Activities for the Crucible:
Focusing on Discrimination, History and Law
Overview
Students will respond to a survey regarding their outlook on man within his society. Students will then
read Arthur Miller’s drama, The Crucible. Following the reading of the play, students will participate in
unit-related activities. Their final assessment is a debate of issues and a writing assignment.
Objectives
1. Examine the rights of the individual during times of crisis and conflict within society
2. Compare and contrast the themes of The Crucible to historical events in our nation’s history
3. Debate the issue of the rights of the individual versus the protection of the common good of society
Grade
10
Course
Civics and Economics
North Carolina Standard Course of Study
•Objective 1.01: Describe how geographic diversity influenced economic, social, and political life
in colonial North America.
•Objective 1.07: Evaluate the extent to which the Bill of Rights extended the Constitution.
•Objective 10.01: Explain the distinction between personal and civic responsibilities and the tensions that
may arise between them.
•Objective 10.02: Develop, defend, and evaluate positions on issues regarding diversity in American life.
•Objective 10.03: Evaluate the importance of supporting, nurturing, and educating oneself in the United
States society.
•Objective 10.04: Demonstrate characteristics of effective citizenship.
•Objective 10.05: Describe examples of recurring public problems and issues.
•Objective 10.06: Discuss the consequences and/or benefits of the freedom of economic, legal, and political
choices.
Materials
• Student copies of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible and/or The Crucible video
• Student Handout #1 Student Survey
• Student Handout #2 Comparing and Contrasting Events
• Student Handout #3 Identifying Themes in Law, Literature, and Society
• Student Handout #4 Responsibility Chart
Duration
One + block period, depending on how many of the attached activities you choose to do
Procedure
1. As a warm-up, project the following quote from Russian writer Leo Tolstoy…<theatre is>“the strongest
pulpit of the modern man…more effective that schooling and preaching could ever be”… (Miller 1983,
27). Tell students that they will be examining societal issues of direct concern to them through a famous
drama, The Crucible. Tell students it was written by Arthur Miller and is about the Salem witch hunts of
1692.
2. Distribute copies of the Student Survey, Activity Handout #1. Allow time for completing the survey and
debriefing students’ views. A quick way to assess their views is to have students stand along a line that
represents the ideas on the survey spectrum. Far left and far right end points represent the “strongly
agree” and “strongly disagree” positions while positions inside the end points represent “agree” and
“disagree.”
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
3. Read The Crucible or watch the video, afterwards how the themes in the Student Survey are prevalent
in the play/movie.
4. Place students in cooperative learning groups to prepare research on one of the following historical
events to determine its relationship to issues raised in The Crucible:
• Red Scare of the 1920’s: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case
• The McCarthy Era of the 1950’s: Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House on Un-American Activities
Committee Hearings
• Japanese American Interment in the 1940’s: Japanese Americans interned in camps in America during
World War II
• Racial Profiling: Should Arab Americans be profiled to provide security in an era of terrorist threats?
Activity 1: Have students present their findings to class, filling in the attached Handout # 2 for students
to fill in based on the presentations.
Activity 2: Using Handout #3, students will identify societal themes as they are revealed through
quotations from the script of The Crucible.
Activity 3: Students will complete a responsibility chart to determine the role of the individual in conflict
situations. Chart responses on Handout #4.
Activity 4: Hold a debate on the following topic: “Resolved: That the greater good of society ought to
supersede the rights of the individual.”
Activity 5: Students will write a two-page composition in response to John Proctor’s words: “I speak my
own sins: I cannot judge another.”
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/