PRE-ASSESSMENT: DECODING READING
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... demonstrate your ability to write an argument paragraph.
Let's Get Started! Please open a copy of The Writer's Presence to page 27. Read "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me," by Sherman Alexie.
Please click through to the directions on this Google Doc.
Homework: None--- but here's an Optional/ Extra Credit opportunity: Complete the Response Protocol while you read U.S. Will Pay $554 Million to Navajo Nation
LESSON ONE: ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... apply setting as metaphor.
Let's Get Started! Please make a copy of this Genres Brainstorming Template. Let's clarify our understanding of the roles of different genres.
Next, complete True or False? Morality and Cultural Expectations. Please be deliberative: write a reason why you choose each position after it.
Pre-viewing New Orleans Graphic Organizer... then Post-Viewing
Writing Prompt: Why is New Orleans a good setting as metaphor for a play that deals with conflicts in human relationships?
Homework: None
LESSON TWO: IMAGINING AND PREDICTING
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... create a skit with particular characters and conflicts that predicts the context of our upcoming play, A Streetcar Named Desire
Let's Get Started! Check Aspen--- Complete Lesson One writing prompt and share.
Please click through this document: Designing a Skit and Script for Anticipating A Streetcar Named Desire, including Acting Company Rubric #1
Sign out the text, using the Book Sign-Out Binder.
Homework: None (but you could start reading the play in order to get ahead with upcoming nightly assignments...)
LESSON THREE: VISUALIZATION
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... draw the stage set of A Streetcar Named Desire
Let's Get Started! Survey the textDraw the stage
Read portion of Scene One together in class
Homework: Read remainder of Scene One
LESSON FOUR: CHARACTER SKETCHES THROUGH BODY BIOGRAPHIES
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... identify character traits of at least one character in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Let's Get Started! Surprise!
View Scene One on film.
Your Acting Company will be assigned one character: Blanche, Stanley, or Stella. Character sketches in small groups: Body Biographies.
Quietly review scene one, then complete as much as you can of the template (print).
Afterward, you'll join your Acting Company to create a poster-sized biography of your assigned character.
Homework: Write down the 5W’s and 1H summary of scene one.
LESSON FIVE: INTRODUCTION TO WRITING A CLAIM
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... develop a logical argument ("claim") about a real world scenario.
PART ONE. FINISHING OUR BODY BIOGRAPHIES AND TAKING CHARACTERIZATION NOTES (20 minutes)
Let's Get Started! Please pull your Body Biography poster down from the wall. Make any your pencil writing dark with markers.
Then Compare to this document and add in more details to your poster.
Next, go around the room and look at all the various posters. Take note about each character --- Stella, Blanche, and Stanley ---
on a Characterization Graphic Organizer (there is a print version on the counter under the windows--- it has pictures from the film on it).
PART TWO. WRITING A ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY OF SCENE ONE (10 minutes)
Take out your homework: "Write down the 5W’s and 1H summary of scene one." Talk about what you wrote with your Acting Company.
Then--- independently and quietly--- write one sentence that summarizes Scene One of A Streetcar Named Desire.
PART THREE. TRYING TO WRITE A CLAIM PARAGRAPH (30 minutes)
Learn about creating "Claims" by practicing your own first (follow the directions on the document).
Be prepared to share your completed responses
at the beginning of our next class.
Next, read an article about them. Write five bullets of the most important information that you discover as you read.
Homework: Make sure you have completed all of today's classwork: you'll get a participation grade. Also, read Scene Two of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Please note: There is a PDF with the entire play available for you if you ever forget your book. It is available as an attachment at the bottom of this page.
LESSON SIX: CONFLICTS AND COMPLICATIONS
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... hypothesize how conflicts between Blanche and Stanley may lead to complications, just like in real life
Let's Get Started! Please take out all the classwork you completed for Lesson Five. You'll get a participation grade.
Surprise! (not really)
Let's do some more voice control activities by clicking through to Scene Two: Tossing Lines for Practicing Inflection
"Conflicts in Scene Two" graphic organizer: complete it with as much textual evidence as you can...
direct excerpts and inferences, too...
Homework: Read Scene Three.
LESSON SEVEN: THE SCENE THREE POKER PARTY AND ACTING COMPANY PERFORMANCES
Note: This is a two-day lesson plan.
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... compare common activities to symbolic representations
Day 1.
