Grade: 10        Unit: Six Traits            How Long: 90 mins
Class: English        Lesson: #6                Date: N/A

I.    Essential Question: How can we develop a strong sense of voice in our writing?

II.    State Core: 2.3a: Evaluate for voice

III.    Technology: 

IV.    Rationale: Voice in writing is what gives it character. Students need to be able to recognize and different types of voice to help make their writing affective and focused toward their audience.

V.    Objective: Students will work in groups for a jigsaw assignment. Each group will study a specific type of voice and then teach the type to another group. Students will show their knowledge of a specific voice by teaching it to the group and take notes on the others to show their knowledge of the others.

VI.    Pre-Requisite Learning: This lesson will be based on the assumption that students have written papers previously.

VII.    Preparation:
    a.    Teacher: Have an article illustrating a different kind of voice for each group
    b.    Student: Have previous unit assignments completed

VIII.    Materials: Articles illustrating types of voice

IX.    Instructional Process
        i.    Cue Set: Self-Start journal “Write about five different conversations you have had within the last 24-hours. You don’t have to write down what you wrote, but write down how you spoke during each conversation.”
            1.    Have students share their responses.
            2.    What was different about each conversation? (Language, speed, jokes, etc.)
    b.    Instructional Process
        i.    The way we speak under different circumstances usually contains a change in voice. Voice is the last of the Six Traits we are going to talk about.
        ii.    How does voice change in speaking? (pitch, speed, intonation, etc.)
       iii.    It is often easy to express changes in voice when you talk, voice can be heard with simple changes like the ones we mentioned, but today we are going to talk about voice in writing.

        iv.    Have you ever written a text, email, letter, etc and had someone interpret it wrong? Have you ever tried to be sarcastic in a written message and they didn’t catch it? Ask for examples. Why didn’t the reader understand? (They couldn’t read your voice)
        v.    Just like we have different purposes, audiences, and genres for writing, we need to adjust our voice to match the purpose, audience, genre and subject matter of our paper
        vi.    What are different types of voice? (technical, informal, formal, satirical, etc)
            1.    If you were writing a letter to the President, how should you write it? Give me an example of what you would say to the him/her?
            2.    If you were writing a story about your childhood, how would you write it? Give me an example.
            3.    If you were writing how to send an email for a company training meeting, how would you write it? Give me an example.
            4.    If you were a comedic talk show host criticizing political policy, how could you write it? Give me an example.
        vii.    It is important to hear voice in writing. Have you ever read the instruction on a piece of electronic equipment? Describe it. That is technical writing. It may be boring, but it is a good way to illustrate instructions. If that was how a novel was written, would you finish it? Probably not. Authors will use more casual or a more individual voice to make a story more personal.
        viii.    Separate the students into groups with an article and each student with a piece of paper.
            a.    Each group will have a different type of voice to read in an article. They will write down on the paper what voice it is and justify it. Then they will write specific examples of why they think that from their text.
            b.    Give one group instructions from a cellphone packaging
            c.    Give one group the Declaration of Independence
            d.    Give one group an excerpt from “A Modest Proposal”
            e.    Give one group an email message
            f.    Etc.
            g.    After several minutes divide the students into new groups that contain members from each of the original groups. Have each person report on the first group work by summarizing the article, telling the type of voice and giving examples of why.
        ix.    Tell students that regardless of how formal or informal or however you write, the voice can still be either “active” or passive.
        x.    Ask if they know which is which active vs passive, make compare and contrast note.
        xi.    Explain that passive words use the “to be” verbs in front of them (is, am, are, was, were, etc). List examples of passive and active verbs. Ask if the students can hear the difference. Tell them that there is a time and a place for both.
            1.    Where would passive verbs be appropriate? (story, narrative, ect.)
            2.    When would active verbs be better? (essays, persuasion, etc)
    c.    Closure: Ask the students to be more aware of the way they talk in different situations and tell them to relate it to their writing. Even though it is not as easy to portray voice in writing, it is very possible.
    d.    Independent Practice: Ask them to come ready to give example of the types of voice they experience to talk about them in the up coming class period.

X.    Evaluation: The group activity will be used as the assessment. I will observe the students during the two different portions of the group work to hear if they are really explaining and understanding the concepts.

XI.    Enrichment: I want the students to remember the importance of being aware of voice and how it changes for different situations so they can adjust their writing accordingly.

XII.    Diversity: This lesson uses compare and contrast to help ELL students look for similarities and differences