About This Lesson
Overview (World Literature 12th grade dual enrollment): I implemented this lesson during the return to fully in-person learning in the pandemic. Most of my students were with me for dual enrollment American Literature during hybrid learning (some students on Teams web conference and some in-person in Spring 2021). Some of these students helped me to design this lesson.
I have noticed over the course of the semester that students demonstrate their learning in a proficient manner through small-group activities with instructional scaffolding followed by independent tasks. Engaging in close observation and analysis, higher-order questioning, and evidence-based writing as a group through academic conversations promotes social-emotional wellness for students navigating a new dual enrollment course during a pandemic.
In this lesson, students participate in all-class discussion and debriefing on A Streetcar Named Desire, Scenes 1-6. Then, they work in small groups to engage in project-based learning to analyze stated and inferred meaning in the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain, supporting their analysis with strong and thorough textual evidence through two tasks.
All-Class Setting: For the journal warm-up, students write a five-line poem to summarize Scenes 1-6 of A Streetcar Named Desire. I provide five minutes for students to share their poems with at least three classmates and discuss the text in light of their poems. Next, students note five observations and/or questions they have about Scenes 1-6, including matters the text leaves uncertain. Then, they choose their three favorite observations and narrow them down to their most important observation. Volunteers share their observations, and as a class, we discuss the text in light of them.
Small-Group Work Activities:
For Task #1: Students will engage in small-group academic conversations on their observations and/or questions about Scenes 1-6, choose their top five (five being the least important, one being the most important) and find at least two examples from the text to support each observation on their list. Next, they will use their discussion of questions and observations on Scenes 1-6 to inform their analysis and interpretation by answering two of three guiding questions on literary analysis. They will engage in academic conversation, close observation and analysis, evidence-based writing, and higher-order questioning.
For Task #2: Students will engage in small-group academic conversations, close observation and analysis, evidence-based writing, and higher-order questioning. Through these four focus areas, they will create a product (social media post or yoga portrayal) to provide linguistic and non-linguistic representations of their analysis and interpretation of Scenes 1-6. Next, they will engage in small-group academic conversation to create a reflection to support their product by analyzing and interpreting the stated and inferred meaning of Scenes 1-6 through a) writing their own poem or rap of at least five lines to summarize Scenes 1-6 of A Streetcar Named Desire; b) communicating their five most important observations and/or questions about the play, including matters the text leaves uncertain, with at least two examples from the text to support each question and/or observation (taken from Task #1); c) a discussion of at least two literary techniques Williams uses in Scenes 1-6 with at least two examples from the play for each technique and its impact on the text; and d) the group’s theme statement for Scenes 1-6 with a rationale/justification for the theme and at least five examples from the text to support the group’s theme.
All groups will present their product and reflection at the subsequent class meeting and justify their choices.
After presentations and debriefing in a subsequent class, students complete a ticket out to summarize Scenes 1-6 of Streetcar and provide their own theme statement, including at least three examples from the text to support their theme. Through a Google Forms survey, students rate themselves on a learning scale related to the standard for the lesson and communicate their feedback on learning in small-group activities and academic conversations.
On the ticket out aligned with the learning goal, I found that 46% of students demonstrated proficiency of the learning target and 54% of students demonstrated mastery. Results of the Google Survey: 63% of students rated themselves as a Practitioner on the learning scale, and 23% of students rated themselves as Experts on the learning scale. Only one (4) students (13% of respondents) rated themselves as an Apprentice. When I probed students about their ratings, they said continuing to participate in small groups will help them reach and/or maintain the Expert level by the end of the course. The majority of students responded that they preferred working in their assigned groups the remainder of the year.
