Lord+of+the+Flies

Presenter: Jen Smith, Fri, April 29, 2011

Essential Questions for this unit:
 * What is the role of fear in governing society?
 * By nature, do you feel that human beings are social, altruistic (good) creatures who work for the greater good, or do you feel that humans are inherently competitive, selfish and individualistic?
 * Which quality is more important for a leader to possess, strength or compassion?
 * Which is more important to you to have in society, freedom or security?
 * What are different reasons that people pick on/make fun of/bully others?
 * What are the origins and perpetuaters of fear?
 * What are the implications of irresponsible authority?

Goals for this unit:
 * Foster an incredibly deep reading of LOTF.
 * Teach students how to identify symbolism on their own.
 * Reinforce and introduce specific literary concepts: symbol, theme, motif, bildungsroman, Biblical allusion, characterization, irony, imagery, setting, foreshadowing.
 * Link behaviors and concepts of the characters and the novel, respectively, to the real world.

Calendars: Note: Though it appears as if LOTF took me forever, there were constraints in the schedule due to mid-terms, snow days, and PSSA testing.

Pre-Reading Activities: Note: The "Human Nature and Society Essay" is a PSSA-style essay.

Reading Questions: Notes: The number that begins each document is the chapter we read for the assignment.



Class Activities: Notes: 1. "5 Beast from Water" is a script version of the chapter so that kids can act out the chapter. I have found that because the chapter is so full of dialogue and fairly nuanced, that students understand it better when they see it and act it out.

2. A "Chalk Talk" is when a teacher writes down questions or quotes on the board (or large paper) and asks that students walk around and silently respond to each question or quote. Students are encouraged to write questions to one another about their thoughts, essentially fostering a dialogue in writing. If you have a particularly silly group, you may want to have the kids identify what they wrote (anonymity fosters savagery, as you know).

3. The quotes used for the chalk talk are the same as the ones from the homework assignment up above.



Reading Quizzes:

Exams and Study Guides: Notes: I plan to update the quote identification section on the CP exam next year. I will upload when I do.

Activities I've created, but don't currently use:
 * ==Chapters with Guiding Questions and Commentary for Struggling Readers (Created by Livesey)== ||
 * Pagination is aligned with the Perigee edition of the novel. I remove highlighting when I post or print for a student. ||
 * [[file:Ch 1 - The Sound of the Shell.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 2 - Fire on the Mountain.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 3 - Huts on the Beach.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 4 - Painted Faces and Long Hair.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 5 - Beast from the Water - Script.doc]] - Smith adapted the novel into a script (IT ROCKS!!) ||
 * [[file:Ch 6 - Beast from Air.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 8 - Gift for the Darkness.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 09 - A View to a Death.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 10 - The Shell and the Glasses.doc]] ||
 * [[file:Ch 10 - The Shell and the Glasses.doc]] ||

"On-line" Text:

Fun Links: [|Lord of the Flies Game] [|Golding's Website] [|Simpson's LOTF Episode]

Places I've wanted to take LOTF, but haven't yet: 1. Look at the bystander effect (Livesey does cool stuff with this): Id, Ego, Superego The following videos would need to be downloaded from the net @ home: What Would You Do? Season 2, Ep 1, Seg 1 & 2 2. Talk about cyberbullying. [|ABC News: Harmless Joke or Cyber Bullying?] 3. Look at "real world" LOTF situations and have kids draw parallels. 4. Look at the psychology of groups.