I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Personal and Collective Perspective

Essential Question:

How does studying literature from 2 different perspectives enhance understanding of the piece?

Bridge:

States of “Knowing”

Content:

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: Students will begin to identify the simple things in their lives that reverberate with meaning.

Activity: In journals, students will make an exhaustive list of the small, seemingly insignificant things in their lives that make them smile. Students will share lists in groups, noting similarities, if any.

Assessment: Completion of task, level of group involvement

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: Students will begin to analyze the significance of the small, everyday events in their lives that have meaning to them individually.

Activity: After students have shared lists, they will classify their lists under the headings: House, Family, Town, Nature, Other. Groups will report summary of classifications to larger group.

Assessment: Completion of task, group involvement.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: Students will imagine the difference in perspective one might have if one were to relive a day in one's life.

Activity: If you were to relive any day in your life, good or bad, which would it be? Create a representational or non-representational visual depicting the difference in perspective between the two states of "knowing": each visual must show the day as it was lived the first time and the day as it was relived the second time.

Assessment: Strength of visual, ability to articulate the different states of perspective.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: Students will read and view Our Town, discussing the role of the stage manager as a character representing multiple states of "knowing"; students will read and discuss various reviews of the play: some critics view it as a tribute to small town life, others see it as a very dark play; students will discuss the contrast between the individual and the universal and how it is depicted in the play through language, character, set design, miming, overall structure. Students will discuss the difference in perspectives between the living and the dead as depicted in the play.

Activity: Class presentations of key scenes, group discussions, analyses of reviews.

Assessment: Dramatic ability, caliber of discussion, caliber of writing.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: Students will examine the often painful realization of our place in the scheme of things as well as the beauty of our individuality.

Activity: Students will: compile lists of the contrasts and conflicts in the play; analyze the contrast between the universal and the individual in the stage manager's speeches; write a major paper on the statement: "Our Town is a play about startling contrasts and excruciatingly quiet conflicts."

Assessment: Caliber of writing.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: Students will celebrate the individual and the collective in their lives.

Activity: After having reread the speech in which the stage manager describes the time capsule Grovers Corners buried in the cornerstone of the bank, students will: 1) create individual mini-capsules they are to hide for a period of time, 2) create a large time capsule which typifies the life of a Ridgewood High School student living in the present time in the state of New Jersey. Students are to include music, literature, art, photographs, objects, etc.

Assessment: Completion of task, quality of contents.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: Students will evaluate the capsule as a true representation of themselves and their culture.

Activity: In committees, students will create a time capsule ceremony with: appropriate contents and protection against the elements, invitations to the present burial as well as the future unearthing, burial site and necessary approval, appropriate speeches and music, town publicity and yearbook notification.

Assessment: Committee contribution to overall project.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To celebrate: the individual as well as the collective; the small as well as the large; the present as well as the future.

Activity: Students will conduct the burial ceremony and invite guests to the unearthing to take place in 25 years.

Assessment: Quality and smoothness of presentation.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: