AP-11 Lesson Plan: 03/09/11
Unit 5: The Unending Conversation
Lesson: Civil Disobedience in our contemporary era
Veres
Essential Questions
Is the written word still relevant?
How do writers’ ideas help the us question and challenge our beliefs about ourselves and
the contemporary societal problems around us?
Lesson Questions:
- Is drama still relevant? How can it help us question and challenge our beliefs about
ourselves and society?
- How are Thoreau’s ideas from “Civil Disobedience” still relevant in society today?
- Can non-fiction, even non-fiction written a long time ago, change our opinions and
inform our thinking? How so?
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
- Analyze and discuss the ongoing relevance of drama in their lives.
- Determine the main ideas of Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and see how these ideas
apply in their lives.
- Discuss how these ideas are relevant in a larger social context.
Standards:
1.6.11.A: Listen critically and respond to others in small and large group situations.
• Respond with grade level appropriate questions, ideas, information or opinions.
1.3.11.D: Analyze the effectiveness, in terms of literary quality, of the author’s use of
literary devices, (e.g., personification, simile, alliteration, symbolism, metaphor,
hyperbole, imagery, allusion, satire, foreshadowing, flashback, irony) in various genres.
1.2.11.C: Examine the author’s explicit and implicit bias and assumptions, beliefs about a
subject, use of fact and/or opinion, and/or the author’s argument or defense of a claim as
related to essential and non-essential information.
Instructional Activities:
- Instructor will introduce the day’s activities and homework. (<5 min.)
- Students will take a quiz on the Nine Yardsticks of Value. (10 min.)
Once done with the quiz, students will come to the desk at the front of the room, find
their yellow sheet, and leave their copy of Fences at the table with the yellow sheet inside
of it. Students will place quizzes in another pile.
- Students and instructor will take 5-10 minutes to review the genre of drama, and what
strengths and weaknesses it has in relation to the pursuit of knowledge.
- In small groups around the room, students will respond to one of five quotes from the
text and agree, disagree or qualify with them. (5 minutes)
- As a large class, we will discuss these quotes (10 minutes)
- How did you interpret the main idea or ideas of the quote? How did you
react to this idea?
- (For the other students)… what are your thoughts? who do you agree or
disagree with? or do you have another idea?
- Students will briefly brainstorm the answer to these questions before bringing it back to
the group (5 min.):
Is the concept of “civil disobedience” useful in America, useful in the world?
Use specific news events or contemporary problems to answer this question.
Are Thoreau’s views still useful in these contexts?
Do you think this text is still relevant today?
- We will discuss the relevance of this essay in our contemporary context for the
remainder of the period (~10 minutes).
- If time remains, discuss what the government beyond democracy might look like.
Assessments:
- Students understanding and reflections upon this text/genre will be assessed when they
reflect as a class on non-fiction essays, when the instructor reads their public journals,
and when grading their editorials at the end of the unit.
Materials:
Thoreau- Civil Disobedience
Chalkboard/Chalk
Thoreau quotes to tape on the board
Half-sheets of paper with the ‘relevance’ questions
9 Yardsticks Quiz
Yellow Sheets Spread out on the front desk
Notes:
The Great Debaters- Movie where they debate Civil Disobedience at the end
Questions I asked myself:
Am I complicit in the injustices of my government as a tax-paying and law-abiding
citizen?
What are the injustices of my government? Why do some extremist groups hate America
and Americans? Though they misguided in many ways about violence and their
solutions to the dispute, is their perspective of America worth considering? Are we
defined by what other people think of us?
How does America look to other disadvantaged people throughout the world?
What is my personal responsibility in light of such questions?
Is the way that we view criminals in the United States too simple at times? Should we
view our fellow man, even our flawed fellow man, as something more… more decent,
more worthy of respect?
Is our current system of politics able to fix itself? Was it ever able to?
Thoreau talks about a hypothetical type of government that’s better than democracy.
What would it look like?