To Teach a Writing Lesson by Using Monet's Paintings

In my opinion, in a language class, we should not only teach students language itself. Specifically speaking,for example,I would like to integrate art education to general language classes. This attempt has been proven to be engaging to students. Here is a lesson plan of one Chinese lesson, in which I attempted to use Monet's paintings to teach Chinese writing.

Level: Advanced Chinese Writing Lesson for Ninth Graders
Time: 43 minutes

Previous classes: In previous four classes, students learned how to describe scenery, especially scenery of each season in writings.

Objectives:  To review scenery vocabularies and ways of describing scenery that students have learned and to finish a daft writing about sceneries of four seasons.

Technology resources that are used:

 http://www.monet2010.com/fr#/voyage/

Procedures:

1.Do now: What is the most beautiful season in your opinion? Answer the question and briefly explain the reason in Chinese sentences. (5minutes)

2.Open the website http://www.monet2010.com/fr#/voyage/ and show students how   Monet described sceneries of four seasons by using his pain brush. Since students were sitting in three tables, I ask each table to contribute at least one sentence to describe each painting of Monet. I copy every sentence they contribute on the board and we revise each sentence together. (23minutes)

3. Students who sit in the same table form a group and finish a draft writing to describe the paintings they just saw. (15 minutes) (Since this is a class on Friday, students will discuss with their partners on weekend to work out a final writing to be handed in next Monday.)

Vocabularies and grammar that will be reviewed in the Procedure Two:

1. The structure of “verb +了 (le)”
2. The present tense
3. Spring: 万物复苏(Life begins again); 暖洋洋(warm); 春暖花开(spring flowers are blossoming);
4. Summer:炙热(scorching);
5. Fall: 收获(harvest); 金秋(the golden fall); 秋高气爽(refreshing autumn weather)
6. Winter: 寒风(cold wind)；白雪皑皑(thick snow everywhere)