Lesson Report:
**Title**: Exploring Marco Polo’s Cities and Personal City Descriptions
**Synopsis**: In this session, students engaged in activities inspired by Marco Polo’s descriptive approach to detailing cities. The class worked on drawing comparisons between Marco Polo’s fantastical city descriptions and personal experiences within real cities, focusing on invoking visual and emotional elements. The session transitioned towards reading comprehension strategies and group collaboration to understand difficult texts, culminating in a group exercise on effective annotation systems.
**Attendance**: No specific absences were mentioned in the transcript.
**Topics Covered**:
1. **Introduction to City Descriptions**:
– Recap of previous class activities where students described cities mentioned by Marco Polo.
– Instructions to creatively interpret a city they’ve visited, focusing on memorable sensory details.
2. **Sharing and Discussion**:
– Reading and discussing previously written city descriptions.
– Emphasis on capturing emotional connections and time boundaries within city descriptions.
– Individual presentations on Marco Polo-inspired themes, such as reality vs. fantasy and personal vs. structural perspectives of cities.
3. **City Description Activity**:
– Students wrote several sensory details about a city they have visited.
– Notebooks were exchanged with peers, who then wrote a paragraph in the style of Marco Polo about the described city.
4. **Reading Comprehension and Annotation**:
– Discussion on the challenges of reading “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino, focusing on unfamiliar vocabulary.
– Students wrote down strategies they employ when reading difficult texts.
5. **Group Annotation Activity**:
– Students formed groups to create a visual system for annotating difficult texts.
– The aim was to develop a coherent annotation strategy that could aid in understanding and communicating text meaning efficiently.
**Actionable Items:**
– **City Description Segment**:
– Complete the session with a poetry reading on city descriptions in upcoming classes if time allows.
– **Annotation System Completion**:
– Finalize the group annotation system and possibly review in the next session.
– **Kyrgyz Language Placement Test**:
– Inform relevant students about the Kyrgyz Placement Test on the 19th.
– Check and disseminate specific interview times and locations via the telegram group.
– **Clarification and Support**:
– Remind students to consult room 310 for any inquiries regarding the language placement test requirements.
These items focus on follow-up actions from classroom interactions, and clarification on administrative requirements to ensure students are well-informed and prepared.
Homework Instructions:
NO HOMEWORK. The lesson concluded with an in-class activity focused on group work and discussing annotation strategies, but no specific homework was assigned for outside of class work.