7th Grade students will create a written profile accompanied by visual symbols of their "anti-self" as a getting to know you activity. This is in lieu of the usual "describe yourself" activity to which middle school students are accustomed.
Posts Tagged ‘art’
-Characterization affects how readers perceive characters in the novel.
Concept Development Lesson: Tragedy
by Shannon Wendling
- Subject Area:
- English & Reading
- Social Studies
Plan Type: Full Detail
Big Idea:
What is tragedy? How do we use this term in literature, and how do we use this term in our lives? Today, we will explore the concept of tragedy. Duration: 90 minute block period. Class: Sophomore English class – non-honors, non-AP.
Standards of Learning
10.3 The student will read, comprehend, and critique literary works.
d) Explain similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
e) Identify universal themes prevalent in the literature of different cultures
Lesson Objectives
- Students will know the concept definition of tragedy.
- Students will know the original definition of tragedy, and how that has changed in literature and beyond.
- Students will know examples of tragedies in various human communities, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
- Students will understand that tragedy is a universal experience that shapes the way human communities construct their culture.
- Students will understand that human communities respond to tragedy through the creation of artifacts and cultural representations, and that literature can be a powerful example of this creation.
- Students will be able to identify tragedy as a concept in literature.
- Students will be able to identify tragedy as a concept in the historical and modern world.
- Students will be able to discuss the ways in which tragedy shapes the construction of culture among human communities, through art and literature.
- Students will be able to choose one (or several) tragedies that they would like to learn more about.
Rationale
Teenagers are melodramatic – and I don’t mean this in a judgmental way. Melodrama can produce some of the most inspiring literature and craft that we have come to know. Adults tend to rationalize their emotions and settle into understandings with less drama, but teenagers may still find emotions to be a driving force in their lives. I believe that the study of tragedy in literature will really speak to them.
This lesson is designed to fit in the middle of a unit on Human Tragedy in Literature. This is an emotional topic and must be well-scaffolded; thus, students will spend the first half of the unit moving from an individual conception of pain (with texts like A Separate Peace and Into Thin Air, and student texts on personal injury) to a collective understanding of pain. This concept development lesson will fall at the very beginning of our move to collective understandings of pain. We will define tragedy in this lesson, and we will begin to explore the human tragedies that most engage and interest students. From this lesson, we will undercover the literature of collective pain; we will examine how human communities make meaning from tragedies through the use of art – and specifically language. Students will eventually choose a tragedy that interests them and act as the literary spokesperson for that event (or series of events). Their final project will be their individual writing that explains/explores/laments this tragedy.
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