DOCUMENT RESUME ED 481 195 CS 510 915 AUTHOR Rooks, Kristen Don Quixote. [Lesson Plan]. TITLE INSTITUTION Discovery Communications, Inc., Bethesda, MD. PUB DATE 2002-00-00 NOTE 11p.; Audio and video clips included in the web site version of this lesson plan are not available from ERIC. AVAILABLE FROM DiscoverySchool.com, Customer Service, P.O. Box 6027, Florence, KY 41022-6448. Tel: 877-889-9950 (Toll Free). For full text: http://school.discovery.com/ teachers/. PUB TYPE Classroom Guides Teacher (052) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Class Activities; English Instruction; Language Arts; Language Usage; Lesson Plans; *Literary Devices; Literature Appreciation; *Metaphors; *Novels; *Poetry; Secondary Education; Vocabulary Development; Writing Assignments ABSTRACT Based on Miguel de Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that Quixote's misperceptions are understandable; writers often describe one object to sound as if it were something else; and metaphors help readers see with new eyes. The main activity of the lesson involves students writing quixotic, or imaginative, descriptions of ordinary objects after reading and discussing highly metaphorical poems. It includes objectives, materials, procedures, adaptations, discussion questions, evaluation methods, extension activities, annotations of suggested readings and web links, vocabulary, and related academic standards and benchmarks addressed in the lesson plan. The lesson plan also contains a description of a video clip related to the lesson, comprehension questions related to the video clip, and answers to those comprehension questions. (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. a. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Duervcom TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES kr) INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) TITLE OF LESSON PLAN: r4 1 Don Quixote 00 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. LENGTH OF LESSON: One class periods 1341inor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. GRADE LEVEL: 9-12 Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. SUBJECT AREA: Literature CREDIT: Kristen Rooks, an earth and life science teacher at Ivey Leaf School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. OBJECTIVES: Students will understand the following: 1. Quixote's misperceptions are understandable. 2. Writers often describe one object to sound as if it were something else. 3. Metaphors help us see with new eyes. MATERIALS: For this lesson, you will need: Copies of poems listed below PROCEDURE: 1. Ask students to defend Quixote's perception that the windmills are an enemy force. That is, ask them to explain what in the appearance of the windmills and in Quixote's self-image causes the error in perception. Explain that because of an illness Quixote's imagination is distorted, but go on to suggest that sometimes even the sanest of people see an everyday object as something else entirely. Often, the people who perceive one object and describe it as something else are poets. In this activity, you will help students write quixotic, or imaginative, descriptions of ordinary objects. Other students will try to figure out what real-world object the writer had in mind. BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 2 2. Share with students a few examples of highly metaphoric poetry. Examples include Emily Dickinson's "I Like to See It Lap the Miles"a train described as a horse Robert Francis's "The Base Stealer"a baseball player described as a tightrope-walker among other things Carl Sandburg's "Fog"fog described as a cat - May Swenson's "Southbound on the Freeway"automobiles described (by a tourist from Orbitville) as living objects Read the poems listed or other poems without telling students the titles, and then lead a discussion of what the poet seems to be describing and what he or she really is describing. You might consider the question of why the poet took this indirect approach to description. 3. Ask students to think (to themselves) of objects that might be seenespecially, by someone (such as the tourist from Orbitville) who has never seen them beforeas something else. Here are some suggestions to stimulate students' thinking: a movie projected on a free-standing screen thought to be a toaster without any bread in it thought to be a lampshade thrown out with the trash thought to be a fire extinguisher thought to be 4. With the prewriting notes that the students have prepared in the preceding step, they should now be ready to draft a metaphoric description of their objects in prose or poetry. 5. Give each student a chance to read his prose or poem to one or more other students in the class. Can the listeners figure out what the reader, below the surface of the prose or poem, is describing? Do the listeners find the description apt and entertaining or obvious and boring? Encourage classmates to give revising and editing advice to one another. ADAPTATIONS: You may want to have students generate short similes rather than extended metaphors, actually using the word like or as and completing frame sentences such as the following: because - The windmills look like The lampshade tossed out with the trash looks like because , DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 1. Discuss how Miguel de Cervantes' life is mirrored in Don Quixote's. 2. Explain how the eight people shown in the introduction refused to abandon their dreams despite popular sentiment that those dreams were unattainable. (Amelia Earhart, Nelson Mandela, women suffragettes, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa) 3. At the end of Cervantes' sequel, the Knight of the White Moon, Sampson Curasco, forces Don Quixote to give up his fantasies "for his own good." Discuss why people like Curasco feel the need to destroy the illusions and dreams of those who do not subscribe to a practical approach to life. EVALUATION: After students have read their revised descriptions to the class, take a vote on which descriptions the students like best. EXTENSION: To Dream the Impossible Dream Don Quixote might be seen as not simply crazy in his refusal to see things as they really are but more like a person who wants to accomplish a greater good and so refuses to compromise his ideals. Examples of such people include Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Ask students to discuss (with examples and other evidence) whether or not they think Quixote deserves to be put in