious symbolism by linking the sun to resurrection.