English 4U Unit Plan-Hamlet/Slaughterhouse Five
Introduction
This unit plan is designed for students in the ENG4U class whereby the content and context of material has been chunked for effective comprehension of universal themes. This unit plan incorporates both Hamlet (play by Shakespeare) and Slaughterhouse Five (novel by Kurt Vonnegut). The objective of the unit plan is to address specific topics (see Appendices) extracted from the Grade 12 English course in the Ontario curriculum. The topic focuses on overall expectations:
· The course emphasizes the consolidation of the literacy, communication and creative thinking skills necessary for success in an academic and daily life. Students will analyze a range of challenging literacy texts from various periods, countries and cultures; interpret and evaluate informational and graphic texts; and create oral, written and media texts in a variety of form.
Goals of the Unit
The goal is for students to share thoughts and reflections relating to the protagonist, conflict and opportunities to analyze meanings based on their personal perspective and as discussed in literary circles with peers. Students will be expected to reflect on how they would address current social issues, such as coping with grief, trauma (post war syndrome), failure and bullying. The unit incorporates a variety of media literacy to bridge the textual gap using film, audio, blogs and Twitter. Also the classroom will be set up as a literary community of sharing through think/pair/share, character committees and actors/directors in plays. These methods encourage and engage learners to become aware of various perspectives and creative discovery of ideas. The unit will integrate visuals with the use of movies and pictures to engage and motivate students with combined text and graphics for stimulation. Students will be given choice for projects such as role play or written assignments. Students will be able to collaborate to exchange ideas and methods to gain a broader perspective.
The teacher will provide less emphasis/guidance on interpretation to allow students the freedom to express creatively role playing and being actively involved in interpretation of the texts. Students will be given opportunities to explore critical ideas and develop language skills of Shakespeare by engaging in role playing for major characters (Hamlet, Ophelia, King Hamlet ghost, Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes and Polonius).
The pedagogical method for the in-class reading activities will incorporate round robin reading and think/aloud. The round robin strategy allows the students to experience the reading of the play from their peers rather than the teacher reading it to them. For each scene read in class, a think/aloud strategy will be employed whereby the teacher will stop the readers when it is deemed appropriate to draw the students’ attention to compelling ideas, themes, major plot events or character developments. The classroom environment will be structured as “safe and collaborative” to convey flexibility and openness. Students will also be able to call out for further clarification on tone, use of language and vocabulary used to gain a deeper understanding of the plot and characters.
It is important to create a learning environment of
student choice, giving them several alternatives in assignments and
participation. Students control the environment as it transitions from
teacher-centered to student-centered. Options also include incorporating
into lesson plans multi-literacy conventions such as Blogs, twitter,
video/film, media and role playing.
If you want to learn more or have access to various lessons within the full unit plan calendar for both Hamlet and Slaughterhouse Five, please follow me (especially for updates) and click the Contact Me page to Email me for more information.