Let's Get Started! Surprise! (not really)
We'll begin with some writing: A Personal Prompt and then The Poker Party prompt about symbolism
Acting Companies will convene next. You'll be assigned a select scene and plan a performance against a Rubric.
Homework: Prepare your part for your Acting Company role.
Day 2.
Acting Companies perform.
What are the most important themes that have emerged
so far in A Streetcar Named Desire?
View Scenes Two and Three on film
Homework: Read Scene Four.
LESSON EIGHT: WHAT IS DESIRE?
Note: This is a two-day lesson plan.
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... investigate the various ways that individuals in real life feel desire.
Desire in A Streetcar Named Desire Project
The Project in Overview
You will work with 2 other students to create a series of Google slides within one presentation
that identifies and analyses the different kinds of desire that emerges in A Streetcar Named Desire. These will be
the same kinds of desire that many people experience in real life.
First Steps: Getting Started
1) Work quietly and individually to complete the following Desire template (20 minutes).
2) Create a new page on your personal Google website titled, "Desire in A Streetcar Named Desire" (5 minutes).
3) Together, with your two partners, collaborate on a series of Google Presentation slides.
4) Review the Rubric to make sure you know what's expected of you.
Second Steps: The Google Presentation
a) Create and share a new Google Presentation. Share it "Public on the Web," please!
b) Design the Cover Slide together: title of project, image, pseudonyms of each partner in your group
c) Each person in the group creates her/ his own slides (at least two each).
Each slide should have the following components:
i) an image that represents the type of desire;
ii) your own definition of what this type of desire is; for example, Why does each person in the world feel this kind of desire?
iii) a direct excerpt from A Streetcar Named Desire that is an example of this type of desire with its significance;
iv) your pseudonym.
4) Insert the Google Presentation onto your personal Google website page.
5) Write a 2-sentence introduction to the Google Presentation above it so your reader/ viewer will know what it's all about.
Homework: Work on your own slides for the Desire in A Streetcar Named Desire project.
Make sure that they meet the criteria outlined in the Rubric.
LESSON NINE: REVIEW/ PREVIEW OF A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to... review the characters and conflicts in A Streetcar Named Desire
by creating a contemporary adaptation
LESSON TEN: SCENE FIVE COMPLICATIONS
By the end of class, you will be able to.... demonstrate comprehension of significant narrative complications that
emerge in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Part 1.
Let's Get Started! Keeping up with the Kowalskis performances--- one Acting Company evaluates another!
Scene Five reading check, then view film version, with any time remaining
Homework: None, for Part 1.
Part 2.
Homework: Read Scene Six.
LESSON ELEVEN: WHAT HAPPENED TO BLANCHE BEFORE THE PLAY STARTED?
By the end of class, you will be able to.... write a paragraph that defends an argument about people's
attempts to reinvent themselves in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Let's Get Started! Scene Six reading check: What happened to Blanche before the play began? Complete it, print it in Room 242 and put it on your personal Google website on a new page called, "What happened to Blanche before the Play Began?"
After you finish the reading check...
Read each of the following Scene Six direct excerpts:
"You know as well as I do that a single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions or she'll be lost!" pg. 198
"You're a natural gentleman, one of the very few that are left in the world. I don't want you to think that I am severe and old maid
schoolteacherish or anything like that....I guess it's just that I have - old-fashioned ideals!" pg. 201
"You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be - you and me, Blanche?" pg. 204
Choose one of the direct excerpts above; you'll be writing about it in the next part of class.
Click through to this document: "Student Writing Assignment Guide." The instructions for the remainder of class, honestly, are on this doc.
Homework: Finish the Student Writing Assignment Guide, if you did not do so today in class. Extra Credit: Read Scenes 7-11 for homework.
LESSON TWELVE: THE GRAND FINALE AND FINAL PROJECT
By the end of class, you will be able to.... read another scene in A Streetcar Named Desire and compare the same scene in a film
viewing.
Let's Get Started! Please open up your completed Student Writing Assignment Guide, which we wrote in yesterday's
class (and which you were assigned to finish for homework). We'll share them in pairs then as a whole class.
Quick check-in for the end of the play. (optional) Check and edit your responses to "Quick Check-In at the End of the Play" against
Dr. Carolyn's masters and fill in additional ideas in another color.
Part 1. Film Viewing---- End of Play
View the end of the play on film. Writing Prompt: Use textual evidence to describe your reaction to the end of the play.
