Lesson 9: What is Honor?

What’s on for today and why?

            In this lesson students will study a Shakespearian speech and analyze it, discovering the meaning.  Students will be brought into the lesson by a dramatic reading by the teacher and then talk about what it means.  Further, they will write their own speeches and perform them.

            Through the writing of monologues, the students will critically examine what honor is in the novel and how that particular character would talk about it.  They would have to use all the sources in a manipulated way to make them meet their needs. This will get students to learn how to use sources to benefit their claims, doing specific character analysis and close readings.  The dramatic reading is meant for the class to see the differences in views from the characters and the different interpretations of the students. It will expand their own concepts, and help with listening and speaking skills.

             

What to do?

1.      Surprise! It’s Shakespeare!

Immediately after the bell rings, the teacher will go into a dramatic and loud reading of Falstaff’s speech in Henry IV, Part I (5.1.127-140).  Ask the students what it sounds like, where it came from.  If they don’t identify it as Shakespeare help them out, then tell them what play it is from and a little bit of the context.  After, hand out copies of the speech so the students can see it and then analyze it together as a class.  Ask questions about what specific words or phrases mean sentence by sentence until they get the whole idea and one person can articulate what Falstaff’s point is.  As the students if they agree and ask them what they think honor is.  Write what Falstaff’s view of honor is as well as the students on the board or on an overhead.  Once they figure out a working idea about honor, move on to relating it into Graceland.

2.      Group Work:

In pairs students will write a monologue taking on the persona of one of the characters in Graceland. They will use the information about what honor is in Graceland and what they discovered about honor through Falstaff’s speech and integrate these sources into the speech in some way.

3.      Performance:

One student from each group will perform this speech.

4.      Homework:

Read Chapters 15&16

How’d it go?

            If students identified Shakespeare, they are used to him being an integral part of the classroom.  If they make the connects between Graceland and Falstaff’s speech, they are able to see how Shakespeare is relatable to many texts.  If the students write speeches that incorporate their interpretations of what honor is and what it means in the text, while also being creative and taking on that character’s opinion and persona, they have done a close reading of a character and expressed this close reading in a creative way.  Students will put a printed out version of their speech in their portfolios, which will be assessed according to the checklist.  These speeches will be graded on the interpretations of the characters and opinions of the characters, showing how well of a close reading they had done.