Whenever
you’re working with a canonical text, it is often very important to understand
how you’re going to teaches that text in your classroom but still have students
engaged throughout the entire process. I have chosen to work with Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman play as I believe
there are many things that can be done in the classroom with this play.
Although we haven’t talked explicitly on how to teach a play, I plan to
use my classroom as a Reading – writing
workshop as the best message to teaching this text. One of the reasons why I ultimately
decided that this was the text that I wanted to work with was due to the number
of themes that are found within the play that are still very relevant to today’s
society. Not only do I want my students to be able to connect with his play,
but I want them to be able to think deeper about the society in which we live
in, as well as to Think critically on how to expose and debunk many of the “dreams”
that we have been sold as a society. Since the common theme that I will be
working with with this play is “The American Dream”, I believe that using a
reading– writing workshop would be the best method to provide a unit in which
it is both thematic and student centered.
The first thing that I want to do with this
play is use a number of pre-reading strategies in order to engage my students
in conversing about the play without even knowing what it is about. One way that I would do this is by showing
them in a visual picture. Ideally, my students would be in the 11th
or 12th grade, which means they would have already taken British
literature. Within that class, one very
important painting that is often used in the course is Horatio Alger’s, Death
and the Miser. What makes this
painting so significant is the fact that I believe you can use it to not only
talk about greed, but a more generalized idea of what makes people
ambitious? If my students understand
that almost everyone is motivated by something in order to perform their best,
I believe that we could easily transition into talking about what is the
American dream and white is important. After showing the students the painting,
I would give them to an invitation to write in which they would be able to talk
about what they think motivate us to be successful. Additionally, I would ask
them to think about why they think the concept of the American dream was
created, and do they think there is such a thing? I firmly believe that when you are working
with any type of literature, it is important to be able to engage your students
in thought-provoking questions in which they can either give it a response or
related to their own personal lives. As we know from the semester, people like
Rosenblatt believe that reader response is extremely important if you want a
student to be able to connect with the text. I also believe that if students do
not have that interaction prior to reading, it will become a lot more difficult
as the teacher (facilitator), to help the student infuse meaning into the words
on the pages. After students have had the time to write about what they think
the American Dream is, we would then go into to creating a “Phrase Wall” in
which we go over each person’s account of what they think it is. I would then
give them the Essential Questions for the play after that discussion. “How has
the concept of the American Dream shifted over the last 50-100 years? Is there
still an American Dream? To what extent are we willing to go to achieve that
dream?” I believe that having students become aware of the essential questions
that we will be using throughout the unit is a great idea for a number of
reasons. The main reason is because I recognize that the “American Dream” will
look vastly different for each of my students. Secondly, I also believe that
when we students have those essential questions at the beginning, they are
constantly looking at how to answer those as we are progressing through the
text.
Once
my students have finished with the painting activity, I would ideally introduce
to them the final culminating project that we would be working on as we are
reading the main text. I believe that for this unit plan, using the Backwards
Approach is a good model because it allows me to understand and see where I
want my students to be at the end of the unit plan and plan from that way. For
the final project, I would want students to do an interactive project looking
at what the American dream was viewed as for their ancestors and then comparing
it to what it looks like for them as young Americans in high school. I would
want students to conduct a number of surveys (if possible) of family members to
understand how the American dream has shifted. The purpose of this project
would be so that my students can gain insight on the research process and what
it is like to use informational text as well as primary sources as a basis for
their research. This project can look different depending on the class that I
am presenting it to. If I have honors student, it would be a lot more independently
driven, but for my CP students, we would most likely do a lot more of the
research in class so that I could walk them through the process more. Though I
would mostly tailor the project more depending on where my students are
academically, this project will be used as a means to drive our essential questions.
