LESSON TITLE: MUTE TESTIMONY (A five-day Lesson Plan for high school English Students.)

CONTENT SOURCE: The central theme will be how literature, other forms of writing, and film address the way we perceive ourselves as both similar to, and different from, our animal companions. The purpose is to consider how humans—adults and children—consider animals: as creatures that are mute but sentient, as objects of affection, as consumables, but also as symbols of alienation.

To set the stage, students will begin reading three Greek myths; these will include the story of Acteon, a young man the goddess Artemis transforms into a stag, the enchantress Circe who turns men into hogs, and finally King Midas who discovers on his head a pair of donkey ears. Copies of famous paintings depicting the dramatic climax in these myths will be viewed in class. After, students will read news clippings about a real dog, Laika, launched into space in 1957 by Russian cosmonauts, and left in orbit to die of hunger.

Students will then watch and compare two films. In the Swedish masterpiece “My Life as a Dog,” a small boy, Ingemar, who is obsessed by the Russian dog Laika’s plight, is jettisoned out to live with distant relatives. At certain moments in the film Ingemar imitates his own beloved dog.

In the second film, the esteemed French classic “Forbidden Games,” set during World War II, a little girl, Paulette, suddenly an orphan, buries her dead dog, and then other animals she finds, in elaborate rituals.

We will also read extracts from Franz Kafka’s ultimate novel about human alienation, The Metamorphosis, which relates what happens to a young civil servant, Gregor, after he turns into a cockroach. Finally, we will look at an extract from a reference work about child psychology, pets, and grief.

A Text Set for differentiated instruction will include a variety of editions of the Greek myths-- from D’Aulaire’s to Edith Hamilton, at various reading levels. Classics of American young adult fiction that address these issues will include “A Dog’s Life,” “Julie of the Wolves” “A Day no Pigs Would Die,” “The Yearling,” “Shiloh,” “Portrait of Jennie.” “Lord of the Flies,” “Catcher in the Rye,” and Camus’ “The Stranger.”

OBJECTIVES: Students will become acquainted with a remarkable novel, two extraordinarily powerful films, news articles, a psychology text, and several Greek Myths that have permeated western culture. Because they will be juxtaposed, the “texts” will rebound off of each other, stimulating new connections, while encouraging the students to analyze what they have viewed and read in a context that is original and—hopefully--compelling.

ASSESSMENT: Students’ involvement will come through class participation, graphic organizers, an informal logbook, and a formal essay in which they are be asked how the texts have altered, confirmed or contradicted their perceptions about childhood, animals, and alienation, and if so, how? A student who has met the objectives of the class will thus show in a variety of ways what he or she has mastered in content but also in terms of the scope and limitations of the various genres of “writing” and creative expression used.

PROCEDURES: A Guided Reading or DRTA will be the general approach on all five days. Each day will be devoted to Before Reading

activities: reviewing what has been learned so far, activating Schema, predicting, and then reading for purpose. After Reading exercises will help them review the material covered. In preparation, the night before students will read one of three Greek Myths they have chosen. Using a SWBS format they will inscribe brief summaries.

Day One: Initially in triads, students will share with each other-- Carrousel or Jigsaw style—their respective plot lines, the underlying moral, and how they interpreted their chosen myth. The discussion will be opened up to the entire class and the most pertinent or interesting interpretations noted on the blackboard. Then, independently, students will be asked to silently read one of two very different news articles, one contemporaneous, about the real-life Laika the Dog, and one current that sheds new light on the topic; they will review their work in pair-shares and compare what they learned.

Day Two: In class, after an introduction to brainstorm prior knowledge about Sweden, the students will view the film “My Life as a Dog.” Any confusing aspects to the film will be discussed after class in a brief oral question and answer format. For homework, and armed with sticky notes, they will read two short out-takes from Kafka’s Metamorphosis. They will be asked to make a connection between this famous novel and the film they have just seen. Following an explanation of Magnet Summaries and the use of punctuation to extend a sentence, they will use index cards to write a one-sentence summary about the film, a summary about the theme of the book, and on the final index card a sentence summarizing how they both address a similar theme.

Day Three: In class, the best summaries will be voted on and transcribed on the blackboard. A Guided Reading of the child psychology text will follow, which will include modeling a Think Aloud, filling out KWL’s, a discussion of Q&R’s, and Power Notes.

Day Four: After front-loading background information on World War II, the students will finally watch “Forbidden Games.” For homework, students will use Learning Logs to do a character analysis of one of the two children, or of Gregor, using one of two strategies: either Doug Buehl’s “Different Perspectives for Reading,” or a “Role Audience Format Topic approach.”

Day Five: Students will be invited to share the work in their learning logs in pair shares. Then, in light of what they have learned so far, the discussion will analyze both films from the perspective of the psychology text; they will use a one-page Analogy Graphic Organizer to compare and contrast the two movies over all, analyzing similarities and differences between the children, Gregor, and the role that animals play in each. The will then use their learning logs, notes, and graphic organizers to prepare the outline and first draft of a formal essay about the relationship among the ideas evoked in Greek myths, the newspapers articles, the psychology text, the two films, Kafka’s novel, and any supplementary reading they might have done. They are to finish the essay for the following week.

FINAL ENGAGEMENT: This class will conclude the following week with a final discussion about what they discovered. Through thoughtful question-response in the form of a Socratic Seminar, the teacher will help coalesce some of the themes they have discovered over the past five days, both about the subject and the writing or the artistic expressions they encountered.

THE RATIONALE: The classes will be organized as described above so as to introduce one subject at a time, continually eliciting prior knowledge and offering explicit instruction if necessary in how to look at and analyze the material covered. In order to stimulate their own metacognitive skills, the teacher will have used a variety of interventions to help them navigate how to analyze and make connections between the different “texts” used. By layering their exposure to the subject through film and writing, and alternating this with a variety of reading and comprehension strategies, the students will be offered a highly structured, almost scaffolded approach to incorporating a variety of elements from different media into a coherent, textured thematic whole; as such it is hoped that the lesson should ultimately belie its title of “Mute Testimony.”

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