Fences lesson plans, Unit Plan, August Wilson, 54 pages.

Completely rewritten & expanded July 2011

This is a complete, loosely-structured Drama unit. There is no strict schedule or pacing guide here, though the activities, the concluding essay, the Socratic seminar, and the chapter quizzes and study guides would logically dictate the order of lesson delivery. You may find that you skip some activities, alter some activities and documents, and change the order of delivery year by year,based on your scheduling, teaching style, and type of students.

Study Guides: There are five student Study Guides for Fences. Each study guide is one to two pages in length, and includes a section of easy, comprehension-level questions and then a more thought-provoking set of analysis questions. The analysis questions will, for the most part, require some time, some thought, and some short, essay-style answers. There are also five quizzes and discussion prompt documents that you can use as answer keys for the study guides. (The study guides and the quizzes are reformatted versions of the same documents to be used in different ways and settings.)

These Study Guides make for great homework assignments, great in-class group assignments, great individual class-time assignments, or great pre-discussion assignments. I typically have students complete these at home, and then use the analysis prompts to guide us through an in-class discussion; this way, the students have worked over the ideas and have something to say.

Here you will also find five combination chapter Quizzes and Discussion Prompts: these sets of quiz and discussion prompts are to be used verbally. There are, of course, many ways to use such prompts, but for the record, here is how I use them. I assign reading, either in class or as homework. At the start of the next day's period, I verbally recite the quiz questions,or at least three of them. Students write their answers on binder paper. Then, students trade papers and I recite the answers. There are sometimes negotiations and debates about the answers and sometimes I allow for a student to add something to the answer key. Then, I read the discussion prompts to the students all at once, so they can process them for a few moments. Finally, we proceed through the questions one-by-one. Sometimes I skip questions; sometimes I add questions. Go ahead and alter things to suit your needs. The purpose of the quiz questions is to assess the level of student reading and student comprehension. And, let�s be honest, to make students accountable for the reading assignments. I want to be clear: the quiz questions are not analytical, but the discussion prompts are. The quiz questions have the answers written immediately under the questions. Again, this is a verbal quiz. You cannot hand these out. If you don't like verbal quizzes, use the study guides instead--see above. Note: combination Quizzes and Discussion Guides and the Study Guides are reformatted versions of the same document; you will want to use one or the other, but not both.

Essay assignments. There are several essay prompts in this unit, as well as a grading rubric. Choose the ones you like, or use them as starting points to brainstorm your own prompts.

Finally, as the table of contents suggests, there are many, many other assignments that an instructor may use, alter, augment, or skip. The unit is designed to revolve around either the Study Guides or the Combination Quizzes and Discussion Prompts (or a combination of both), and to terminate in a Seminar, and/or culminating essay, and/or final exam. Along the way an instructor will choose from the additional activities and lessons so as to end with a unit that suits the instructor�s style, schedule, and students.

Table of Contents
Introductory Research Assignment 3
Study Guides 4-8
Quizzes and Discussion Prompts (Answer Keys to Study Guides) 9-18
Dramatic Roles Rosters 19
In-Class Writing: Journal Entries, Quick Writes 25
Essay Prompts and Handout 26
Essay Rubric 27
Seminar Prompts 28
Characterization and Character Motivation in Fences 29
Materials for Any Literature Unit 31
Multimedia Project: Common-Core Aligned 31
Archetypes Activity 33
Close Analysis Activity Common-Core Aligned 34
Close Analysis Lecture Rubric 35
Metacognitive Preview 36
Reading Quiz Makeup 37
Reading Journal Prompts 39
The Post Film Essay 40
Thematic Flowchart 41
Rubric for Thematic Flowchart 42
Cooperative Essay Assignment 43
Cooperative Essay: Group Rating 44
Biography paragraphs 45
Group Hunt: Common Core Standards 46
Book Notes 47
Poetic Analysis 48
Vocabulary Activity 50
The Book Review Essay 52
Process essay prompts 53
The book Summary 54