Lesson 13: Connections Across Time and Space

What’s on for today and why?

            In this lesson students will first bring the text close to them through their journal, then they will analyze the significance of a Shakespeare play to Graceland. They will act out the play and through using that knowledge of staging they will write their own film treatments and storyboards.

            Through this method, students will find a way to relate to Graceland and then find how Shakespeare relates to Graceland.  This will make students realize how all texts can be personal and texts can be brought together even though they may seem worlds apart.  This will also get students thinking about the actions and language of the characters through the film treatments they will be writing.

What to do?

1.      Journal:

Mob mentality.  Have you ever chanted along with a crowd?  Why?  What it fun to be a part of a group? What is the excitement of mob mentality and what is the danger?

2.      Julius Caesar:

Groups of 5 will have a few minutes to get together, discuss, and then act out Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 3 (Cinna the Poet) (handout).

3.      A similar scene:

Teacher will read from Graceland page 224-225 and ask why these passages, written nearly 400 years apart and a continent away from each other, so similar?  Open Discussion.

4.      Film Treatments:

In those same groups, students write film treatments for the Graceland scene along with a storyboard.  They must include camera angles, depths, and perspectives.  Each student must have a copy of the treatment because it will be going in their portfolios.

5.      Homework:

Read Chapters 24-26

How’d it go?

            If students got into acting out the scenes and all of them were different, their ways of analysis and interpretation is working.  If students were even more excited and were moving about, trying to figure out and explain the film treatment, the students are visualizing the text and analyzing the language without even realizing it.  It is becoming second nature to them!

            The dramatizations will count toward class participation, while the story boards will go into their portfolios, assessed according to the check list.