In this lesson, students will begin by reviewing the play so far and then meet again in groups to read act 4. They’ll do a close reading of Prospero’s lines and take on the perspectives of different characters to comment on his meaning. For homework, students will continue planning their essays.

In this lesson, students will write about and discuss this question: Who is enslaved in The Tempest? They’ll read, annotate, write about, and discuss act 5. Then students will take on the persona of one of the characters and explain their actions.

Who in Shakespeare’s play is guilty of violating human rights as we understand them today? In this lesson, students will continue reading, annotating, and discussing act 2 in small groups. They’ll also focus on Gonzalo’s ideas of an Eden-like civilization.

In this lesson, students will begin with a discussion about their reading of the play so far. In small groups, they’ll speculate about where Shakespeare got some of his ideas. They’ll write about Prospero’s justification for causing the life-threatening storm.

How does Prospero plan to avenge the wrongs done to him? In this lesson, students will discuss responses to the reading. In groups, they will continue to read, annotate, and discuss the play. At the end of the period, students will quiz themselves on vocabulary from the play.

In this lesson, students will discuss human rights. They’ll begin asking who in The Tempest is civilized. Students will research what life was like in Shakespeare’s time. Then they’ll read and annotate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Where did Shakespeare get his ideas? In this lesson, students will read and annotate source materials written by Montaigne and others. They’ll discuss the question of what the materials say about native peoples of the Americas. They’ll also compare the ideas of Gonzalo and Montaigne.

The laws that govern and the social norms that regulate society are not always fair, legal, moral, or ethical. What is a person to do about all this injustice? What are the hazards of righting injustices or changing social norms? And what are the dangers of doing nothing?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and annotate Antigone, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Pygmalion.
Students write a literary analysis showing the effect of social class or the law on a character’s life.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How do social class and legal institutions shape literary characters’ lives (and presumably our lives)?
How does social class affect a person in dealing with the law (protect a person, hurt a person)?
How is social class determined in America and in other places in the world?

BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read

During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.

In this lesson, students will submit their Character Analysis Essay. They will also discuss the unit’s Guiding Questions, review their writing portfolios, and reflect on the unit.

In this lesson, you will administer a Benchmark Assessment (Cold Write) to determine what students already know about argument writing. Students will respond to a prompt, and then you will assess each student’s argument, using the scoring guide, as a measure of early work. Students will have opportunities to write arguments throughout the year, during which they will have instruction on how to revise and edit their pieces. The information you gain from scoring this benchmark piece of writing will guide you in tailoring your writing instruction to individual student needs.

This lesson has students work in cooperative groups to understand and analyze Shakespearean sonnets. The final product is a scrapbook containing analyses of the sonnets by the different group members.

This introductory lesson gives students some of the background information they'll need to be successful in a unit based on William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night. Students write mini-scripts about love, then go through an early speech from the play to acclimate themselves to Shakespeare's language.

Explore the philosophical contributions that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made to the movement for American independence. The lesson introduces students to some of the important precursor documents, such as Franklin's Albany Plan of 1754 and Jefferson's Draft of the Virginia Constitution, that led to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Julius Caesar" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Henry V" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

This lesson in poetic sound offers students the opportunity to "experiment" with the sounds of sonnets. Students read sonnets from a variety of authors, compleing a series of tasks that make them focus on different audible aspects of the poetry.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "The Merchant of Venice" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

In this lesson, students learn about Shakespeare's famous comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream by acting the play out, based on a heavily edited script. Students work in groups to perfect a scene from the play, which may be recorded and put together to complete the performance.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Much Ado About Nothing" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.