Lesson plans

Following the meeting at Brooks building and my reflection about it, I decided my next step in The Language of Clay project was to create a lesson plan as suggested by Elle in one of her emails. The plan was designed for the upcoming workshop on the 21st of February.

This, however, proved to be more complicated than I originally imagined since I'm not very familiarised with the process of writing lesson plans. The only experience I've had was pitching lesson plans for TEFL classes, which is something different and this is evident in the structures of the blank lesson plans. For instance, a plan for a TEFL lesson includes the lesson stage, type of teacher/student interaction, teacher/student activity and excludes resources.

I also found myself struggling to comprehend the difference between "documentation" and "resources", and "aims" and "objectives" as seen on top of the document. Therefore, any information written there might be inaccurate.

I opted then, to start a possible lesson using the TEFL model and dedicating 10 minutes to a "warmer". This allows the students to become familiar with each other, relax and get in the mood to immerse themselves in the lesson's main topic. The warmer I had in mind for this lesson is: "What is your experience with clay?" The participants would speak about their past experiences with clay if they've had any, or simply share their impressions and expectations about the material. I believe this is a great way facilitate language and communication, which is one of The Language of Clay's objectives and something we should always try to focus on.

The next activity would be coil building and slabs methods. This is taken from Charlie's workshop and I decided to include it in this and in future lessons because it's a great way to learn the basics about working with clay; something that many people might not know. I believe that, through this activity, the workshop's participants would end the lesson feeling like they have learned something new and significant.

The following activity would be "make a dish out of play", one of the many ideas proposed in the meeting at Brooks building. Since one of the previous conferences involved creating an activity with food, this idea could be very useful to engage participants. However, I also wanted it to be connected to a specific topic and, for this reason, I opted to related to cultural identity. Participants would be encouraged to create a dish that is special for them and is related to their culture. Later, they would speak about their creations.

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The second plan lesson I made was aimed at a younger audience. Despite the fact that some of the activities remain the same as in the first plan, others were changed to be more playful.

For instance, the warmer in this plan is "guess what it is". Participants are encouraged to feel the texture of a material while blindfolded and try to guess what it is. This was something discussed in the meeting at Brooks, where many materials and curious objects can be found.

Another difference is the main activity, which in this case, is to make an imaginary animal or mythical creature. This idea was proposed by Rebecca and I found it very interesting and ideal to encourage participants to explore their creativity. Ideally, we would introduce the topic of imaginary animals/mythical creatures with a short presentation talking about some popular examples and showing them pictures.

Both plans can be still updated to incorporate other ideas developed during the meeting at Brooks building.