Sequence of Classroom Activities
Week one: Introduce the concept of Freytag’s Pyramid on an anchor chart. Students will think of stories that they have read and practice mapping out the narrative according to the structure of the pyramid. Students will read and annotate the first five pages of the text, The Wizard of Oz. We will discuss the text version before I show the 1939 film version. After showing the first twenty minutes of the film version, we will discuss how the book and film establishes the exposition using the text dependent questions that I have established for analysis of the exposition of the book and film. We will repeat this for the resolution of the text and film.
Students will be introduced to the concept of literary criticism through the use of an anchor chart of the different lens that different people come to view literature. Students will learn that many mature readers not only read and formulate thoughts about a text, but that adults often consult the thinking of other authors or critics to deepen their own thinking about a reading. I will share what some critics have to say about the exposition and resolution of both the book and the film versions of The Wizard of Oz. After reflecting and discussing the criticism of the pieces, students will produce their own version of criticism of the exposition of the book and film version of The Wizard of Oz.
Week two-Week four: I will start this portion of the unit by showing the clip of Anthem (see teacher resources for link) and discuss the characteristics outlined in the research of this unit of a dystopia. We will alternate reading and discussing Anthem, reading modified literary criticism of Anthem and Ayn Rand with careful attention paid to introducing each of the literary lens, and trying some of the speculative fiction writing exercises from Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers.
Students will also practice looking at the text like a critic in response to the reading (see teacher web resources). This requires students to not only cite textual evidence, but they must make connections that are not just text-based and push thoughts about underlying meanings. These responses will take place in a Reading Response Journal made of loose leaf paper.
Week five: Students will be given a performance assessment in which need to read “All Summer in a Day,” identify the elements of Freytag’s Pyramid, and write a literary criticism of the story similar to the one that we have explored in class.
Week six: Students will select one of their playing speculative fiction writing exercises and build it into a draft. I will confer with writers as they work. Students will compose a final piece that is publishable.
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