Sarah, Plain and Tall -Teaching Suggestions

[James B Rollins]

How do you think Sarah, Plain and Tall could be used to teach American English (reading, speaking, listening, writing) and culture?

[Meg Han]

Do the role play activity - Let students play the roles of Anna and Caleb and write the letter to Sarah and some students play the Sarah to write back. In this activity, they "write" the letters and "read" other letters. The teacher asks students to speak out the letter as well (including speaking and listening).

Make the comparison list (writing)- Collect the information of culture about Kansas and Maine (reading on Internet) and share their list with other students by oral presentation. (speaking & listening) and also ask students to think what are the differences of culture between the eastern part and western part of Taiwan.

[cindyli]

Surf on the internet -Let students surf on the internet to find where Kansas and Maine are. Ask them find the pictures of the two states and find what the differences between the two places. In the novelette, the writer mentioned many plants and animals that grow in kansas and Maine. Let students work in group to seperate the creatures into 2 categories and discuss what they found. What kinds of creatures appear in the students' places? What are the same or different places between students' living environments and the two states?

[catherine]

Here are my ideas:
;)Listening:
1.Liten to the sound files and read.
2.Listen and count: Count the number of times the author uses a specific word, such as prairie, wagon, Caleb, etc.
;DSpeaking:
1. Role-play the lines of the characters.
:)Reading:
1.Teacher raises some questions to check students¡¦ comprehension.
2.Separate students into groups. Each group is responsible to raise questions and also prepare the answers for a certain chapter. Gather the questions for class discussion.
:PWriting:
1.Teach the format of writing letters.
2.Write to one of the characters to talk about your feelings to him/her.
3.Write a ¡§looking for a spouse¡¨ advertisement for Jacob.
::)Culture:
1.Students get on Internet to search for information about Kansas and Maine. Prepare to talk about how does the information on Internet matches the description in the novelette.
2. Draw pictures of these two places according to the information and what is described in the novelette.

[Sophie Tseng]

Here are my ideas.
1.Teacher reads the story to students (L), and students can act out the story in the form of Readers¡¦ Theatre, which is re-written by the teacher (R, S).
2.Students discuss and share what they¡¦ve got from the story with one another in small groups (L, S).
3.Teacher assigns students to search on the internet for some information about the geographic differences between Maine, Kansas, and Minnesota (R). Then, students will present their information in groups (S).
4.Teacher present the form of writing a letter, and then asks students to write a letter to Sarah according to what questions they would like to ask if they were Caleb and Anna (R, W).

[jasmine]

Culture: Ask students to divide into two groups. One tries to find the features of Kansas, and the other find the features of Maine in the book. After they finish, report what they find to the class to realize the differences between the two places.

Writing: Let students imagine them as Sarah, and ask students to write a letter to Sarah's brother about her life in Kansas. They cam make use of the information they found in the book to write this letter.

Listening: Let students listen to a period of sound files of the letters in chapter 2, and design some questions for students to answer according to what they hear.

[changkaifu]

Teachers can ask students to change the first person voice into the third person singular one in order to make them familiar with the cohesion of subject and verb.
For more advance students, teachers can suggest them to create another story about the new life after Sarah and Papa¡¦s wedding.
Ask students to compare the different characteristics between Sarah and their mother or parents. With more detail observations, students can compose a short paragraph introducing their family members. Also, they may recognize some differences about the roles of mother between American and ethnic Chinese culture.

[sophiechen]

Here are some ideas.

There are 9 chapters in the story, so I will design the teaching materials for nine parts and each part has its task for the studnets to finish. As to different language skills and culture, they will be included in each task.

(1) Culture: Students have to find out the similarities and difference of Kansas and Maine and
then fill in the blanks or make a chart to display.
(2) Listening: Each chapter provides a audio file of its part and then the students have do
the listening comprehension tests to see if they know the main ideas of each
part.
(3) Speaking: Design a task for the students to read after each sentence and score their
performance.(Maybe it¡¦s not easy) And then students record their thoughts
about each chart on computer and email the file to the teacher to get some
comments from the teacher.
(4) Reading: Design different tasks according to different strategies and students learn more
reading strategies by finishing the tasks.
(5) Writing: Design different tasks according to different types of writing and students learn
more writing by finishing the tasks.

[priscilla]

In order to have students understand the content of this fiction, firstly, we can design some activities to help them have an idea of what's going on in it.
1. We can ask students to do a grocery, which the teacher gives them a list of words and students find out the explanation and make a sentence for each word. This helps them build up their vocabulary reservoir and at the mean time, assists in understanding the content.
2. We can make up some True or False questions which are related to the main idea of the story. And answering these comprehension questions guides students to the gist of the story itself. Besides, if the answer is false, we can have students discuss it and provides the correct answer. In this way, students can go to the in-depth story.

In terms of culture, we can invite students to do a group discussion on the questions listed below.
1. Provide a map of America. Ask students to point out the places the story takes place. And make a comparison with these places. What¡¦s the geographical background?

2.„¤What¡¦s your impression of a stranger staying with your family for one-month?

P.S. Students can discuss them in Chinese and share with all of us. Finally, ask students to type their answer and the teacher posts them on the web.

[ruthyang]

Writing and Art
Teachers can show students pictures of the different environments, as described in the book, e.g. the sea, the prairie. Students use a combination of their limited English and drawing skills to illustrate the differences between the environments they live in and the one Caleb or Sarah lives in.

[Huiching kuo]

This book is really useful for students to recognize the difference between west and east culture. There are some teaching suggestion as following.
For listening skill, teachers lead students to read the novelette some chapters. Then, students can listen to the movie and do a test. Students understanding this movie are encouraged. And students with low proficiency can learn some meaning the movie is envying. The movie can be reviewed many times.

For reading skill, teachers instruct students how to read those chapters and know some west culture.

For speaking skill, students prefer Role-play activity, for instance, making new friends. Students can feel free to chose one of characters, such as Papa, Sarah, Anna and Caleb. They can learn how to make new friends in the first meeting. Or, they can introduce themselves by using some pictures.

For writing skill, teachers instruct students how to write a formal letter and envelope. Students with high proficiency can imitate the three letters. The low level students can learn the format of an foreign letter.

[edward]

The novelette, Sarah, Plain and Tall, is practical in English language classroom. Based on the content of the book, I would introduce some concepts on America and also make a comparison and contrast between the States and Taiwan. I don¡¦t really show the difference between Kansas and Maine because that¡¦s far away from students¡¦ real life and I am not sure if they have interest on that part. Some beautiful scene photos will be surprising to students for their curiosity, and my focus will be on things they can observe, like landforms, buildings, and life styles.

When it comes to the basic four language skills, I prefer to make use of the novelette in writing. Because I can teach students vocabulary in context, they can easily learn these words with the background information of the story. Also, letters back and forth between Sarah and The Wittings can motive students to learn how they can write a formal English letter, and maybe they can try to send their letter to a family or a friend they haven¡¦t seen for a long while.