Lesson Plan Title: Sports Before and Today
Skills Covered: reading, writing, listening, speaking

General Goal(s): Students will develop reading, speaking, listening and writing skills through interactive games and tasks, discussing the work of art and sharing opinions. Students will learn about the role of sport in the American culture of the past and present and discuss their own experience and ideas related to the topic.

Specific Objectives: Students will use a range of vocabulary items related to description of painting, different kinds of sports and pastimes. They will use the information from the text to penetrate into the cultural background of the work of art and will write creative stories using the new vocabulary and will watch a video clip prompting a discussion.

Materials/ Visual Aids: Projector, computer (to present the Power Point Presentation assisting the lesson); internet access to watch a Youtube video online, interactive whiteboard to project images on the screen, paper, pens/pencils.

WARM-UP ACTIVITY

Activity # 1 In pairs fill in the table with one name of sport in every box. You will get 5 points for every word. You will only get the points only if no other pair has the same name, so try to be inventive! The pair with the highest score is the winner.

Students need to recollect the names of different sports, give ideas about the categories, and try to think up the answer which is correct and at the same time is not too simple or straightforward, and consequently, not so likely to be used by another team.

PROCEDURE
You will need to use PowerPoint Presentation for the next few activities.

Activity #2
For the next activity divide the students into small groups.

Discuss the following questions. Work in small groups. Then compare your answers.

Activity # 3

Look at Slide #1 of the Power Point Presentation. Here is the title of the painting we are going to discuss in a moment. It is John Biglin in a Single Scull (1873) and this picture depicts a kind of sport very popular in Pennsylvania around 1873. Can you suggest any idea about the kind of sport presented in the picture?

Now look at the painting in Slide #2 and check your idea.
A scull is a small boat for one person that you move through the water by pulling on two long poles with flat ends (Macmillan Dictionary).

Activity # 4: Vocabulary Brush-Up
      
a) Look at Slide #3 for 30 seconds. Do not write anything. After the time is out try to recollect as much water activities as you can and put them down. How many words can you remember?

b) Now look at the pictures representing water activities and find an appropriate word for each picture. Look at Slide #4, think about the word which defines the activity and check your idea using Slide #5. Work though in the same way with Slides 6-15. The activity may be done orally.
swimming
bathing
floating -to rest or move slowly on the surface of a liquid and not sink
sailing
voyaging
diving
surfing
yachting
rowing - the activity of moving a boat through water using oars, either for pleasure or as a                   sport
kayaking – sailing in a small covered canoe (=narrow boat with a point at each end) that you move with a single paddle that has two flat ends
rafting - the activity of traveling on a river in a raft
navigating - choosing a path so that a ship, plane, or car can go in a particular direction, especially by using maps or instruments

c) Which of these water activities have you tried? Which would you like to try one day? Why? Which is the most exciting, dangerous, etc.?
d) In small groups classify the words into 2 or 3 categories. Think up the categories and explain your idea. (e.g. sport vs activity; using ships and vessels vs not using vessels, dangerous vs safe, etc.)

Activity # 5: Discussing the Painting

4. What other small details can you notice in the picture? What is in the background? In the foreground? Study the oars and the way the rower will dip them into the water in the next few second. Imagine the same scene some seconds ago. Where would be John’s scull? Where would it be some seconds after? (The river is full of activity on this bright summer day, with a fleet of sailboats and a crew team visible in the distance, but our attention is focused on Biglin, whose body and scull form an triangle in the center of the picture. Eakins has chosen the critical moment when the oarsman reaches the end of a backward stroke and prepares to dip his oars into the water; his next stroke will take his racing shell ahead of the competition and right out of the picture’s frame.)

Activity #6 a) Now read the text about the painting and check your ideas.

THOMAS EAKINS [1844 –1916]
John Biglin in a Single Scull, c.1873

Competitive rowing on the Schuylkill River, which runs through Philadelphia, had become the city’s leading sport during the second part of the nineteenth century. In England, rowing had long been regarded as the exclusive activity of gentlemen, but in Philadelphia anyone could take part, since rowing clubs made the expensive equipment available to all. Those who chose not to participate could gather on the banks of the river to cheer the oarsmen on, and rowing competitions became some of the most popular sporting events of the century.
Thomas Eakins was an enthusiastic rower himself, but regarded the activity less as a form of recreation than a fertile source of subject matter that combined his dedication to modern life with his interest in anatomy. Eakins had studied human anatomy as part of his artistic training. Fascinated by the mechanics of movement, he was naturally drawn to athletes in action.

At first Eakins painted only acquaintances, but in 1872 the Biglin brothers came to town to compete in a championship race. They were both professional rowers, and John Biglin was a superstar, unmatched as a single sculler (a rower who pulls an oar in each hand) and believed to possess the ideal rower’s physique. Here, Biglin appears in his scull, or racing shell, in the heat of competition, his face fixed in concentration as a second shell streams forward on a parallel course. Eakins has chosen the critical moment when the oarsman reaches the end of a backward stroke and prepares to dip his oars into the water; his next stroke will take his racing shell ahead of the competition and right out of the picture’s frame. The river is full of activity on this bright summer day, with a fleet of sailboats and a crew team visible in the distance, but our attention is focused on Biglin, whose body and scull form an triangle in the center of the picture.
When Eakins painted John Biglin in a Single Scull, he had only recently begun to work in watercolor. Unlike oil paint, watercolor does not allow for error: it can’t be scraped off the surface and painted over if the artist makes a mistake or changes his mind. Many painters enjoy the spontaneity of the watercolor technique, but Eakins worked to ensure that everything came out right on his first attempt. To establish the exact position of the rower, he first made an oil painting that could be corrected, if necessary. And to place the reflections accurately in the water, he made detailed perspective drawings almost twice the size of the final work.

Taken and adapted from:
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/
PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_11A.pdf

b) Now look at Slide #16. In 2 teams match the words from the text with their synonyms or definitions. The winner is the team who does the task quickly and correctly.

Now go to Slide #18 and check the new words.

EXTENSIONS

Homework: Activity #7: Writing (offer the students the choice of the writing task or choose one of the two depending on their level)

b) Write a passage about the painting by Thomas Eakins from the point of view a anatomy teacher, a sports fan, an artist or an historian.  Choose the character you like best. Use the active vocabulary from Activity #6 where possible.

Activity # 8: Listening
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbZxEkxCltE&feature=player_embedded#!
to watch a video about Olympic Rowers in Pennsylvania now on the river depicted by Eakins. Go through the questions to check your comprehension:

List of References