Description

What happened to Clementine? Students make generalizations/summations of each verse of ("Oh, My Darling") "Clementine" and infer what kind of person the narrator is.

Materials

-Peanut
-Recording of "Clementine" (instrumental only - To be used for singing "Found a Peanut and Clementine")
-Tape or CD player as appropriate for playback of recording
-Sheet Music for ("Oh, My Darling") "Clementine" (I found the music in the following songbook put together by the Music Educators National Conference "Get America Singing Again! Volume 2, Hal Leonard Corporation, but you may have another resource.)
-Overhead projector, blank transparencies, and pens OR Chalkboard and chalk OR Dry erase board and dry erase markers (choose based on your normal method of presentation in your classroom)
-Copies of "Oh, My Darling" worksheet from attached file (one for each student)
-Pencils or Pens

Procedures

NOTE: Students must already know how to sing the song "Found a Peanut" and have summarized songs/verses of songs before.

1. Play recording of "Clementine" as students enter the classroom.

2.Pretend to search for and then find the peanut.

3.Sing "Found a Peanut" and act out lyrics of song. Have students join in singing.

4.Lead discussion about the song. (eg. What happens in the first verse? What about the second verse? What happens to the narrator of the song? etc.)

5.Write discussion answers on the board in the same format as the chart on the student worksheet.

6.Ask students if they know that the conclusions written on the board or transparency about the verses are factual. (Yes)

7.Ask students what they KNOW about the narrator. (If the students do not start giving answers, some leading questions might be: Do you know how old is the narrator? Do you know if the narrator is a male or a female?)

8.Write all student answers on the board or overhead transparency.

9.Ask students if they know that the conclusions written on the board or transparency about the narrator are factual. (No) Lead into discussion about how they used the words of the song to make their conclusions about the narrator.

10.Explain that making those conclusions about the narrator is called making an inference.

11.Point out definition of inference on board or place definition transparency on overhead. Read definition and lead discussion about inferences that we make daily. (eg. judging or forming an opinion about someone by the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the way they talk, where they go to school, etc.)

12.Pass out Sheet music for "Clementine" and have students sing the entire song.

13.Discuss difficult words to understand (so that the students will not stumble when summarizing on their own).

14.Pass out student activity sheet "Oh, My Darling".

15.Sing first verse again. (or read aloud as a class).

16.Lead discussion of what happened in verse one. Write several student answers (or one combined class answer) on board or transparency and have students copy into the first box on their sheet.

17.(Optional) Sing the whole song again.

18.Have students read remaining verses to themselves and write their own summaries of each verse on their sheet and in the final box what they can infer about the narrator of the song.

19.Circulate around classroom as the students work and provide feedback.

20.(Optional)Have students who finish early, think of other story songs and write the titles on the back of their worksheet or summarize what they remember of those story songs and the narrators of those songs.

Extensions

This could be part of a greater unit on Story Songs. (If this lesson is used as a part of a unit of story songs, this could be a practice opportunity with several repititions using other story songs or it could be the summative assessment at the end of the unit.)