January
8
ELA 20: Jan 8
- We reviewed the basic plot and character profiles of the individuals in the play we are about to read. Previously, students had been organized into groups of three to read through individual scenes to prepare their ‘presentation’ of those scenes. Today we began. The first group started us out well and raised the bar of expectations. It was great to see it not entirely ‘acted out’ but nice to have the students follow the stage directions given by the author in the play. It made it much more realistic and easy to understand.
- Key points to today:
- The play is a memory play so it is not realistic in any way. It is the author’s memories that are tained by his personal emotions and frustrations over the topic so we pointed out several times examples where the author’s disdain for the topic slanted his reflection of it.
- The personality qualities of each character are quite easily assessed early in the play. I interjected several times, initially, just to be clear we’re on the right track. Tom is uninterested in his family and resentful of having to provide for them, his mother is in denial of her daughter’s potential for the future and stressed to secure a suitor for her, and the daughter is so entirely socially inept that she cannot seem to comprehend the fragile position she is in, socially.
- We had two students volunteer to read a volatile scene together and they did a great job and were interupted by the bell. We’ll begin there again, in scene three, tomorrow.