Lesson Plan 1
Objectives: Generate interest in the unit through bringing the material to a personal level by focusing on New Haven. Engage in a prewriting activity to prompt thinking about the unit in general.
Individual Practice: Students will respond to the following questions as a Do Now type activity at the beginning of class.
What role do cityscapes play in forming our individual and communal identities? What is our role in shaping and reshaping the ever-changing urban landscape?
Once students have completed the response they will share out in small groups before reporting to the full class.
Group Practice: Students will view the film
The Hill
. Hopefully this will prompt thought about their city and the changes that have occurred in their own lifetime. How is the landscape changing everyday and how do they play a role in it? (This will lesson will obviously take more than one class period.)
Lesson Plan 2
Objectives: Provide background information on the Five Points through a PowerPoint and lecture. Generate questions about the background information to prompt further discussion.
Background: I will tell students that we will be generating questions on the Five Points PowerPoint during and after the presentation. Students will be required to create literal, interpretive, and "Big Idea" questions. I will attach a handout outlining the what each type of quesiton is. I will share a PowerPoint with the students providing background information on the Five Points.
Group Practice: Once the presentation is over, students will finish coming up with questions. Students will be encouraged to write their questions on the board. Each student should copy the board questions down for their own future reference.
Homework: Students will respond to one literal, one interpretive and one "big idea" question.
*The next day we will share out and discuss the responses.
Lesson Plan 3
Objective: Students will exhibit an understanding of the Five Points history and develop their thinking around Five Points through a discussion of their responses to the questions generated yesterday. Students will be introduced to the next text,
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
.
Group Practice: There will be a student lead discussion of the material from the night before.
Background: The next book,
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,
is a novel that takes place in the Bowery. Before we read the text, we will read an excerpt from Tyler Anbinder's book
The Five Points
. The chapter is called "The Wickedest House on the Wickedest Street that Ever Existed" and it is about the Bowery. It is just to give you a flavor for the time and place.
Individual Practice/Homework: Read the Anbinder chapter.
Lesson Plan 4
Objectives: Engage in a close reading of poetry by Whitman, Scutti, and Doty. Identify and explain the significance of literary devices used to form the poetry. Draw connections between the poetry of the same author, Whitman while making conclusions about the differences between the poetry of similar titles.
Poems: Walt Whitman "Mannahatta" and "Broadway"
Susan Scutti "Manhattan"
Mark Doty "Broadway"
(All of the poems are attached below)
Background: The Whitman poetry was written in the mid to late 19
th
century while the Scutti and Doty poems were written in the late 20
th
century. Obviously I have paired them in order to explore the similarities and differences in a few poems about New York containing similar titles. Whitman is a renowned author that wrote a lot about the New York he knew in the 19
th
century. He wrote poetry and prose. As we read the poetry please take note of each poet's style and content. Attempt to take note of Whitman as a writer as we will be reading two of his poems. Then draw connections between the more contemporary view of New York versus the 19
th
century vision which we have spent some time studying.
Model: Read "Broadway" by Walt Whitman out loud. Reread the poem while annotating on the board, overhead, elmo, whatever. Underlining repetitions in diction, syntax, sounds, etc. Taking notes on one of the margins about the meaning of the text while on the other margin, asking questions, delving into the meaning, exploring the paradoxes, etc.
Group Practice: Read the other poems out loud. Have students read them to themselves annotating as they read on their own. Discuss their initial reaction to the pieces.
Individual Practice: Select two of the poems to write about. Try to pick at least one Whitman, but not required. Explore the form and content of each poem as they relate to landscape? What is the poem saying? How is it said? What is significant about the stylistic choices the author makes to the overall meaning of the poem? What do you learn about the author's vision of New York?
Once students have written their responses, they can pair share of table share their writing verbatim.
Vocabulary
Rhetoric
Scheme
Trope
Five Points
Tammany
Tenements
Muckraker
Progressivism
Urban Renewal
Dystopia