LESSON PLAN TEACHING LITERATURE THROUGH SYMBOLS

Class: architecture, design No. of students: 20 Level: advanced Time: 50 min.

Lesson Aims: 1) to introduce the topic of symbol; 2) to practise speaking expressing opinions, exchanging ideas; analyse; 3) to practise creative writing, some while listening; graded perspective from simple to complex: words paragraphs and viceversa; text paragraphs; 4) to practise reading (skimming and scanning); 5) to exercise artistic skills as a personal way to approach a literary text. Materials: 1) handouts 1 3; 2) special sheet: Types of Symbols; 3) blackboard; 4) cassette player + tape (ambiental music); 5) colourful pictures; 6) students sketches.

STAGE ONE
ACTIVITY 1 Warm-up Aim: Introducing literature through symbols in everyday life and in art (photography painting). Main skill: Speaking (opinion). Procedure: 1. Teacher displays a set of colourful pictures from a book: Americas Hidden Treasures (National Geographic Society USA, 1992). 2. Teacher asks students: which picture they like most and why; whether they have visited USA and how they felt about it; Whether they like taking photos and why. Timing: 5-7 min.

Interaction: teacher students ACTIVITY 2 Playing with symbols part I

Aim: Speaking freely on a given topic. Main skills: Speaking, Writing (optional); Vocabulary practice. Procedure: 1. Teacher gives students individual handout no. 1 and explain the task 1: Think of possible relationships between the following words. 2. Teacher invites students to deliver answers and write some of those on the blackboard. Interaction: teacher students ACTIVITY 3 Playing with symbols part II Aim: Writing word chains; phrases and complex sentences. Establish possible relationships between words. Main skills: Writing, Listening, Speaking.

Timing: 5 min.

Procedure: 1. Teacher explains task no. 1, divides the class into three groups and delivers one word to each group. 2. Teacher sets the cassette players and invites the students to write while listening to the ambiental music (to stimulate the students creativity and to motivate them perform the activity in an artistic environment). 3. Teacher elicits answer and formulates positive encouraging comments on the students productions; teacher also invites some of the students to write their work on the blackboard. 4. Teacher explains task 3 and arrange that the students should work in small groups of four or five. Teacher encourages the students to exchange ideas and provide good oral delivery. Teacher sets the cassette for music. Interaction: teacher students, student-student

Timing: 10 min.

HANDOUT NO. 1

1. Think of possible relationships between the following words:

VAGUE

AMBIGUOUS

SYMBOL

MYSTERY

THE FREEDOM OF THINKING

CLASS DEVIDED INTO THREE GROUPS

1. Write, without stopping, WHATEVER the next words make you think of:

WATER

JOURNEY

DREAM

2. Establish possible connections between the three words above. Make one sentence/phrase to include the three of them.

STAGE TWO

ACTIVITY 4 Playing with symbols part III

Aim: Writing half-guided sentences. Structuring sentences in a paragraph on a given topic.

Main skills: Writing, Speaking.

Procedure: 1. Teacher delivers handout no. 2 and explains the task: Fill in the chart choosing up to three words from the list below to write three sentences beginning as shown. Then expand on only one topic in a full paragraph (50 words). 2. Teacher suggests pair-work. 3. Teacher exemplifies orally and, if necessary, writes sentences on the blackboard. 4. Teacher allows students think carefully about their sentences and paragraphs, silently monitoring the class. 5. Students discuss with partners, speculate on the topics and then deliver their answer to the teacher who congratulates them. Interaction: teacher students, student-student

Timing: 10 min.

HANDOUT NO. 2

I KNOW

I DO NOT KNOW _

I AM NOT SURE OF

1. WHITE 2. BLACK 3. RED 4. NUMBERS: 1, 2, 3 5. DOT 6. CIRCLE 7. SHAPE 8. SLEEP 9. DREAM 10. HOUSE 11. WOMAN 12. MAN

ACTIVITY 5 Follow-up no. 1

Aim: Reading and discussing on possible meanings of symbols.

Main skills: Reading (skimming, scanning). Speaking.

