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"Teaching people about the world in which we live."

Pennant Lesson Plan
by Lara Steele

This page contains, ready to go, all the background information you need to teach the Pennant lesson, including overheads, handouts, quizzes, and evaluation materials. You will need a printer, pens, pencils, transparencies, and other 'normal' classroom supplies. Please feel free to use the provided materials, share them, reproduce them, but make sure TerraX.org receives credit.

Objectives

• The student will be able explain why it is necessary for an International Code of Signals to exist for boaters.
• The student will be able to use pennants to send or receive messages.
• The student will be able to give an example of communication failure.
• The student will be able to define some boating terms and signal terms.
• The student will create a comic strip using pennants instead of words.

Materials

• If you do not have access to a color printer please use the alternate materials provided here instead of the color material below.
• Pennants worksheet. (1 per student)
• Pennants worksheet color answer key.
• Color overhead of pennants (or make a color printout of this same handout instead 1 for every three students)
• Overhead of worksheet
• Overhead pens
• Vocabulary worksheet (1 per student)
• Vocabulary worksheet answer key
• Story
• chalk and board or clean transparency
• overhead projector
• Color pens or pencils for the students to use
• Poster paper or butcher block paper (1 piece per every 3 students)

Outline

1. Read the lesson on pennants. This will give you a thorough understanding of the material to be taught.
2. Start by stating that you are going to tell a humorous story.
3. Explain to the students that communication is one of the things that enables us to live with and understand other people. Without communication it would be hard to understand each others cultures. Communication can be tricky. One person may not understand what another person means. This can lead to misunderstandings and complications.
4. Tell students that you want them to listen carefully to the story, then tell you what the problem was.
5. After you have finished the story ask the students for their ideas. Ask them the questions at the bottom of the story and get their feed back.
6. Tell the students that today they are going to learn 1) how a ship uses pennants to signal other ships, 2) what they do about the language barrier, and 3) how they can use a symbol to mean more then one thing.
7. Handout the vocabulary worksheet with instructions that it will be gone over in class.
8. See how many of the words the students can correctly match to the definitions, by discussing each term and definition as a class.
9. Collect the vocabulary worksheets.
10. Discuss why it would be necessary to warn a ship. An example might be if the vessel is over a diver, or a mating ground for an endangered species and you do not want them to start their engine. Another reason might be if they are over a fishing line or net.
11. Ask the students what the difficulty would be with spelling out the words. They should say things like: language barrier, and takes too long.
12. Discuss the use of the repeat flags, use examples. Discuss the use of the answering pennant, use an example. Finally, discuss the secondary meanings of the pennants, use an example.
13. Explain that you want them to work in groups of three to work the worksheet.  After they break into groups pass out the worksheets to them.
14. Either pass out one copy of the color printout to each group or put the overhead copy of it up for the class to see.  If you are using the overhead then you may wish to do this as an individual project.
15. Hand out the worksheet and turn on your overhead to show the worksheet. (If you are using the color overhead, instead of the color printout, you may have to switch back and forth for this step.) Go over the first example, with the class, and one of the harder ones if needed. Then let the students work the rest of the worksheet on their own. This should take them about 15 minutes or less. It is always helpful to give the students a time limit.
16. Collect the worksheets to grade later.
17. Tell the students that for the next part they may work in groups of three, but each student will receive the same grade as their partners.
18. Tell them the outline of the project. This should include the following:
    1. Come up with an idea for a comic strip; some suggestions: environment, stuck ship, sinking ship, political, or humorous language barrier problem.
    2. On a scrap sheet of paper outline your drawings.
    3. On a scrap sheet of paper write words; then write their translations with pennants.
    4. After you are ready, neatly transfer those drawings from the scrap paper onto your large sheet.
    5. Write the translation of the pennants below the comic strip.
    6. Put your names on the back of the sheet.
    7. Remember neatness counts. Do your best work.
    8. This project can vary in length, but the least time that should be allowed is 30 minutes and the most is 60 minutes. Remember that the project will fill the time allotted.
19. Collect their work for grading.
    

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