Lesson Title:  Superstition and Tom Sawyer

 

By:  Mat Wenzel

 

Burning Question:

How can I facilitate students’ understanding of theme and apply it to their own lives in a way that is meaningful to them?

 

Objective/Introduction:

Students will explore the theme of superstition. They will use writing to learn strategies, inquiry strategies, and process writing to gain a deeper understanding of the theme.

 

Context:

These lessons work as part of the larger context of actually reading the text Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. They are to be used as an introduction, and throughout the reading of the book, as well as a way of assessing their understanding of the theme of superstition in the book.

 

Materials:

·         Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Puffin Classics). London: Puffin Books, 2008.

 

Time Span:

The time span depends on how long it takes to read the book and complete the projects: about 4-5 weeks.

 

Procedures:

Using the Writing Process to Learn About Theme

Theme is often difficult for teachers to define, and so it is often even more unclear to students. Writing is a great way for students to think about their own understanding of theme. The following steps use a mini writing process to create a definition.

·            Prewriting - Your students may be able to start their own definition of theme without any instruction from you at first or you may need to supply a concrete definition right away and have the students paraphrase it, or you may want to supply several different definitions for them to compare and build their own. A great website for viewing definitions from several different sources is: http://www.thefreedictionary.com.

·            Drafting - give students an allotted amount of time to write a definition of theme (1 to 5 minutes)

·            Revising - Set up a procedure for sharing the definitions. This can be as simple as sharing in a small group or as complicated as an inner circle/outer circle procedure. Students should discuss what they like about the other students’ definitions and be encouraged to “steal” words or phrases from other students. You can model this as well by creating your own definition using various dictionaries/sources.

·            Editing/Publishing - Publishing may be as simple as the students reading their definitions in front of the class, or you could create one definition for the class using words and phrases from student definitions. Each student could create his/her own lexicon of literary terms. In this case, you will want to have students carefully edit each other’s definitions for spelling and grammar. You will also need to come up with a common format for the definitions. You could even publish your lexicon online. Here is an example of an online definition:

 

A theme is the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work. John Gardner puts it this way: "By theme here we mean not a message -- a word no good writer likes applied to his work -- but the general subject, as the theme of an evening of debates may be World Wide Inflation."

A work of literature may have more than one theme. Hamlet, for instance, deals with the themes of death, revenge, and action, to name a few. King Lear's themes include justice, reconciliation, madness, and betrayal (Wiehardt).

 

Using Inquiry to Build Background on the Theme of Superstition

·            What do we know about superstitions?

                                i.            A great way to start inquiry on superstitions is to have the students do a quick-write about some superstitions they are familiar with. Common examples are a black cat crossing your path, 13 being an unlucky number, etc. Students should be encouraged to write about superstitions that originate from their cultural background, as superstitions vary from culture to culture. Encourage students to share with a partner and with the class.

                              ii.            You may want to provide a definition of superstition. Here is an example from Wikipedia. (See the resources section for articles on the reliability of Wikipedia.)

 

Superstition [...] is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to beliefs deemed irrational. This leads to some superstitions being called Old Wive's Tales.

 

·            What Do We Want To Know About Superstition?

                             i.            Generate questions to research about superstitions using a team competition,

(1)   Construct groups of four students each.

(2)   Present the four “jobs” for this task

(a)    scribe - writes down the questions the group comes up with (should have good penmanship.)

(b)   time keeper - keeps the group aware of how much time is left (should have a watch or timer)

(c)    tallyer - tallies up the number of questions generated (should be able to count up to 100)

(d)   reporter - reads the questions aloud to the class (should be confident in sharing in front of the class)

               ii.            Give students 30 seconds to decide who will do which task. Ask students to raise their hand if they are scribe, time keeper, etc., to make sure each group has a one of each role.

             iii.            Give students 1-5 minutes (depending on their skill with generating questions/higher order questions) to create a list of questions.

a.       Tallyers tally questions.

b.       Reporters report one question at a time, group by group. Record the questions on the board/poster.

c.       The team with the most questions wins! Extension: The tallyer can be assigned to crossing out questions that have been asked by other groups. The team with the most original questions then wins.

    iv.            These questions then become what the students will research. Possible topics include: What superstitions does a country have? What are some examples of superstitions? Where do superstitions come from? Or they can be focused on one superstition and answer more than one question about that superstition. You may also want to focus the questions on the superstitions that are presented in Tom Sawyer.

 

·                     What Have We Learned About Superstition?

The product of this inquiry will look different in different classrooms.

        i.            It may lead to classroom discussions about why people have superstitions, why Mark Twain chose to use so many superstitions, who decides what is/is not a superstition, what superstitions exist today (urban legends?), what are superstitions based on, etc.

      ii.            Students could prepare a formal report or literary analysis citing their sources in the appropriate format.

    iii.            Students could create a brochure, short story, comic, etc. about a superstition or category of superstitions.

    iv.            Students could create a multi-genre project about a superstition including several genres. (see resources section for a list of possible genres)

 

Extensions

There are many other texts that deal with superstition; the most closely related is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Superstition played a significant role in the Salem witch trials, so connections could be made to this event or texts about the event such as The Crucible by Arthur Miller. These texts are more challenging than The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, so you may want to reserve these extensions for more advanced students.

 

Another extension may be to discuss urban legends. Urban legends are like modern day superstitions. Students may relate more to these legends more than superstitions. A great website that deals with the sources and validity of thousands of urban legends is: http://www.snopes.com. WARNING! snopes.com is intended for adults and many of the urban legends are not appropriate for young adults. The teacher will want to select appropriate legends for his/her classroom.

 

Rationale:

Using writing to learn, inquiry, and writing for publication or assessment will help students more deeply understand themes in literature.

 

Resources:

 

Tom Sawyer Resources 

Superstition Resources

Resources noted in this lesson plan