Theme of Unit Plan
After receiving comments on my unit plan and thinking more about what I would like to do, I realized I need to think of a theme to revolve this unit plan around. The unit plan will focus on fairy tales. The students will read the poem "The Beast" by Gwen Strauss, see clips from the movie Beauty and the Beast, read a Brother's Grimm fairy tale and compare that with a movie version of the story (right now, I am thinking of the Cinderella story,) watch clips of The Princess and the Frog, and read Mark Twain's satirical short stories, "The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief" and "The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper." As you can probably tell from the titles of the Twain short stories, the "good" character does not have a successful ending, like all fairy tales end with, and the "bad" character thrives at the end of the story. I also am trying to think of another text or movie clip that contains this message that the good characters do not always have happy endings and the bad characters succeed in life, but I have not thought of the right medium yet, so more on that later.
During this lesson, I would like the students to think about why fairy tales are so popular in our culture and how they change over time depending on the era the story or the movie was made/written in. I wanted the students to see clips from one of the latest Disney films, Princess and the Frog, because this movie presents a different female character than was typically present in the previous Disney movies. The main character in that movie is African American and she works extremely hard and she does not need a man to "save her." She saves herself.
Pre-Reading
For a pre-reading activity, I want to ask the students a time in their life when they personally knew someone who succeeded even though they did something wrong, or a person in history or pop culture that underwent a similar experience. This answer could be as simple as knowing someone who cheated on a test, and they got an "A" on it, whereas they studied for hours and did not cheat on the test, and they received a "C" on the same test. The students will write a response to this question, and after they were given time to think and write about an experience they had, I will ask for a few volunteers to share their experience.
Another pre-reading activity will be to ask the students to think about what criteria traditional fairy tales have. They will work in pairs and write down the traditional plot of fairy tales, how the male and female characters act, the age demographics of the characters, etc.
Formative Assessments
For a formative assessment after the students have read "The Beast" and watched clips from Beauty and the Beast, will be to have the students create a poster in groups about how the poem and the movie are similar and dissimilar. The students can create a venn diagram, or a chart, however they want to organize the information. I also want the students to think about what they liked about each and which story they thought was more realistic in terms of how life really is.
After the students read the Grimm fairy tale, I want them to compare that version of the story with the movie Cinderella, the version with Brandy, Whitney Houston, and Whoppi Goldberg. The students will compare these two mediums by doing the Semantic Differential Scale with different characters. I also want them to compare the endings of the story and the movie and what they liked about each and what they disliked about the endings of both.
Summative Assessment
The summative assessment that the students will have to complete at the end of the unit will be to write their own fairy tale with a new twist to it that is different from the previous classic fairy tales. For example, the students could write a story where the boy is saved by the girl or the "good" character does not encounter a happy ending. Students will work on this project in groups and they will need to include colored pictures in the story as well. After they have written their story, I think it would also be fun to have a book making day so they can put a cover on their story and have a more "professional" look to their project.
