Literature: Friday, March 8, 2013

1. Literature: Friday, March 8, 2013 Handouts: * None Homework: * Read AR book 20 - 30 minutes daily & record progress * Remember that AR test taking closes the middle of next week. Assignments Due: * None

2. Today’s Goal: Learn about allusions in literature. Outcomes: Define the term “allusion.” Identify an allusion from video clips of Dead Poets’ Society. Analyze video clips to determine characterization. Analyze video clips to explain how an allusion in a key way is in Dead Poets’ Society.

3. Starter #1: Today we are ending our poetry unit with a lesson that I normally use on the first day. Your job is to play detective as we analyze two video clips from an award-winning movie titled, Dead Poets’ Society. This movie came out decades ago, in the 1980s, and was nominated for a number of Academy Awards, including “Best Screen Play,” for which it won an Oscar. It has also been named as one of the all-time top 100 most inspirational movies.

4. Starter #2: The setting for this movie is a private high school in Delaware, a prep school (prepares you for college). This scene is the first day in English class, also the first day at this school for their new teacher, “Mr. Keating.” I’m going to tell you very little about this film because I want you to use your powers of observation. Listen closely to everything so you can help one another put together the pieces when I ask you questions about what you observed. One of the things you will be looking for in the video is called an “allusion.” Don’t confuse that with the word, “illusion.” (Illusion means you imagine something visually, or you think something is happening but it really isn’t. That’s NOT what we mean by allusion.”)

5. Starter #3: The term I’m referring to is “allusion,” and you can figure it out by looking at its root. What does it mean to “allude to something”? To “allude to” something means you are making a reference to something. Here’s how it works:A writer will slip a reference to some famous piece of literature, like a well known book, or a famous fictional character in a well known story, or even a well known poem. For example, if I tell you, “My father would make Scrooge look like a big spender!” what famous piece of literature am I alluding to? That’s an allusion to the novella called, “A Christmas Carol,” specifically the character of Scrooge. If you are familiar with that piece of literature, then you know that a Scrooge-like character is someone who is . . . ? Cheap, a tightwad, doesn’t like to spend money

6. Starter #4: Somewhere in these two video clips, there will be an allusion, one that all of you should be able to recognize. Your job is to identify it!  First Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoCgROXHE8oYouTube: First day of class, Dead Poet’s Society (12 – 13 minutes) Second Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8UL_9R_W-YYouTube: Dead Poet’s Society (final scene) (5 – 6 minutes)

7. Starter #5: Who can summarize the first video clip? The second video clip makes a big jump to the end of the movie. Let’s briefly get you caught up on what happened just before this last scene. . . . What happened in the final scene? What’s the “allusion”? What made this allusion so appropriate for this scene, and how important was it to the movie as a whole? Explain.