A class of 32 average ability, Secondary 2 Express students. Mainly visual learners.
Environment -
Classroom equipped with computer for teacher, projector and sound system.
Duration of lesson -
70 minutes
Pre-requisites -
Students have been taught what Tone refers to, and have been given a list of vocabulary to help them with identifying and describing the tone.
Lesson objective(s) -
Students will be able to identify at least two to three various tones that the characters adopt and substantiate it with textual evidences.
Lesson-
5 minutes
Teacher briefs the class on today’s activities and recap what they have learnt during the previous lesson and how they will be applying the knowledge to today’s lesson.
Teacher sets up the computer and projector. Teacher loads the three videos from Youtube that she will be showing to the class later.
10 minutes
Teacher will ask the class to form groups of 4 and provide each group with a handout.
Handout -
Abstract from “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde
Gwendolen
Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement? You are presumptuous. On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.
Cecily
Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How are you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen (Satirically)
I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Teacher will proceed to give instructions -
Each group will annotate the abstract from the play, paying close attention to the tone of the characters based on the content of their conversation. Pay attention to adjectives that will help with tone identification, for example “presumptuous” and/or “glad”. Students must be able to justify the tone that they have identified with textual evidence. Each group will then choose 2 persons to play Gwendolen and Cecily.
15 minutes
Each group will send their representatives in front of the class to act out the short abstract paying extra attention to the expression of the tone(s) that they have identified for the characters.
15 minutes
Teacher will facilitate a short discussion after all the groups have presented their interpretation of the text and tone adopted by the characters with these questions -
1) Can the class identify the tones that the other actors (besides their group) have adopted?
2) For those groups that have adopted a different tone as the others, justify your choice with close reference to the text.
3) How does the tone of the actors contribute to the audience’s reading of the play and characters?
4) Which group’s interpretation of the characters’ tones is most convincing, and why?
17 minutes
Screening of three short clips based on Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest”
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyIm353dsaw (Time: 0:00-3:04)
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xk_GBtzMc (Time: 0:00-2:16)
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBbAiD1zHTo (Time: 0:00-2:15)
Teacher engages class in a discussion -
1) How different is the interpretation of the tone in the videos as compared to your interpretation?
- Which video is the closest to your reading of the tone in the abstract?
- Which video is most convincing, and why?
2) Do you think that the director or the actor did a good job?
- Did the tone help you understand the characters?
- Did the tone help you understand the issue(s)?
- Did the tone help you better understand the conflict?
- Were you convinced by the actors? Why and why not?
8 minutes
Teacher will wrap up the lesson on “Tone”, illustrating it as a very important component of communication. Teacher will further explain how changes in tones will lead to very different interpretations of the same text as shown by the videos and the class activity. Teacher will proceed to tell students what they can expect for the next lesson as he/she follows up on the topic of “Tone” and how students can understand and apply that knowledge and skill both in Literature and their daily lives.
Lesson Rationale -
Oscar Wilde is known for his witty satires and his humour is not one that everyone knows how to appreciate or enjoy. The best way to be introduced to Wilde is definitely through his plays that are highly engaging and terribly witty. Dealing with Secondary 2 students who are of average ability, we can assume that Literature may not be their best subject and most of the time, they have issues with the English language itself.
In order to engage them, it is important to draw relevance between Literature and the real world context. Students must understand that at the end of the day, they are a “social individual” and there is a need for them to be able to communicate effectively in society. In order to communicate effectively, students must be able to manage their tone and also read the tone of others and not solely take every word literally. The reading of one’s tone of delivery adds another dimension to communication and this understanding is not something that is homogeneous in every society. Tone varies across cultures, races and languages, and thus, it takes more than knowledge but also skills to fathom what the other party is trying to convey and also for one to mind their own tone to prevent potential miscommunication.
Since education should be a “process of living” as Dewey mentioned, the teacher must draw that relation to how students can utilize this skill set in real life and how it is an important skill that they should acquire in school. Therefore, in my lesson plan, I propose that students learn by doing and see the various ways that the same piece of abstract can be interpreted. The same piece of abstract can be interpreted in many ways within the same society by the students and that same piece can be interpreted in many other ways by people from different societies as shown in the video. The activity and video screening will effectively illustrate the point of tone delivery and communication to the students.
Dewey tells us that “Literature is the reflex expression and interpretation of social experiences” and the teacher will point out to the students that from the way that they interpreted the text, it shows the social experiences that they have had and how these experiences subconsciously worked their way into the understanding of a text. The point is, these experiences not only contribute to the understanding of Literature but also of the real people that they will encounter and communicate with in their every day lives. Students will be able to consciously use these skills and apply it to their everyday lives. They will learn that the skills that they have acquired in Literature class is not ephemeral and only subjected to examinations, but that for as long as they are social individuals, “language is the device for communication” and Literature teaches students to understand and apply the many dimensions of the English Language.
i like this. the activities you design are short and meaningful, i guess it should be able to hold the students' attention for the entire duration of your lesson.
ReplyDeletethe first activity engages students' prior knowledge of the text and tests their skill of recalling the facts as well as the skill of interpretation. This activity also serves as a primer to the next activity where they have to watch the 3 videos. This second activity will almost definitely allow the students notice the different interpretation of tone by the actors. The subsequent classroom discussion led by the teacher furthers their learning by asking them good guiding questions that make them think about the suitability of the tone used in the different videos.
yay
Ginny - good idea and topic for a lesson! Is this more lesson on language (namely, sociolinguistics) or Literature?
ReplyDeleteI think you meant "extract," not "abstract."
Also, i think you need to clarify what you mean by TONE. "Tone" as it applies to literary analysis is distinct from "tone" in oral communication. The latter refers to qualities such as intonation, pitch, timbre, and even volume. How are these prosodic features of spoken language related to the prosodic nature of poetry/prose in print?
This relates to a larger issue which requires a more complex analysis than your lesson plan might allow: the problem of Standard English. You're right that effective oral communication depends on social and cultural factors (including such factors as gender, ethnicity, and class). But are you offering a "prescriptive" approach to oral communication? After all, don't our exams insist on certain "correct" ways of speaking (pronunciation, enunciation, etc.)?
Do you think that a Singlish "tone" might undermine the wit and poetry of Wilde's writing for the English stage?
Consider, then, the questions you pose your students (e.g. "Did the tone help you better understand the conflict?"). You imply rightly that their cultural and linguistic backgrounds would affect their interpretations of what is going on in the play (or, in this case, the extract/excerpt). So what is your ultimate learning objective here? Are your Singaporean students supposed to discover that literary appreciation is itself a subjective, culturally contextual activity? And that they should not be reading Oscar Wilde because the cultural references and communicative conventions in his plays are culturally distant and irrelevant to Singaporeans?