Monday, April 25, 2011

Plans for April 26 to April 29

Tuesday or Wednesday (A/B)

  • Do Now: Open your textbooks to 1007 and take out your notebooks and a pencil.  Read the quote on page 1007 from Doris Lessing and respond to the following in your notebook:
o   Explain the quote in your own words.  What do the quote and the title of this unit suggest about attitudes during this time period? 
  • Read and Discuss: We will read and discuss the quote and student responses to the quote as a class. 
  • With Partners: Students will partner up and read “Historical Background” on pages 1012 and 1013.  They will be required to have at least 8 bullet points of important information in their notebooks (15 minutes). 
  • Formal Note-taking: After discussing what students read in the “Historical Background,” students will take formal notes on literary modernism and the modern period. 
  • PowerPoint Presentation and Discuss: We will then discuss concurrent movements in the visual arts, ballet, and music. 
o   Visual Arts Focus: Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism
o   Music: non-melodic forms
o   Ballet: Comparison of Swan Lake (1895) to The Rite of Spring (1913) and the resulting riot
  • Small Groups: Students will break into groups of no more than four.  Each group will receive a copy of a painting or sculpture from the modern period.  They will have 15 minutes to discuss the painting as a group and be prepared to answer the following questions in front of the class:
  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/3594045416/in/photostream/
o   What story is the painting telling?
o   How do the composition, line quality, and color contribute to the painting’s meaning?
o   What does the title of the painting contribute to its meaning?
o   How does this painting reflect Modernism?
  • Painting Presentations: Students will present their analyses in front of the class.
  • Read: Introduction to W.B. Yeats (p. 1022)
  • Listen and Discuss: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL8vEW-JTZE&feature=related
  • Closing Type II Quick Write: Yeats writes this poem about escaping from civilization and living a Thoreau-like lifestyle at Lake Innisfree.  Based on what you have learned about the modern period, why do you think he is expressing these sentiments in this poem?  What is he responding to in his society?

Thursday or Friday (A/B)

  • Do Now: Take out your notebooks and be prepared to take down the next set of Quack! words.
  • Listen and Discuss: “The Second Coming” W.B. Yeats (p. 1029)
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEunVObSnVM (SpokenVerse reading)
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdptneKPJ9s (Cyril Cusak reading)
  • Full Class: As a class, we will critically analyze W.B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” with particular attention to Yeats’s belief in the cyclical nature of history.  We will also discuss the sense of hopelessness and loss many felt after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. 
  • Read: Introduction to T.S. Eliot (p. 1038)
  • Type I Quick Write: Students will respond to the following quote in their notebooks (5 minutes):
o   “It is better, in a paradoxical way to do evil, than to do nothing: at least we exist …. The worst that can be said of most of our malefactors [wrongdoers], from statesmen to thieves, is that they are not man enough to be damned” – T.S. Eliot
  • Discuss: We will discuss student responses to Eliot’s quote.
  • Read and Discuss: Critical Commentary on “The Hollow Men” (p. 1044-1046)
  • PowerPoint Presentation: Students will then view a PowerPoint presentation with passages from Eliot’s essay “The Tradition and the Individual Talent.”  We will discuss this perspective on the past and get students’ opinions on its validity and application to their lives.
  • Listen and Discuss: “The Hollow Men”
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwcP3NOCeiE&feature=related (Spoken Verse Reading)
  • Small Groups: Students will form five groups.  Each group will be assigned a part of “The Hollow Men” for close-reading analysis.  They will TP-CASTT their section of the poem and be prepared to share their analyses with the class (15 minutes).
  • Closing Activity: Small group work presentations.
Posted by at

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Plans for April 11 to April 15

Monday (B)

  • Quiz: Act 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Recap: What have we read thus far in The Importance of Being Earnest?  Students will provide a short summary of Act 2 before we continue performing the play.
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest Act 3 (Gwendolen and Cecily as allies, Lady Bracknell’s arrival, pause before Dr. Chasuble returns – pg. 91-101)
  • Note-taking: What is the difference between farce, lampoon, and a “comedy of manners”?  We will discuss what each of these terms mean, how they can be applied to modern films and television, and how they apply to The Importance of Being Earnest.
  • Closing Activity: Review Quack! Volume 8, Part 2 by viewing the words a second time. 
  • Homework: Quack! Quiz next class.  Be sure to study your words!

