The Scarlet Letter Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students' reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It includes eighteen lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to one main theme of the novel through a group activity. Following the introductory activity, students are given a transition to explain how the activity relates to the book they are about to read. Following the transition, students are given the materials they will be using during the unit. At the end of the lesson, students begin the pre-reading work for the first reading assignment.
The reading assignments are approximately thirty pages each; some are a little shorter while others are a little longer. Students have approximately 15 minutes of pre-reading work to do prior to each reading assignment. This pre-reading work involves reviewing the study questions for the assignment and doing some vocabulary work for 8 to 10 vocabulary words they will encounter in their reading.
The study guide questions are fact-based questions; students can find the answers to these questions right in the text. These questions come in two formats: short answer or multiple choice. The best use of these materials is probably to use the short answer version of the questions as study guides for students (since answers will be more complete), and to use the multiple choice version for occasional quizzes. If your school has the appropriate machinery, it might be a good idea to make transparencies of your answer keys for the overhead projector.
The vocabulary work is intended to enrich students' vocabularies as well as to aid in the students' understanding of the book. Prior to each reading assignment, students will complete a two-part worksheet for approximately 8 to 10 vocabulary words in the upcoming reading assignment. Part I focuses on students' use of general knowledge and contextual clues by giving the sentence in which the word appears in the text. Students are then to write down what they think the words mean based on the words' usage. Part II nails down the definitions of the words by giving students dictionary definitions of the words and having students match the words to the correct definitions based on the words' contextual usage. Students should then have a good understanding of the words when they meet them in the text.
After each reading assignment, students will go back and formulate answers for the study guide questions. Discussion of these questions serves as a review of the most important events and ideas presented in the reading assignments.
After students complete reading the work, there is a vocabulary review lesson which pulls together all of the fragmented vocabulary lists for the reading assignments and gives students a review of all of the words they have studied.
Following the vocabulary review, a lesson is devoted to the extra discussion questions/writing assignments. These questions focus on interpretation, critical analysis and personal response, employing a variety of thinking skills and adding to the students' understanding of the novel.
The group activity which follows the discussion questions has students working in small groups to discuss symbolism in the novel. Using the information they have acquired so far through individual work and class discussions, students get together to further examine the text and to brainstorm ideas relating to the symbols used in the novel. The group activity is followed by a reports and discussion session in which the groups share their ideas about the symbols with the entire class so the entire class can discuss symbolism in The Scarlet Letter based on the nucleus of information brought forth by each of the groups.
There are three writing assignments in this unit, each with the purpose of informing, persuading, or having students express personal opinions. The first assignment is to persuade: students write a letter to Governor Bellingham persuading him to do what they think should be done about Hester and Pearl. The second assignment is to inform: following the reports and discussion, students write a composition in which they explain symbolism in the book, based on the information given in class and the students' own personal reflections. In the third writing assignment, students express their own opinions about what it would be like to be in jail.
In addition, there is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students are required to read a piece of nonfiction related in some way to The Scarlet Letter (articles about prejudice or coming of age, trial transcripts, etc.). After reading their nonfiction pieces, students will fill out a worksheet on which they answer questions regarding facts, interpretation, criticism, and personal opinions. During one class period, students make oral presentations about the nonfiction pieces they have read. This not only exposes all students to a wealth of information, it also gives students the opportunity to practice public speaking.
The review lesson pulls together all of the aspects of the unit. The teacher is given four or five choices of activities or games to use which all serve the same basic function of reviewing all of the information presented in the unit.
The unit test comes in two formats: all multiple choice-matching-true/false or with a mixture of matching, short answer, multiple choice, and composition. As a convenience, two different tests for each format have been included.
There are additional support materials included with this unit. The extra activities packet includes suggestions for an in-class library, crossword and word search puzzles related to the novel, and extra vocabulary worksheets. There is a list of bulletin board ideas which gives the teacher suggestions for bulletin boards to go along with this unit. In addition, there is a list of extra class activities the teacher could choose from to enhance the unit or as a substitution for an exercise the teacher might feel is inappropriate for his/her class. Answer keys immediately follow the reproducible student materials in the unit. Student materials may be reproduced for use in the teacher's classroom without infringement of copyrights. No other part of the unit may be reproduced without the written consent of Teacher's Pet Publications, Inc.
The level of this unit can be varied depending upon the criteria on which the individual assignments are graded, the teacher's expectations of his/her students in class discussions, and the formats chosen for the study guides, quizzes and test. If teachers have other ideas/activities they wish to use, they can usually easily be inserted prior to the review lesson.