Lesson Planning: Smart Machines

This lesson was prepared for a 12th grade class at an advanced level, however, I think it can be easily adapted to work for most any grade or level.

For this lesson I used a text from the book (link to the text below) about smart appliances. It was written in a very informal style and used quite a bit of humor. With this sort of tone already set by the class, I didn't want to dull it down with just another boring old question and answer session, so I tried to think of something a little more interactive and exciting for the students to accompany the text.

To begin the lesson, I had the students read the article, "Remote Control" by Dave Barry, aloud as a class. The article is fairly short, so this only took about 7-8 minutes. I prefer reading texts out loud as a class because it is much harder for students to get away with pretending to know a word, or not realize they are mispronouncing/misunderstanding it. I also think it's just good practice in general for pronunciation - especially for students who otherwise don't speak in class too often. I also end any reading exercise by taking vocabulary questions straight away.

The text came with 4 or 5 discussion questions, so I took the first one ("Describe Barry's attitude to appliance manufacturers. Use quotations from the article to illustrate your answer.") and gave the students 5 minutes to work in pairs to answer the question. After they were given time to prepare their answers, I took examples from the class. Altogether, we probably spent about 10 minutes on this part of the lesson.

Through out the text were marked vocabulary words. I chose 5 (not for the number, but because they were the only ones that really worked with the activity) and wrote them on the board. In this case, the words were: at random, to decipher something, to disable something, appliance, and foolproof. I then called on students to define the vocabulary in their own words (this wasn't too difficult as they had the dictionary definition on their handout with the article). After defining the vocab they were given the following assignment:

In groups of 2, create a new smart appliance. Your appliance can be a modification of one that already exists, or something brand new. It doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to have a function. You must draw a picture of your new appliance, give it a name, and write an advertisement for it describing it's function and trying to sell it to the class using at least 3 of the 5 vocabulary words listed on the board.

So for another 15 minutes or so, they split into partners and worked on creating their own machines. During this part I just floated around the groups proof-reading sentences, helping with vocabulary and encouraging creative ideas. After they all finished creating their machines, they came to the front of the class, one at a time, and tried to "sell" their product to the class.

Overall, the students responded really well to the activity and came up with some pretty creative ideas (which I wrote about in an earlier post).