Genre 7 - Lesson Plan On Owl Creek Bridge 3d1g18

Matthew Koval Multi-Genre Literary Project Genre 7

Genre 7: Lesson Plan on “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

Lesson Title: The Special Relationship between Text and Film Introduction: Lesson Overview

Students will analyze and evaluate choices made by one film director and one author in telling the same story. Students will first watch a short film and then read it. They will view the 1962 short film aired as a Twilight Zone episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and then read the original short story of the same title by Ambrose Bierce.

Content Standard(s) Addressed

ELA Literacy.RL.11-12.5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.

(Common Core)

Measureable Objective Based on Content Standard(s)

Student understanding of the structural and narrative capabilities of text and film

Essential Question(s)

How can film and text escape the space/time constraints of reality in portraying a narrative story?

Prior Knowledge

General understanding of, and exposure to, text and film mediums.

Link to 21st Century Skills

Media literacy: students will analyze both text and film to understand its creative nuances, narrative capabilities, and its effects on viewers.

Assessment/Accommodation: Formative Assessment

Journal reflections

(attach specific instructions and/or examples)

Class discussion

Summative Assessment (attach specific instructions or examples)

Group analysis and presentations

Accommodations

Bobby and Sarah will be given extra attention and will be placed in groups with care and concern for their disabilities. Bobby will be placed in the front row during film viewing to accommodate his vision impairment.

(specific to this lesson and based on specific students)

Lesson Plan Materials

-Printed packet of Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” -Pen, Journal -Glasses for film viewing, if needed

Bell Ringer/Review Activity

5 minutes - Students will reflect in their journals: How is film similar to text? How is it different? Which do you prefer?

Detailed Activities and Procedures (with transitions and time

15 minutes - Class will discuss journal reflections and reference Richard Howell’s Visual Culture for insight on how text and film both escape

allocations)

space/time in their narratives. 30 minutes - Class will view “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” 10 minutes - Class will discuss, in an open forum, thoughts about the movie and how it relates to Howell’s ideas. 25 minutes - Students will, in groups, analyze and evaluate an assigned scene from the film and compare its narrative structure to its specific textual counterpart scene (marked by teacher in the packet; complete story will not be read at this time). Groups will present their findings to the class.

Closure

5 minutes - Students will, in their journals, reflect on a text or film that they think is complex and difficult to explain in a linear fashion and explain how the particular medium used accomplishes or fails to accomplish a successful narrative structure. A complete, comprehensive reading of Bierce’s short story will be assigned as homework to be discussed next class.

References (within this lesson)

Richard Howell’s Visual Culture Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and its film adaptation