Hanging Back with the Brutes
Essential Questions:
- What does it mean to be human on the most fundamental level?
- How can we challenge our understandings of the terms “savage” and “civilized”?
- In what ways does the notion of the “noble savage” appear in literature?
- What cultural factors influence the construction of “the other”?
Content:
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- Euripides, Medea
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
- Rudyard Kipling, “The Man Who Would Be King”
- William Shakespeare, King Lear and Othello
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
- Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
- Christa Wolf, Medea: A Modern Retelling
Skills and Processes:
- Direct class discussion
- Develop critical abilities as readers
- Improve skills as writers of analytical prose
- Prepare and present class meetings, both in collaborative groups and as individuals
- Apply principles of unguided peer reviewing and metacritical self-review for both content and style
- Use techniques of active reading, class note-taking, and test-taking
Assessment:
- Three analytical essays are assessed for both content and style in individual conferences
- Tests emphasize reading comprehension and synthesis
- Peer reviews
- Metacritical writing
- Discussions about critical analysis and persuasive writing
- Class presentations are assessed for both class plan and execution
Resources:
Consultation of departmental handouts from grades 9-11