The Glass Menagerie Lesson Plan Two (Jan. 21, 2011)
Vocal Awareness
Keystone Oaks High School
Note: As per the mission of the Education Department of Prime Stage Theater, all plans
were constructed to address the stated needs of the individual constituent schools involved
in the Adopt-a-School program. Adaptations were made by the writer of these plans.
These plans are suggestions rather than a prescription. All teachers using them are
encouraged to make any and all adaptations necessary to fit the needs of the students
involved. Time limits given are approximations of exercises in an effort to keep the lesson
moving forward but are subject to change in order to offer maximum flexibility for the
teacher and her/his time constraints.
Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking
The following standards are addressed in this lesson plan:
1.1.9.A: Apply appropriate comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate an author’s
implied or stated purpose using grade level text.
1.1.9.B: Use context clues, knowledge of root words, and word origins as well as reference
sources to decode and understand new words.
1.1.9.E: Demonstrate an appropriate rate of silent reading based upon specific grade level texts.
1.2.9.A: Evaluate text organization and content to determine the author’s purpose, point of view,
and effectiveness according to the author’s theses, accuracy, thoroughness, and patterns of logic.
1.6.9.A: Listen critically and respond to others in small and large group situations. Respond with
grade level appropriate questions, ideas, information or opinions.
1.6.9.B: Demonstrate awareness of audience using appropriate volume and clarity in formal
speaking presentations.
Student Objectives:
 Students will demonstrate effective use of the vowel-emotion, consonant-meaning
technique.
 Students will explore themes of the play through reading and interpreting select
quotations.
 Students will make personal connections to themes in the play.
 Students will use context clues and prior knowledge to understand new words as they
arise.
Teacher Objectives:
 Teacher will lead warm-ups.
 Teacher will model vowel and consonant readings of a line, lead students in “detective”
portion of scene study, assist with student oral readings.
 Teacher will interject with vocabulary and comprehension questions as needed.
Reading Completed:
Students should have completed scenes 1-3 in The Glass Menagerie.
Materials needed:
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White board and utensils
Quotations from the play (Alyssa bringing)
Writing Utensils
Colored pencils/crayons
Copies of portion of Scene 3 (p. 20&21, one copy per student)
Introduction (5 minutes)
 Vowel sounds—Inhale for 4 counts, then exhale, speaking through all the vowel
sounds—ah, ay, ee, oh, ooo. Repeat 2-3 more times.
 Tongue Twisters (your choice)
Main Experience: (30 minutes)
 Vowels carry emotion, Consonants carry meaning
o Review what is a vowel and what is a consonant
o Explain that when we speak, when we are really emotional, we tend to stress our
vowels. When we want to make sure our meaning is understood, we stress our
consonants.
o Model using same quotation from previous lesson, first with vowels, then with
consonants.
o Ask students to read aloud through that same quotation, first stressing the vowels,
the second time stressing the consonants.
o Explain that most of the time, we use a mixture of emotional vowels and
meaningful consonants. Have students think about which words make sense to
say with emotional vowels and which words to say with meaningful consonants.
If needed, students can color code the vowel and consonant words with different
colored pencils or crayons. Once they have done this, they should practice saying
their interpretation of the line aloud
 Putting it all together: Scene study with punctuation, word emphasis, and vowelemotion, consonant-meaning
o Split group into partners. Have them read through scene 1 time.
o Play the detective: Take students through each step of finding the word and
punctuation clues on the page.
 Circle punctuation marks. Discuss what punctuation marks are used in
this scene.
 Underline word emphasis (particular focus on italicized and capitalized
words). Discuss what words should definitely be emphasized.
 Discuss tone of this scene. Emotional? Or Meaningful? Sometimes it
might switch from line to line. With partner, read each line. Decide if it is
more “emotional” (elongate the vowels) or “meaningful” (enunciate
consonants).
o Have students—using all the clues they have found—read through and “act out”
the scene.
o Share scenes and discuss what someone did well and what they could work on for
next time.
Closing (5 minutes):
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Thumbs up, thumbs down
o I learned something new today.
o I am interested in finding out what happens in The Glass Menagerie.
o I feel more confident in my speaking abilities.