INTRODUCTION/RATIONALE: This project on Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening comprises one month’s study in a larger unit on women in society, which also includes one other novel (The Handmaid's Tale this year) and a survey of (about 15-20) women's poetry. Except where noted, many of the activities take place outside class, as an extension of classroom discussions, although care must be taken to incorporate the web material into the classroom.
As to the novel itself, within the overall context of societal attitudes towards women, students examine 19th century viewpoints on women and their place in society, thus grounding the novel in its cultural milieu and allowing students to explore The Awakening as a response to that milieu. The tasks are varied, allowing them to study the novel from various aspects and to work both individually and collaboratively.
OBJECTIVES: The student will be able to…
Understand the tenets and implications of CTW, applying those values to the novel.
Evaluate the novel for its attitudes towards women’s roles
Recognize influences from the past in today’s attitudes towards women
Recognize the significance of Chopin’s life in her portrayal of Edna
Work collaboratively to generate ideas and evaluate each other’s work
Use e-mail and the WWW to complete assignments
STANDARDS: This unit meets the following IB (A2) Standards:
The students should be able to:
Demonstrate accuracy in the use of appropriate oral and written forms of the language in a variety of styles and situations.
Demonstrate an ability to express ideas with clarity, coherence in both oral and written communication.
Demonstrate an ability to structure ideas and arguments, both orally and in writing, in a sustained and persuasive way, and to support them with relevant examples.
Demonstrate an ability to assimilate and exploit spoken and written material in different genres, media, styles and contexts.
Demonstrate an ability to engage in close, detailed and critical examination of a wide range of texts.
Express a personal response to a range of texts
Demonstrate an insight into the texts and topics studied and into the links between them.
Completion of the The Awakening unit and the poetry unit will meet the following technology standards:
Students practice responsible use of technology systems, information, and software.
Students develop positive attitudes toward technology uses that support lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and productivity.
Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.
Students use productivity tools to collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models, prepare publications, and produce other creative works.
Students use technology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.
Students use technology tools to process data and report results.
Students evaluate and select new information resources and technological innovations based on the appropriateness for specific tasks.
Students use technology resources for solving problems and making informed decisions.
Students employ technology in the development of strategies for solving problems in the real world.
Teaching Suggestions
The Awakening
1 Most class days will involve discussing the novel.
2.During web days, act as a guide, prompting when necessary
3. Monitor the list serve, responding as appropriate. It’s important that the students see you’re involved in this, too. If your school cannot create a listserv for classroom use, you can create your own listserv at the following sites. For international schools, http://www.netpals.lsoft.com . Or try http://www.egroups.com Typing "free listserv" into the search box at Google also generates several hits you can check out.
4.Provide art books for art project.
5. Discuss the various tasks in more detail, as appropriate. This webquest assumes students' familiarity with the journal, report, letter, article and poetry formats. If students have not practiced those, of course they should be taught within the class.
6. I found artists to participate in the e-mail project through 1) our school art teacher and 2)through this web-site, where you can ask artists to assist in the project http://www.allexperts.com/getExpert.asp?Category=1461 Everyone I talked to was very enthusiastic and eager to participate.
7. During the first week, while students are reading the novel, you might want to spend a class discussing how to evaluate web sites for accuracy and reliability. Have students complete this great webquest on evaluating websites. http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/evalwebstu.html
8. In addition, during the first week as students are doing the intro/background sections, be sure to discuss the ideas in class, answer questions, discuss what makes a good ejournal entry, etc.
Poetry
Obviously, there is much to choose from. Apart from the two poems introducing the unit, we read an additional 7 poems if also doing the poetry unit, 15 if not. Some of the poems deal with "women's" issues, some with issues of women and writing, others just show the range of topics women write about. Some poems that worked well include Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," Dickinson's "He Fumbles at Your Soul," "She Dealt Her Pretty Words Like Blades", "I Cannot Live With You", and "I'm Ceded—I've Stopped Being Theirs" (I really love Emily Dickinson!), Plath's "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus," Denise Levertov, "The Mules," Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose," "The Choice," Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Women Have Loved Before as I Love Now," Anne Spencer, "Letter to My Sister." Gwendolyn MacEwan, "The Child Dancing," Audre Lord, "The Women of Dan Dance with Swords in their Hands."
When we discussed the BWW introductory poems in class, we also read Woolf's "If Shakespeare Had Had a Sister," comparing and contrasting the three pieces.
In addition, on the search page, the reference to the Balaam's Ass link, from The Handmaid's Tale was a set of links I gave students over the classroom listserv to examine as an extension activity. I would be happy to send those to anyone interested. For the purpose of this unit, you only need the direct link to Balaam's Ass.
