4 Days of Lesson Plans FREE! (Individually Created Characters)

If you are a fan of class-created characters (OWIs) then you will LOVE this project!

I've created a 4 day lesson plan with handouts for students to create their own characters. I will admit that this is not completely input focused, BUT I would argue that giving students chances to show their learning, do some art, and let their imaginations run wild are worthwhile, too! (Especially if you are crawling trying to make it to a school break like me.) This could be done in person or virtually as long as your students have the ability to insert pictures of their characters in the slideshow!

Here's the general idea of the lesson plans. Make sure you check out the full lesson plans with handout links here!

*These plans are flexible enough that you could continue things like free choice reading or calendar talk each day. I have found that working with students (especially when they are writing in L2) takes longer than I always expect and I want us to get it done in class, so there may be some "down time" since you can only help 1 student at a time. Feel free to modify or plan extra things that students could work on if you are worried about it!*

Day One: Students draw their character. It needs to be an everyday object, outlined in black, with lots of colors and a facial expression like these:
 
 

Day Two: Teacher models a description of a sample character in the TL. Students are given sentence starters to help them write their descriptions. Teacher helps students with unknown words or phrasing on sentences in the TL. Here's an example of how I modeled this step on Google Jamboard for my virtual classes:


Day Three: Students insert their pictures of their characters and type their descriptions in the class slideshow (1 slideshow per class, 1 slide per student). They should highlight words in their description that they had to look up or ask you about during the writing of their description. They should provide definitions (like footnotes) of these words in L1 on their slides. *To make your job easier on day four, ask students to submit 1 fact to you in L1 that is included in their description (ex: Freddy works at Planet Fitness. OR James has super powers.)

Day Four: Before class you will make a list of questions in L1 (or L2 I guess? Up to you!) that students will be on the hunt to find answers for based on the statements they gave you yesterday (ex: Who works at Planet Fitness? OR Where does Freddy work? OR What is special about James? OR Who has super powers?) Students will get TONS of L2 input as they go on a "scavenger hunt" for these answers. I was inspired by La Maestra Loca's OWI Scavenger Hunt blog post!

(Optional) Day Five: If you do this with more than 1 class, have the students complete the scavenger hunt from one of the other classes!

Make sure you check out the full lesson plans with handout links here!

BONUS! These sweet slideshows could be added to a digital free choice reading library OR printed and added to your classroom library 😁




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