A Raisin in the Sun

Essential Questions

1. How does literature reflect social beliefs, fears, and issues?
2. What are the benefits and limitations of using plays as a source of historical, social, and cultural information?
3. How do playwrights establish tone and mood through lighting, sound, sets, and placement?
4. How do playwrights emphasize and develop themes through production elements?
5. How do playwrights use complementary and contradictory relationships between dialogue and visual cues to expose and develop themes?

Relevant Viewing Material

Before or During

• Video: Rich Benjamin “My road trip through the whitest towns in America” (TED 2015)
• Transcript
• Questions

After

• Hidden Figures

Pre-reading Material

1. Webquest
2. Research Note Template
3. Research Application Instructions
4. Anticipation guide prompts

Study Guide

Electronic Copy of A Raisin in the Sun

Act I

1. Act I, scene 2 questions
2. Post Act I scene 2 Exercise (about hair)(commonlit)
3. Movement Exercise

Act II

1. Post Act II scene 2 “Mother to Son” (commonlit)

Journal relevant to “Mother to Son” and Act II scene 2:

• Compare the poem's speaker and son to Mama and Walter
  • What advice does the speaker in the poem give her son?
  • How does this compare to Mama's decision to give Walter the check?
  • What does each mother want her son to understand?
  • Does Walter understand the lessons his mother imparts?

2. Post Act II scene 3 “Sympathy” (commonlit)

Journal relevant to “Sympathy” and Act II scene 3:

• Compare the characters Walter and Mama's dreams of a house and a business to the bird in the poem.
• Why does the caged bird sing, if not out of happiness?
• Why does Mama pursue her dream?
• Why does Walter pursue his dream?
• Like the bird in the poem, what is the metaphorical cage that surrounds the Younger family in the play?

3. Stage Direction Exercise

Act III

1. Lighting Exercise
2. Post-reading: Women in the Civil Rights Movement (commonlit)
3. Journal relevant to post-reading text and Act III:
   • The Younger family is sustained by three women: Mama, Ruth, and Beneatha. However great, financial power is put in the hands of Walter, to the detriment of everyone else.
     • Compare the experience of the Younger women to the women in the Civil Rights Movement.
     • How do sexism and racism combine to hurt the Younger women?
     • In what ways do the Younger women rise above these difficulties?

End of Unit Assessment

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