Fall 2015

Lesson Plan 4
Length 40-60 minute class period
Three Week Unit on Much Ado About Nothing
Content Area Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.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).
Student Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to compare and contrast elements from Much Ado with contemporary
Romantic Comedies.
Students will be able to articulate how the two genres (Shakespeare's comedy and modern day
comedy) comment on and work with each other.
Language Objective(s):
Students will write a list of Romantic Comedies they know of.
Students will talk about the characteristics of Romantic Comedies.
Students will listen to an example of genre conventions and will then discuss it.
Population: Students are 10th graders at a suburban, private school. The neighborhood is
predominately middle-class and a majority white, though about 30% of the student body identifies
as something other than whitemostly African-American or Hispanic. There are roughly as many
male students as female students, though the ratio varies from class to class.
Rationale: Ben Johnson famously penned, He was not of an age, but for all time! Shakespeare is
important for high schoolers to study for many reasons. He had such an influence on the English
languageinventing roughly 2,000 words, crafting some of the most beautiful poetry and prose in
the language, and proving he was a master of sound, wit, and words. Identifying how genre and
genre conventions worked in Shakespeares day and then connecting that to pop culture of today
gives students a larger view of why things are the way that they are. It also allows students to
explore the purpose of genre inside literature and inside their popular culture literature.
Activities
Pre-Reading/ Literacy (~10 minutes)
1) Teacher will ask students to casually get into small groups and make a list of the Romantic
Comedies theyve seen/ heard of.
2) Teacher and students will compile list of Romantic Comedies, choosing the three most
commonly mentioned ones to be examples for the rest of the week.
3) Teacher will show The Dark Knight as a Romantic Comedy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=1WE3E-gzHno) to introduce the topic of genre conventions.
During Reading/Literacy (~35 mintues)
4) Students and teacher will together determine: What are characteristics of a Romantic Comedy?
How do we know some movie is a Romantic Comedy and not just regular Comedy?
5) Students will list and record 5-10 genre conventions (or tropes) and will provide modern day
examples of each.
6) Teacher will introduce the topic of genre.
7) Students and teacher will continue their dialogue on genre. Why do we have genre at all? What
does genre do for the audience? What does genre do for the artist (author, filmmaker, actors,
etc.)?

Post-Reading/ Literacy (~5 minutes)

8) Teacher will ask students to brainstorm their top three favorite genres (either three in the same
medium, i.e. Romantic Comedy, Action, and Horror, or one each from three different mediums, i.e.
country music, suspense films, and satirical poetry).
9) Students will then write a brief journal entry about why they like each of these genres, providing
one example for each genre mentioned, and briefly explaining what each of the genres does for
them as an audience member. This two-to-three paragraph response will be collected at the next
class period.
Materials:

Computer and projector

Internet access (YouTube)
Paper/ pencils for taking notes
Whiteboard and dry erase markers

Evaluation/Assessment:
This lesson will include almost entirely formative, informal assessment. The discussion will
hopefully engage most of the class, but there is some time at the beginning for the teacher to
circulate around the room and pose ideas on an individual level. The written response due the next
day will be slightly more formal; though it is not being graded on correctness, it will still provide
the teacher some idea of how much the students understand the idea of genre.