THE CRUCIBLE PROJECT unit summary
Jerre Borland
AWP Teacher Consultant
New Iberia, Louisiana
This four week unit focused on the drama, THE CRUCIBLE, by Arthur Miller. The products for this project included an I AM poem, three one to two page writing assignments, and an on-line journal. The general goal of the project was to use technology as a teaching tool for the play and to generate more interest in the Salem Witch Trials and this period of history in our country.
Before we began reading the play, students went to the library and researched five pre-reading activities which included varied information about both the play and the historical time period. They were asked to journal about what they learned as they looked through the sites, including “A Day in the Life of the Colonies”, information about the author, “Facts and Fiction About THE CRUCIBLE”, and other interesting information. This took about an hour to an hour and a half. Students were aloud to complete any unfinished work at home.
Once this was done, it was on to the on-line journal about telling a lie. The prompt asked students to describe a time when a lie they told got out of hand. Students responded in their journals and on-line using a seedwiki I set up beforehand and linked to my blogsite.
Finally, students were assigned a group project to write an I AM poem together, but they decided, instead. to turn in individual poems. This was a better alternative for these particular classes. They also were assigned three of four writing assignments of no less than 300 words each which asked them to 1. Write a first-person account of an event from the play from that character’s point of view; 2. Choose a song they thought related to the play and prove its relationship, and 3. Research about Joe McCarthy and see if they thought he was the villain history depicted him to be or if they thought there was more to the story. Students had approximately three weeks to work on their writing during the time we were reading and studying the text. We had time in class for editing some of the writing and for talking about problems they might be having in coming up with ideas for writing. I used student examples of first drafts to give ideas about what I was expecting to see along the way.
Jerre Borland
AWP Teacher Consultant
New Iberia, Louisiana
This four week unit focused on the drama, THE CRUCIBLE, by Arthur Miller. The products for this project included an I AM poem, three one to two page writing assignments, and an on-line journal. The general goal of the project was to use technology as a teaching tool for the play and to generate more interest in the Salem Witch Trials and this period of history in our country.
Before we began reading the play, students went to the library and researched five pre-reading activities which included varied information about both the play and the historical time period. They were asked to journal about what they learned as they looked through the sites, including “A Day in the Life of the Colonies”, information about the author, “Facts and Fiction About THE CRUCIBLE”, and other interesting information. This took about an hour to an hour and a half. Students were aloud to complete any unfinished work at home.
Once this was done, it was on to the on-line journal about telling a lie. The prompt asked students to describe a time when a lie they told got out of hand. Students responded in their journals and on-line using a seedwiki I set up beforehand and linked to my blogsite.
Finally, students were assigned a group project to write an I AM poem together, but they decided, instead. to turn in individual poems. This was a better alternative for these particular classes. They also were assigned three of four writing assignments of no less than 300 words each which asked them to 1. Write a first-person account of an event from the play from that character’s point of view; 2. Choose a song they thought related to the play and prove its relationship, and 3. Research about Joe McCarthy and see if they thought he was the villain history depicted him to be or if they thought there was more to the story. Students had approximately three weeks to work on their writing during the time we were reading and studying the text. We had time in class for editing some of the writing and for talking about problems they might be having in coming up with ideas for writing. I used student examples of first drafts to give ideas about what I was expecting to see along the way.
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