Part 2. Stations for Comprehension and Argument Writing
You may move through the first three stations in any order. You should, however, be checked off by Dr. Carolyn after you complete each station.
The Ethicist: Real Life Dilemmas Read through these real life ethical dilemmas. Choose one. Read it thoroughly.
Then write a response to one question, using the Argument Rubric from FHS English Department. Highlight the claim, evidence, rebuttal, and conclusion---- each in a different color.
Read the The Ethicist Actual Answers to the question you chose. Add in additional ideas you have now on your original work in a different color font.
Part 3. Final Project for A Streetcar Named Desire
Goal: You are now an Artistic Director of a theater group. You are designing all artistic components of one page of the play for staging.
You must create your final project on your personal Google website. You will present your work to the class and will direct randomly-selected students in a performance of the page you have chosen.
Pick a page we haven't dramatized together in class (Scenes 6-11 only --- no two students can choose the same page in the same class). Register your page with Dr. Carolyn. Again, each page of the Final Project must be signed off by Dr. Carolyn. She'll enter them in the grade book as she signs you off.
Create a page on your personal Google website titled, "Final Project for A Streetcar Named Desire." Write a splash invitation (at least two well-worded sentences) that invite your viewers to look at the different pages that represent each of the elements of the project below. Next, create a new page for each of the parts of the project:
Annotations for Character and Conflict (sub-page 1)
Stage Directions (sub-page 2)
One Paragraph Argument (sub-page 3)
Design the Set (sub-page 4)
Process for Each Page of the Final Project
1) Annotate it for characterization and conflicts, incorporating at least three quotations from the resources provided. Here is a list of Close Reading Strategies that can help you annotate your passage. (Hint: When we annotate, we make lots of notes in the margins and about particular words and phrases. Slowing down our reading like this really helps us to understand a passage much better.)
Here are some Sample Annotations about Characterization that might help you to decide how to create your own annotations.
Here are some some "theater review" resources for you to use:
Compare Streetcar to Death of a Salesman: A Prezi
Motifs of light and dark in A Streetcar Named Desire
"Gillian Anderson Gives Stellar Performance"... (revolving rectangle stage)
"A Fragile Flower Rooted to the Earth" (Cate Blanchett as Blanche)
"Hey, Stella! You Want to Banter?" (primarily African-American cast)
Is Blanche mad or suffering from PTSD?
2) Create and write your own original director's stage directions. Think of new directions to stage the page of the play that are innovative, creative, and contemporary. Your stage directions might indicate where the scene takes place, what a character is supposed to do or wear, how a character should deliver a certain line, actor placements and movements, sounds, music, and other elements that demonstrate a new and unique staging of the play. Let's brainstorm some Sample Stage Directions together. Here are some resources that might help you to think of your own innovative, creative, and contemporary stage directions:
Stage Directions Meet Functional Expectations
How Does Tennessee Williams Create a Functional Environment... through Staging and Music?
3) Write a one-paragraph argument, using the form of the FHS Argument Rubric, to answer the question, "What is Tennessee Williams trying to tell us about our own lives?" Use scholarly and textual evidence in your response. (Hint: This paragraph is set up just like the "Ethicist" writing we did in the stations. Please refer to these Theory Resources and incorporate answers to them as part of your one-paragraph argument response.)
4) Design the set. Use Google Drawing or any other format that works for you to create a picture of what the stage looks like, both inside the apartment and outside the apartment. Also, be sure to include specific lighting and props. Be ready to explain how some of these elements work by both literally and symbolically to create meanings. Here are some resources to give you ideas:
Let's Talk about Sets (British theater version)
Should schools teach about social inequality through economics?
Tennessee Williams television interview
Here are some Focus Group Procedures that we'll engage in prior to the Final Project due date to help you make your project the best!
POST-PROJECT LESSON PLAN: A STREETCAR NAMED MARGE!
By the end of class, you will be able to... compare and evaluate a contemporary adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, called "A Streetcar Named Marge."
Let's Get Started!
Please read the definition of "allusion" on the image to the right. Then write down an allusion of your own. Share with people around you.
Preview of The Simpsons as a genre
Preview of The Great Escape.
Preview of The Birds, a film by Alfred Hitchcock.
View and analyze The Simpsons episode called, "A Streetcar Named Marge." Go to MediaCast...
After viewing, compare it to the original Tennessee Williams text, The Birds, and The Great Escape.