Unit+4+Drama

Overview:

 * Using Aristotle’s //Poetics,// students will define comedy and tragedy to understand the basics of drama. They will read Shakespeare’s //Romeo and Juliet// and analyze the ways in which the playwright utilizes the classic Greek tragedy form.

Focus Standards:

 * **RL.9-10.3:** Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
 * **RL.9-10.5:** Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
 * **RL.9-10.9:** Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
 * **RI.9-10.1:** Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
 * **W.9-10.2:** Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
 * **SL.9-10.1:** Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
 * **L.9-10.6:** Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Student Objectives:

 * Identify and explain the elements of drama in general and Greek drama in particular (see terminology).
 * Explain the structure of the plot(s) and describe the dramatic techniques the playwright uses to advance them.
 * Trace the development of major and minor characters and explain how characterization advances the plot or theme.
 * Understand Aristotle’s definitions of comedy and tragedy and explain how the other works studied exemplify the term “tragedy.”
 * Analyze the playwright’s use of irony.
 * Identify the poetic devices used in //Romeo and Juliet// and explain their effect.

Suggested Texts:
Drama:
 * //Romeo and Juliet// (William Shakespeare)