Tuesday or Wednesday (A/B)

  • Quiz: Quack! Quiz 8.2
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3 (pg. 101-end).
  • Small Groups: Students will form groups of no more than four and come up with three examples of how The Importance of Being Earnest can fit into the categories of “farce,” “lampoon,” and “comedy of manners.”  They will be required to refer to specific scenes to support their responses and be prepared to share with the class.  We will briefly examine literary critic Richard Foster’s analysis (see below) as a class before students break into their groups. 
o   http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/ibetopics.html
  • Type II Quick Write: Students will then return to their seats and respond to the following prompt:
o   Into which category do you believe The Importance of Earnest most clearly fits?  Use at least one specific example from the play to support your response.
  • Watch and Compare: The Importance of Being Earnest (Miramax, 2002) Act 3
o   Act 3 – Approx. 30 min.
o   Begin part way through DVD Ch. 10 (1:05:00)
  • Closing Activity: For the last few minutes of class, we will discuss the “Act 4” project for next class.  Students will be asked to begin thinking about what they may want to write next block and with whom they would like to work.

Thursday or Friday (A/B)

  • Act 4 of The Importance of Being Earnest: With partners, students will create a fourth act for the play.  They will be required select any time in the characters’ futures.  They will have to establish the setting through stage directions and include dialogue between the characters.  Other guidelines for the project include:
o   One use of chiasmus or wordplay in the scene
o   Mimic Wildean dialogue and wit
o   Due at the end of the block
·         HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK!
Posted by at

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Plans for April 4 to April 8

Monday or Tuesday (A/B)

  • Recap: What have we read thus far in The Importance of Being Earnest?  Students will provide a short summary of Act 1 before we continue performing the play.
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest Act 2 (pg. 56-67)
  • Small Groups: Students will get into groups of no more than four and respond to the following prompt in their notebooks.  Select one of the following lines from Algernon that are supposedly his “words of wisdom.”  What exactly is he saying here?  Respond to what he is saying (agree, disagree or qualify) and support your position with at least one specific example from life, literature, or film. (10 minutes)
o   “Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the slightest instinct about when to die.”
o   “All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That’s his.”
o   “The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else, if she is plain.”
o   “It is awfully hard work doing nothing.  However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.”
  • Discuss: Small group work
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest Act 2 (pg. 67-77)
  • Answer: What is wordplay? (Oscar Wilde is even mentioned in the dictionary entry!)
o   http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wordplay
  • Closing Activity: Discuss “Who’s on First” skit and why wordplay is effective.

Wednesday or Thursday (A/B)

  • Watch and Take Notes: More Quack! Vol. 8, Part 2
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest Act 2 (pg. 77-90)
  • Note-taking: What is chiasmus?  Students will take some brief notes on chiasmus in their notebooks.  We will explore a few different examples from various authors, philosophers, and scholars throughout time. 
o   http://www.drmardy.com/chiasmus/definition/definition1.shtml
  • The Chiasmus Quiz Show!
  • Watch and Compare: The Importance of Being Earnest (Miramax, 2002) Act 2
o   Act 2 – Approx. 35 min.
o   End part way through DVD Ch. 10 (1:05:00)
  • Closing Activity: As a class, we will discuss the changes that the director decided to make to scenery, lines, and the order of particular scenes and the students’ opinions about the changes.
  • Homework: Review Act 2 and our discussions of both wordplay and chiasmus.  You will have a quiz next class.  A link to the full text and an audio version are available at the top right-hand corner of the blog.

Friday (A)

  • Quiz: Act 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Recap: What have we read thus far in The Importance of Being Earnest?  Students will provide a short summary of Act 2 before we continue performing the play.
  • Perform and Discuss: The Importance of Being Earnest Act 3 (pg. 91-101)
  • Note-taking: What is the difference between farce, lampoon, and a “comedy of manners”?  We will discuss what each of these terms mean, how they can be applied to modern films and television, and how they apply to The Importance of Being Earnest.
  • Small Groups: Students will form groups of no more than four and come up with three examples of how The Importance of Being Earnest can fit into the categories of “farce,” “lampoon,” and “comedy of manners.”  They will be required to refer to specific scenes to support their responses and be prepared to share with the class.  We will briefly examine literary critic Richard Foster’s analysis (see below) as a class before students break into their groups. 
o   http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/ibetopics.html
  • Discuss: We will discuss the small-group work on examples of farce, comedy of manners, and lampoon in The Importance of Being Earnest.
  • Closing Activity: Review Quack! Volume 8, Part 2 by viewing the words a second time. 
  • Homework: Quack! Quiz next class.  Be sure to study your words!
Posted by at
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)