Procedure: 1. Teacher delivers a sheet with Types of Symbols and explains the task: Now you have to go through the paper and find the correspondences you have never thought of. Let me know what you have found. 2. Students skim and scan the text, discuss about the new inferences with their colleagues and deliver their ideas to the teacher. 3. Teacher elicits a few answers and moves on to the next activity not until he explains to his students the reason for doing the activities steps to the complete text and text analysis; authors skills to suggest character, atmosphere through symbols symbolic setting. Interaction: teacher students, student-student

Timing: 5 min.

TYPES OF SYMBOLS White purity, innocence, snow, the lack of any colour; all the colours together (light,
which includes all the other colours).

Black death, darkness, evil, night, mystery. Red love, joy, blood, cruelty, passion. One beginning; loneliness; God sanctity; the Omnipotent Deity; the pinnacle or the
highest point; the focus of the circumference; the hub of the universe.

Two couple, extremes, arms of scales, friendship, duality (two opposites beginning and
ending, balance, night and day, good and evil, riches and poverty, joy and pain, love and hate, equality and justice); when joined two points from the extremities of a line.

Three family, the holy Trinity, the three stages of time past, present and future; the three
stages of matter solid, liquid, gaseous; the Three Graces; three kingdoms of Nature animal, vegetal and mineral. Many philosophers consider number three the perfect number. The Scriptures tell of three wise men of the East with their offering gifts, or three archangels and three godly virtues. Pagan religion abounds in three victims were led three times round the altar before sacrifice, prayers were repeated three times to ensure their being answered; the priests of Apollo set upon a tripod called tripod of truth. There are three dimensions of space height, length and breadth. The three stages of existence appearance, evolution, and destruction.

Shapes: the Dot centre, ending, target, the eye, the original; matrix. The Line: the horizontal line is the horizontal extension of the dot, the connection
between two extremes, a border, the horizon, man with outstretched arms, the flow of life;

the vertical line is the vertical extension of the dot, a tree axis mundi, the connection
between haven and hell, and the world tree, growth.

The Circle the sun, the magical circle, continuity, the wheel, the perfect shapes in
geometry, deity (Gods eye), the zero of counting, interior harmony.

STAGE THREE

ACTIVITY 6 Text approach (type of text: literary)

Aim: Reading, Speaking, Writing to summarize, to question about plot, to paraphrase words and expressions, to specify the subject matter of each paragraph, to stimulate a responsible, collaborative work in class.

Main skills: Reading (skim, scan), Speaking (task oriented), Writing (task oriented).

Procedure: 1. Teacher delivers handout no. 3 and explains the task; optional teacher may remind the students of summarizing technique, specifying subject matter, asking comprehensive questions, paraphrasing words and expressions. 2. Teacher helps students work out tasks in an appropriate manner groups of 5 students (students assume roles). 3. Students discuss and write their answers on notebooks. 4. Teacher asks one group to deliver their answers and often he asks for the other students comments on the presented answers.

Interaction: teacher - students, student - student

Timing: 10 min.

HANDOUT NO. 3 ORGANISE THE CLASS INTO GROUPS OF FIVE

TASK: Read the next text:
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced. Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young gentleman was of an excellent indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes . By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily obtained. Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume brought us into a closer communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history, which he detailed to me with that entire candour which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervour, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain. Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen although, perhaps, as madmen of harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone. It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamoured of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to this wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams reading, writing or conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of

the true Darkness. (Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad)

Roles:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

STUDENT 1 Summarize what they have read STUDENT 2 Ask a question about the text to which the other must respond STUDENT 3 Clarify for the others all the underlined words and expressions STUDENT 4 Specify the subject matter of each paragraph STUDENT 5 coordinates the activity

STAGE FOUR

ACTIVITY 7 Follow-up 2

Aim: Suggesting follow-up activities as essay writing, scene/portrait/ setting sketching, script writing, picture story (comic stripes).

Main skills: Speaking, Drawing.

Procedure: 1. Teacher asks the students to establish correspondences in style, subject with other texts or works of art. 2. Teacher outlines the literary essay structure and gives the homework for the next time: Write a literary essay (250 words) focused on one of the following: plot, characters, setting. You can accompany your essays by your own sketches imagining scenes, people and/or setting in the text. I will be pleased if you also arrange a short oral presentation of your drawings, explaining the way you imagined everything in them, referring back to the text. Interaction: teacher students, student-student

Timing: 2 min.