Lesson Plan for Station

Common Core State Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RS.7.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text
21st Century Skills
Understand both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes.
Evaluate information critically and competently.
Essential Question
What makes a person a hero?
Objectives
By the end of this station work, students will be able to identify distinguishing
characteristics of heroes and villains.
Students will be able to list heroes and villains that they have seen in stories they have
read, heard, and seen.
Students will be able to determine what the reasons are that sometimes heroes have to do
immoral things.
Students will be able to answer whether or not killing is justified at times for heroes.
Students will be able to make connections between the heroes that they have seen in
movies and books to the heroes that they have in their own lives.
Station Activities
Have the students place the pictures of the heroes and villains into the corresponding
circles in the Venn diagram (on chart paper).
o List of Heroes include: Aladdin, Hercules, Wreck-it-Ralph, Buzz Lightyear,
Woody, Mulan, Elsa, Luke Skywalker, Katniss Everdeen, Rey (Star Wars),
Emmet, Wyldstyle, James Bond, Storm, Batman, Superman, Black Widow,
Wonder Woman, Captain America, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Gandalf
o List of Villains include: Medusa, Cheetah, Bellatrix Lestrange, The Joker, Poison
Ivy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (James Bond), President Business, Maleficent, Queen
Grimhilde (Snow White), Lotso the bear, Jafar, King Candy
Ask the students to discuss the following questions:
o What are qualities/characteristics of a hero? (How did they know who was a
villain and who was a hero just by looking at them?)
o What are qualities/characteristics of a villain?
o What are some other examples of heroes in stories that you read, movies that
youve seen, etc.?
o Does our world need villains to have heroes? Bad to have good?
Show the video clip from Batman: Under the Red Hood.
 o ONLY SHOW FIRST HALF (second half is too violent and not age appropriate)
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kscfb9XzPs
Have a discussion about the video. Key points to address are that Batman is actually
breaking the law every time he goes out to fight crime and the Joker has killed hundreds
of people for no real reason other than he enjoys it, and if they havent already found out
by now, tell them the main distinguishing factor of heroes and villains is morality.
Ask the following question:
o Do you agree or disagree with him that killing the Joker is wrong even though the
Joker has killed hundreds of people?

Conclusion

Have the students journal addressing the following questions:

o Who are some heroes in your own life?
o What makes them heroes to you?
o How are they similar to the heroes you mentioned above?
o How are they different?

Assessment

The assessment for during this activity will be primarily be observation and questioning
the students.
Collecting the answers to the questions will also serve as an assessment.

Learning Targets

Determine the subtle distinctions between what makes a person a hero and what makes
them a villain, and understand the connection between the heroes I have seen in movies
to the heroes in my own life.
 Artifact 2 is a DRTA assignment that the students completed while reading
the last portion of the class. The purpose of this activity is to help the students
distinguish if Rikki is a hero in the story based on prior class discussions of what a
hero is and use textual evidence to back up their reasoning. In completing this
assignment, students are able to show their mastery of the content because they
have to understand what makes a person heroic and use details from the text to
support their reasoning which would show that they have a deep understanding of
the story Rikki Tikki Tavi as well. This activity shows my mastery of the content
because I had to guide the students through their reading and draw their attention
to the biggest key details that give insight into whether Rikki was a hero or not.
 I feel that these artifacts demonstrate my growth and development as a
teacher because it shows that I am becoming more familiar with the process of
having to teach the themes of a work, not just understand them for myself. In
understanding the theme of good vs. evil in Rikki Tikki Tavi, I wouldnt need to
reflect on the qualities of a hero and what it means to be heroic. I have been
exposed to these many times and have a deep understanding of what those are.
However, in teaching I have to ensure that all students have a basic understanding
of the themes that are going to be addressed in a story, which is what the first
activity helped me with. The second artifact demonstrates my growth as a teacher
because it forced me to have to go back and pinpoint the most important places in
a story that address a theme so that I could draw the students attention to it while
we were reading, which is something that I havent had to do before.