the company of real- world idealists or is merely delusional. Tackling the Issues Ask the class to discuss solutions to an issue that plagues contemporary society at large or just your communityfor example, homelessness, violence, environmental degradation, hunger. Half the class should mention idealistic solutions to the chosen issue; the other half should mention only realistic approaches to solving the problem. See if, in listening to both sides, someone can come up with a proposal that is both realistic and unconventionalan idea that hasn't been tried yet. SUGGESTED READINGS: Miguel de Cervantes Jake Goldberg, New York, Chelsea House Publishers, 1993 Learn about the life and times of this 17th-century Spanish writer. Did you know that this writer was also a soldier, that he was in prison, and that he survived the plague? Don Quixote, Part I Miguel de Cervantes. Translated and adapted by Magda Bogin. Illustrated by Manuel Boix, New York, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1991 Meet Don Quixote, champion of causes and famous in legends and stories, in this beautifully illustrated edition. The illustrations in this classic will make you believe you are riding with this knight and his friend Sancho Panza through the Spanish countryside. Cervantes the writer and the painter of Don Quijote / Helena Percas de Ponseti Helena Percas de Ponseti, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1988 Contains information on the life of Miguel de Cervantes. The Sanctification of Don Quixote: From Hidalgo to Priest Eric Jozef Ziolkowski, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991 Explores issues of Christianity in Don Quixote. WEB LINKS: The Don Quixote Exhibit This site contains two tours through Don Quixote. Each of the 35 stations has text, images, and legends associated with the novel. http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8003/quixote/index.html Cervantes 2001 Project This site contains several electronic editions of Cervantes's work. It also has a digital archive of photographic images on Cervantes's times and works suitable for teaching and research purposes, plus a Spanish index. http://csdl.tamu.edu/cervantes/ Don Quijote de la Mancha This is a fantastic site that presents the works of Cervantes in English and Spanish. The Webmaster has collected a few links on Cervantes and his novel. There are also links to Spanish theater and poetry. http://wso.williams.edu/agonzale/quijote Knighthood, Chivalry and Tournaments Resource Library If your dream is to tilt with knights, this is an excellent resource site. You will find information on armor and arms. http://www.chronique.com/ Discover Spain with Spain Online Discover La Mancha and tour the country as Don Quixote must have traveled it on his faithful steed, Rocinante. http://194.224.61.247/ VOCABULARY: tilt To engage in combat with lances; to joust. Context: It is one of the most enduring, if ridiculous, images in all of literaturea madman tilting at windmills. sally A venture or excursion usually off the beaten path. Context: On his sallies through the landscape of La Mancha, Don Quixote encounters hundreds of characters. knight-errant A knight traveling in search of adventures in which to exhibit military skill, prowess, and generosity. Context: Alonso Quixano steps into his literary world and becomes a knight-errant, just like those in his books of chivalry. quixotic Foolishly impractical, especially in the pursuit of ideals. Context: We have come to describe this type of vaulting ambition as quixoticfull of lofty, yet impractical ideals. coping mechanism A method by which an individual contends with difficulties and attempts to overcome them. Context: Psychiatrists would call Don Quixote's altering of reality his coping mechanism. ACADEMIC STANDARDS: Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: ICilows the defining characteristics of a variety of literary forms and genres. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Recognizes archetypes and symbols across literary texts. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Understands the effects of complex literary devices and techniques on the overall quality of the work. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Understands historical and cultural influences on literary works. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Makes abstract connections between his or her own life and the characters, events, motives, and causes of conflict in texts. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: language arts Standard: Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Relates personal response to the text with that seemingly intended by the author. Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: foreign language Standard: Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of traditional ideas and perspectives, institutions, professions, literary and artistic expressions, and other components of target culture. Benchmarks: Understands age-appropriate expressive forms of the target culture (e.g., literature) and their significance in the wider community. DiscoverySchool.com http://www.discoveryschool.com Copyright 2001 Discovery.com. Teachers may reproduce copies of these materials for classroom use only. (Z) Video Information and Comprehension Questions Video Description The image of Don Quixote tilting at windmills is one of the most enduring in literature. Through this addled protagonist and his pudgy sidekick, Sancho Panza, Cervantes skewers the courtly romances of his day and explores the line between fantasy and reality. Purchase This Video 0 View Lesson Plan View Video Clip Download Comprehension Questions & Answers The Comprehension Questions are available to download as an RTF file. You can save the file to your desktop and open it in a word processing program. mmouervglan.com $4- TITLE OF VIDEO: Don Quixote VIDEO COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS: 1. According to the story, how did Alonso Quixano, Don Quixote's original persona, go mad? 2. What literal and symbolic role does Sancho Panza play in the story? 3. What two events in Miguel de Cervantes' life caused much of his disillusionment and disappointment? 4. How long after the original "Don Quixote de la Mancha" did Cervantes write the sequel? DiscoverySchool.com http://www.discoveryschool.com Copyright 2001 Discovery.com. Teachers may reproduce copies of these materials for classroom use only. See next page for answers. AVAILABLE BEST COPY