Shoshanna Shaoul Week Two: Lesson Plan One February 6th Standards: Reading Standard for Literature Grades

11-12: 2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text. 5. Analyze how an authors choices concerning how to structure specific parts of the text (e.g. the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic ending) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. Procedure: I. Show scene in Crash producer, Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard) is on his show and is told by Fred (Tony Danza) that the actor is not talking black enough. a. Have short discussion after watching the scene. 1. If this scene was discussed in the previous week go back to their comments and reflect on what they said: How does looking at this scene a second time change or highlight your initial reactions of this scene? Why do you think I isolated this scene to show you? Think about our project- how do you think this relates to problems in our own school and community? Is there anything we could do to combat this problem? 2. If scene was not discussed in the previous weeks: What are your initial reactions? Did this scene stick out to you when we first watched the film, or did it not seem very important? Think about our project- how do you think this relates to problems in our own school and community? Is there anything we can do to combat this problem? 3. How does speech, language, and the way we speak effect how we are perceived by others? a. Its not only how we speak, but also how we write that should be included in this conversation. Do you change the way you speak around certain people and in certain situations? When you text a friend, do you use different language than you would in an academic paper? Why do we change the way we speak depending on our setting? How powerful are words and the way we speak? 4. Lets step outside the film and our own life and look at some literature that discusses the power of words. Today, were going to examine a poem. a. Pass out copies of Listen Mr Oxford Don by John Agard (worksheet attached) b. Read poem aloud, also show youtube video of Agard performing the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywy-Tthdg7w c. First, contextualize the poem. Discuss biography of John Agard and how he was a subject of British colonialism. This poem responds to the forcing of the colonizers language (British English) onto colonized countries. He

d. e.

f. g.

h.

is asserting a sense of agency and resistance by using the language that was forced upon him (poem is written in English) and fighting against the repression that occurred throughout colonialism. How does the poem work with language? What is the main message of the poem? How is Agard performing this message? How does Agard present language as a weapon? 1. Look specifically at stanza 3 and 4. A. How is the poem comparing words with weapons? What is the point of making that comparison? B. How does he work and mess with the conventions of grammer, spelling, syntax (how sentences are put together)? 1. Does changing around the typical English conventions of writing make him sound less intelligent? Who is Mr. Oxford Don? Who is the narrator talking to? Lets go back and think about the movie: 1. How does society today and the entertainment industry (TV, movies, music) perpetuate various racial, gender, and various other stereotypes. Besides this scene, what other scenes in Crash display and bring up stereotypes? a. Ask for examples, write them on the board 1. Example from film: After we watched the film, you dont remember the names of the characters, when referencing characters or scenes we tend to go straight to their race or the color of their skin as the easiest way to identify them. That itself is a problem, so even though the film calls upon a lot of stereotypes, there are some issues that fly under the radar. b. Can you think of any examples of how people are asserting a sense of agency and resistance to these stereotypes? 2. Can you think of any recent examples of how peoples language effects their reputation and how we look at them? a. Example: Sarah Palin and George Bush: both of them are scrutinized for messing up English and in turn, it affected their reputation. Think about your project: 1. Get into your groups and continue to brainstorm ideas for the project. Log into Prezi and start brainstorming your ideas, looking up research, finding examples and build your presentation 2. As we work over the next few weeks, we are going to be structuring every class similar to todays lesson. We will be looking at a particular scene of the movie, discussing it, and then looking at a piece of literature that goes along with the scene from the film. These themes that we discuss are meant to bring up the carious conflicts that occur as a result of cultural clashes. Your presentations should respond to and call upon multiple issues regarding different races, cultures, and peoples. As you brainstorm, keep in mind the

discussions and assignments we have in class, although we may not be discussing our school and community in particular, you should see similarities between what we discuss and what we experience outside of the classroom. Get to work! Assessment: Reading Standard for Literature Grades 11-12: 2. In singling out the scene from the film Crash, the theme of language and the power of language was introduced and discussed for the duration of the period. Because we will be looking at multiple texts throughout the unit, the theme of language was discussed in various avenues: film, poetry, the entertainment industry, politics, and modern society as a whole. By making these various connections, the students were able to build a complex account of the theme and use various texts as evidence for the theme. 5. In examining the poem Mr. Oxford Don the students examined the structure of the poem and how that structure relayed the main meaning of the poem as a whole. We examined the use of grammar, syntax, and spelling within the poem and how Agards choices affected the meaning of the poem. In looking at the video of Agard performing the poem, the aesthetic impact of his choices are displayed.