Next
would be a good time to actually introduce the play. One thing that I think
about is what is the purpose of teaching a play in my classroom—not only do I
think it is absolutely important to explore many different types of literature,
but I believe that when we are working with a play, it is important for our
students to be able to develop an appreciation for the formal drama, but also
to grow from it. The way that I expect my students to grow form studying this
play is by developing a sense of identity or enhancing their own sense of
identity as we are examining the identity of the characters from the play
(Willy, Linda, Biff & Happy). I expect my students to make these
connections based on the intent of the characters as we study and progress through
the play. One problem that I can potentially foresee is my students not being
able to make those connections—so it would be important to establish each
character from the start of the play. Additionally—I would want my students to
do more than just read the play—we will do a performance as we are reading it
as I also think it is important for each character to come alive—their voices
need to be heard. Bowel and Heap stated in Milner & Miler’s Bridging English, “In order for our
students to perform the scene, they must understand it and therefore must “discover
their character’s motivations…in fact, it is concerned with jealousy and
revenge and, n trying to understand this, therein lies the possibility of
examining something of the nature of human relationships” (Milner & Milner
103). What this would look like in Death of
the Salesman is my students will all be expected to understand the complexity
of a character prior to reading the play. I understand that many teachers would
not take the time to do any sort of analysis of the characters prior to reading
the play, but I believe that if we begin with an understanding of the
characters—once we begin to read the play, they will be able to make those
connections. Also through the use of Socratic circles, we can work as a class
to break down those character interactions and talk about why we believe Miller
intentionally creates a character the way he does. We could talk about the role
of Linda and how she influences or hinders Willie from committing his fatal
flaw. Endless possibilities.
Since
this is a workshop class, I would want students to not only write (their
project), but we would be reading as well. I believe it is a good idea to pair
many different YA novels to have book clubs in the classroom. Having students
be able to choose which of the novels they would like to read would most likely
help the student to engage in dynamic conversations with their classmates. Book
clubs would take place once a week as we are reading the play as well. Besides
having students engage in book clubs, I think it would be a little pretentious
to think that they will have time to take the books and read them at home as
well as have time to read the play ( which would be limited outside of the
classroom), so to combat that, we will have time for students to engage in SSR
at least 3 times a week for at least 10-15 minutes. One particular book that I
would include is Freedom by Jonathan
Franzen. I would like to use this book because it is a very modern YA novel
that chronicles a family as they are dealing with troubling relationships and
life in the end of the 20th century and goes into the beginning of
the Obama Administration. What makes this book so great is that it allows a
look at what a modern middle class family would look like and their chase of
the American Dream. There are good and bad times, heartache, and trouble that
the family will encounter, but it is also realistic and something that many of
my students can relate to. My main focus on finding YA books is so my students
will be able to relate in some way to the text—Rosenblatt all over again. It is
my hope that with these connections, they will be able to think more critically
about their own projects that they will be working on. Students will use their
YA books to do a lot of close-reading to look at the parallel structure of the
content within the text and use that compare not only the play, but what
reality looks like for them in their own lives. Do I agree or can I relate to
this book? What about it makes me relate to it? What is the authors intent on
creating this book? Within their book club groups, I would expect students to
have these discussions and then we would come back as a class to share how they
have created a transaction with the text as well as mentor text.
What
I struggle with as I am working through thinking about this play is would I
have students read the entire play? I honestly think that I would advance the
plot on some parts of the play and couple reading with the film to balance the
two out. For one, I do not want students to get bored with the text, and also because
I want students to spend time working on their book clubs as well as independent
project. It is my belief that we will be able to go into detail enough to
understand what it is about Willie Loman that 1) drives him to kill himself 2)
makes him believe that he has to do this for the good of his family 3) view
what the American Dream looked like for a lower middle class white American
family 4) compare their family dynamics to the students own. I can easily
combat not reading the entire play with the film of the play, but also with
viewing A Raisin in the Sun. This
play/movie about an African American family who struggles to achieve their
dreams because of a number of racial constraints as well as societal
limitations would be a great film to view and have conversations about. Also, I
believe it would be a good idea to show students just how different the
American Dream looks for families—which is the point of their project, to view
what the American Dream looks like for their family and how it has shifted.
The
issue that I found most prevalent is the fact that there are way too many
resources and ideas to use in this unit—as with any unit. I do not want to
overdue it therefore I would most likely limit the number of outside resources
besides a poem or two, YA novel for book club, film, and informational text
which could also serve as a mentor text for students as they are working on
their project. I think I would want students to write and read more so than I
would be lecturing and providing actual lessons which could be a downfall? If I
had to teach vocab and grammar, I would do it using fun apps like Kahoot where
we would be learning about vocab and grammar within the context of the play.
Other than that, I would love to workshop this play and surround it around a
project in which students will be thinking creatively and abstractly. Making
meaning beyond the text—which is one of the fundamental goals I would have for
my class.
