AP-11 Lesson Plan: 03/04/11
Unit 5: The Unending Conversation
Lesson: Vocabulary Unit 10 & Fences Conclusion
Veres
Essential Questions
Is the written word still relevant?
How do writers’ ideas help the us question and challenge our beliefs about ourselves and the contemporary societal problems around us?
Lesson Questions:
How does drama present truth to the reader?
Is drama still relevant?
What are the themes of Fences , and how do they inform our understanding of the value and relevance of drama?
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
- Use context clues to learn about new vocabulary words
- Investigate and discuss the themes of Fences
- Evaluate if drama is still relevant, and decide what values it affords today’s audience/reader.
Standards:
R11.A.1.1
: Identify and apply the meaning of vocabulary.
1.6.11.A: Listen critically and respond to others in small and large group situations.
• Respond with grade level appropriate questions, ideas, information or opinions.
1.3.11.C: Analyze the relationships, use, and effectiveness of literary elements (characterization, setting, plot, theme, point of view, tone, mood, foreshadowing, irony, and style) used by one or more authors in similar genres.
1.3.11.D: Analyze the effectiveness, in terms of literary quality, of the author’s use of literary devices,
(e.g., personification, simile, alliteration, symbolism, metaphor, hyperbole, imagery, allusion, satire, foreshadowing, flashback, irony) in various genres.
Instructional Activities:
- Instructor will make daily announcements and describe homework. (<5 minutes)
- Instructor will introduce Vocabulary Unit 10. The instructor will provide directions for the students to participate in the following game: (~15 minutes)
- Students will be divided into five teams, each receiving two vocabulary words, along with each word’s definition and an example sentence.
- Each team will write one sentence per word on the board, underlining the vocabulary word.
- Once all groups are done writing, the other teams will attempt to guess the meaning of the vocabulary word.
- After the completion of this game, the instructor will notify the students that the full list of words will be available on Scoodle.

- Instructor will lead students in discussion of the themes of the text. (20 minutes)
- Why do you think that Wilson had Troy die while playing baseball in his backyard?
-How are we to interpret the ending of the play, with Gabriel blowing the horn and the Gates of Heaven opening? Does it change your view of the story?
- On the back of the book, Frank Rick from the New York Times, calls Troy a “hero almost Shakespearian in contour.” I’ve also read similar assessments of Troy elsewhere as I’ve been studying the book. Why do you think that people have assessed Troy like this? Do you agree or disagree with this assessment?
- I’d like to read you an excerpt of an interview with Wilson-
(it starts a little off-topic, but I included it to show you that Wilson was indeed talking about
Fences when he said this)
AUGUST WILSON: I’m not sure what they say about Fences as it relates to Death of a Salesman …
My greatest influence has been the blues. And that’s a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.
…
The Believer : How specifically was the blues an influence on your work?
August Wilson: Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are all ideas and attitudes that are expressed in the blues. If all this were to disappear off the face of the earth and some people two million unique years from now would dig out this civilization and come across some blues records, working as anthropologists, they would be able to piece together who these people were, what they thought about, what their ideas and attitudes toward pleasure and pain were, all of that. All the components of culture. Just like they do with the
Egyptians, they piece together all that stuff. And all you need is the blues. So to me the blues is the book, it’s the bible, it’s everything.
- What associations to you make between the blues as you’ve heard it/understand it and how you interpret this play? How do you see repetition and variation working in this play?
- How did this play invite you to think about race? Did it provoke new insights for you? If so what?
- What are Wilson’s ideas about the purpose of family? Do you agree? How does significant adversity affect the duties, responsibilities, and functions of a family?
- What else did this play ask you to think about the world around you? Did you end up agreeing with Wilson’s view about it?
- Did you like this play? Using the 9 Yardsticks (as well as the yardsticks that you feel should be used to evaluate a text), in what ways did you value this play? In what ways did you feel that it fell short of what you’d want from a text?
- Using the 9 Yardsticks of Value, instructor will lead students in working to identify the value and relevance of the genre of drama. (did this play change what you believe about anything? what’s valuable in it?, what kinds of insight does it give?, what doesn’t work?)
Strengths/Weaknesses/Other insights. How is it different than fiction? He will notify the class that he will add this information onto the Google Doc that the class has devoted to genre. (5-10 min.)

Assessments:
- Students will take a vocabulary quiz for unit 10 on 03/11/11.
- Students’ journal assessments will be screened to see where they’re finding relevance in their lives and how they are deriving meaning from Fences .
- Students will be quizzed on the 9 Yardsticks of Value on 03/09/11.
Materials:
Copies of new vocab words
6-7 copies of handouts for each station
August Wilson- Fences
Notes:
Vocab Unit 10 Words: interlocutor, stygian, nomenclature, brigand, internecine, risible, sybaritic, crepuscular, apocryphal, antediluvian
"Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner." ~Troy p. 10
He still got that old piece of rag tied to that tree. He was out there swinging that bat. I was just ready to go back in the house. He swung that bat and then he just fell over.
Seem like he swung it and stood there with this grin on his face… and then he just fell over. They carried him on down to the hospital, but I knew there wasn’t no need.”
~ Rose pg. 91
“You ain’t never gave me nothing. You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back.
Afraid I was gonna be better than you. All you ever did was try and make me scared of you.” ~ Cory p. 85
Rose: Girl, get in here and get your shoes on. What you doing?
Raynell: Seeing if my garden growed. (p. 75)
“Your daddy wanted to make you into everything he wasn’t… and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don’t know if he was right or wrong, but I know he meant to do more harm than good.” ~ Rose, talking to Cory (p. 93) across the next while.