I want students to come away with a sense of how important the American jury system is to our country. I also want them to see how prejudice shapes peoples' lives and what an impact it can have on not only the individual, but the people around him or her. Students need to really understand the prejudice, ingorance, stereotypes, classism, racism and any other ism are unintelligent, and potentially very destructive. In addition, students will come to understand characterization, I want students to be able to tell something about a character from one line he or she says. It is important for students to understand that what someone says is a reflection of who they are and that as important as what you say is how you say it. This will, hopefully, lead to better communication skills. Finally, as compare/contrast essays are common in college I want students to master this form. We will do a lot of comparing and contrasting of characters through out the play which will eventually lead to an essay c/c two characters and perhaps c/c the movie and the play.
NS 4: through discussion of act 1 and their journal NS 9: through our discussion of the defendant NS 11: through our discusion of the journal and act 1
Students will write a comparing and contrasting essay (c/c) on two characters that are very different. Students will write a c/c between the movie version and the play. (Maybe) Students will be given an object exam consisting of multiple choice, matching, true/false, and vocabulary.
Journal Writing--some questions to consider: Is there such a thing as truth? If so how do we know what truth is? How do we search for truth? For you, are there any absolute truths? Anything that you firmly believe in? How do we know what we see, hear, and experience is true what we see hear or experience? (15-20 min) Discussion of journals. Give them the bullseye example to illustrate that what we might see may not actually be what we really see? (7-10 min) Pair-Think-Share--students will get together in pairs and discuss what is the purpose of a murder trial. Some questions: who is involved in a trial? Is it possible to send the wrong person to jail? If so, what would lead to the former? (5 min) Discuss the results (5-7 min) Go over good reading habits--the most important thing is to ask questions, make predictions, and try to recognize what the author is trying to do. (5 min) Literary terms: introduce the ideas of round and flat charact ers and static and dynamic characters. Ask them to give exam ples for the short stories they have read. Read Act I of the play--ask for volunteers for the parts and if none assing roles to students. Through out the play stop and ask questions of the text to demonstrate good reading habits. Let students know that this will most likely be happening in their head. Announcement--if time permits tell students about the charact er sketch/short story outline that we will be doing. Tell them they should pay attention to a particular character of their choice, as they will be developing one of the characters. Round Robin Activity if time permits. Planning Ahead: Have students read Act II for the next class period. Hand out a study guide to fill out. Evaluation: Level of discussion and class participation. Did we go over under or over the scheduled time. Do a quick thumbs up, down or middle in regards to how the period went.
We will be using word processing with journal writing activity. In addition, we may watch part of the movie after we read the the first act. It depends on how you want to do this. The other option is just watching the entire movie at the end.