ALP for "The Crucible" Act 1

ALP: The Crucible Act 1

Objective: 

• Students will be able to identify at least five important adjectives from their character and list the on

            the poster board.

• Students will be able to paraphrase one important quote about the character and one important

            quote said by the character.

 CCSS:

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.3: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and

            explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.

Activity: (1 hour)

Step 1:  

Do Now: Journal Prompt (5 mins)

•  How important is one’s reputation?  What can you tell about a person based on his/her reputation?  Write about your reputation in school, at home, and in your community. 

• Students will take 5 minutes to think about this question and answer it in their journals.

• Teachers will encourage students to share.  There will be a brief discussion based on the

                        journal prompt responses.

Step 2: 

Introduction: Essential Question ( 3 mins)

• Is personal integrity more important than survival?

• Brief class discussion based on this question.

Step 3: 

Activity Part 1: Character Poster Board (15 mins)

• Teacher will explain the activity.

• Students will be divided into groups of 3.

• Groups will be given a major character from the play’s act 1.

• Groups will then draw a picture on a poster board of the character based on the

                        description of the play.  

• In the same poster board groups will write down 

• Adjectives which relate to this character.

• Concept/theme related to the character. 

• What is said about this character from another character's perspective.

• Important quote your character says.

Step 4: 

Activity Part 2: Gallery Walk (10 mins)

• Teacher will then tape the posters throughout the room.

• Students will walk around looking at all the posters.

• Teacher will explain to the students to choose a character and fill out the worksheet. 

• Teacher will pass out a worksheet to each student with the questions

• Which character did you choose?

• Is this character a positive character in the story? Negative? Both? Why? Use

                        evidence from the text!

• Make a prediction: Based on your response above will this character evolve by the end of

                        the story? Why or why?

Step 5: 

Class Discussion: (15 mins)

• There will be a class discussion based on the characters in act 1 using  the PNBW or UDBW

            worksheet.

• This class discussion and activity will prepare the students to read the rest of the play. 

Step 6: 

Assessment: Exit Ticket (10 mins)

• Students will choose one of the bullets below and write a brief answer. Students will also state if

            the relationship between these two characters is positive, negative, both, and why?

• What are the sources of antagonism between:

• Parris and the others

• Proctor and Putnam

• Proctor and Parris

• Elizabeth and Abigail

Step 7:

Collect all worksheets: (2 mins)

Rationale:

With this lesson my goal is to introduce the up,down,both,why methods to my students.  In this case I

have used positive, negative, both,why instead, but the idea is still the same.  I begin my lesson by having

a quick write about reputation and what you can tell about a person based on their reputation.  This

question is relevant because reputation is a huge part of the play The Crucible and so this question will

get them thinking about actions and consequences. 

Following I am doing a group activity with the students where they will analyze a character assigned to them by the teacher.  The students will draw a picture based on the description of the play.  This will allow for the students to put a face to the name.  In addition the groups will have a worksheet where they will analyze the character by finding evidence from the text. In this activity the students are practicing their social skills and at the same time they are practicing another discipline (art) as well as ELA by completing the worksheet.

Next the students will do a gallery walk where they will look at the posters of their classmates and read the character information written.  The students will then have to make a prediction whether  the characters are positive, negative, both, and why.  By doing this the students are having to read closely to the text, determine if the descriptive words are positive or negative, base those descriptive words on their actions and then decide if that character is positive, negative, or both.  The students must then tell me why they believe that and show me evidence from the text.  

By using the Up, Down, Both, Why or as in my lesson, positive, negative, both, why approach I hope to get my students thinking about the characters in the play; are the readers supposed to see this character as a positive one, negative, both?  Tell me why. I think this is a good way for students to gather evidence from the text to support their idea. Did the author do a good job representing that character?  What would you change? After having read the book do you still agree with your decision? Would you change it? Why? 

This activity will teach the students about characterization, close readings, and supporting evidence as well as public speaking, working in groups, and critically thinking.