Lesson Plan: This Place
Subject/Course: English Language Arts/ Creative Writing
Topic: Narrative Writing: Place As a Character
Grade Level: Upper-level high school (adapted for 9-12)
Common Core Standards:
Reading: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
Writing: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Episode: “This Place” (Season 3) Full audio | Transcript
Lesson Length/Time Needed: The activities are designed to fill a 90-minute block with at-home work time but can be extended to multiple class periods, along with an in-class Writer’s Workshop.
Lesson Created by: M. King
Lesson Objectives
Identify narrative techniques that magnify a story’s setting/place.
Evaluate an author’s diction and its impact on their desired tone and mood.
Assess how an author appeals to their intended audience.
Analyze how an author uses diction to provide characterization.
Produce writing in which the setting/place requires sophisticated techniques.
Discipline-specific vocabulary is bolded throughout the lesson for further reference to learning objectives.
Materials Needed
Audio
Notebook paper & writing supplies
Internet access
Charting paper for partner/group work (optional)
Refer to the lesson scripting below for audio timestamps.
Activities
Intro (10-15 min.): Provide students with a blank sheet of printer paper or notebook paper. If students use a Writer’s Notebook, have them open to a new page. Listen to the opening minutes (00:00:01-00:10:03) as a class and ask students to draw/sketch what they hear as they are taken on a tour of San Quentin. Students should pay special attention to sensory details that help listeners like them visualize “the inside.” Guide students’ thinking with the following audio cues:
Pause @ 00:01:50
Discussion Questions: Real or imaginary? Is this actually a dungeon? Why begin with this often referred-to imagined place (of the past) — a dungeon? An image we only get in fairytales?
Resume @ 00:04:38
Students will continue to draw in the details but also ask them to include words and phrases that stand out as part of their visual.
Pause @ 00:07:51
Show the episode’s photographs and ask students to compare the photographs with their visual creations. Discussion Questions: Do you see “the place” in these images or do you see “people” in the foreground? How is this different than what we listened to (in the photos, the place is in the background)? Does the place seem like a character of its own when we listen to our tour? How does your visual compare to these photographs? What’s similar? What’s different? How has the episode’s diction impacted your perception? Before returning to the podcast, ask students to also consider the title of each photo. End with the photograph “Death by Stabbing 2.9.65” which is discussed in the following audio segment.
Resume @ 00:07:51
Pause @ 00:10:03
After students complete their drawings, begin a Think-Pair-Share. Ask the students to discuss what details bring San Quentin TO LIFE; what makes this a REAL place?
Through (30-35 min.): Provide students with the episode’s transcript (to guide students, highlight or circle the excerpts that correlate to their listening). In small groups, ask them to create a word web for The Dungeon using only the diction provided in the transcript. As an acceleration activity, ask students to label the rhetorical technique being used in each of the phrases they include on the web.
The student-created word webs are evidence of how writers use diction to provide characterization. The most evident and basic techniques from the transcript include metaphor, simile, and sensory detail (lessons on how to identify and use such techniques would provide worthy scaffolding for students of all levels).
If time allows, return to the podcast for the final stops on the tour (these excerpts are included on the transcript handout):
Resume @ 00:14:52
Pause @ 00:17:22
Resume @ 00:20:38
End @ 00:22:02
Provide students with Tara Betts’ “Long Division.” If desired, use Betts’ text with a Think-Pair-Share. Have students specifically note the similarities in diction between the Ear Hustle transcripts and Betts’ piece. Discussion Questions: Which characteristics of each place are profoundly negative? How do the individuals in the texts interact with the “main character,” aka the place? Which words or phrases have strong connotative meanings and how does this impact the tone of each text? Based on the word choice in each text, how are readers/listeners meant to FEEL about these places (the author’s intended mood)?
Continue discussing and prompt students to consider the intended audience in each text (the following questions are a wonderful “primer” for the Personal Writing Prompt). Discussion Questions: Ear Hustle hoped to give us, outsiders, a tour of the place; does Betts do the same thing or does her intended audience seem to be insiders? How would the diction of each text change if the audience were to differ? What does it mean to name yourself IN or OUT of a place? What does it mean to characterize a place from the inside knowing that it has been named/categorized/ stigmatized from the outside? How is this true of places like prisons?
Beyond (in-class/at-home work time may vary): Transition to “Ignite-to-Write” (an activity that moves students from analysis work to writing practice). To begin the brainstorming process, provide students with images that represent a distinct time and place in reference to recent or current events that are high-interest to students (ie. a hospital room during the Covid pandemic). Ask students to write a list of words and phrases that characterize the place shown in the images. The images can be paired with news reports in which students identify words/phrases from the article that correlate with the place in the image.
If more brainstorming or further scaffolding is needed, refer to the Creative Writing “Stepping Stones” in References/Additional Resources.
Then, provide students with the personal writing prompt below. Any pre-writing or drafting strategies that seem fitting can accompany students’ initial exposure to the prompt (eg, Deep Mapping).
Personal Writing Prompt: What is it that complicates our RELATIONSHIP with certain places? Consider a place that poses as a character in your life’s story (ie, your childhood bedroom, a local park, a relative’s house). Produce writing for a REAL audience of insiders or outsiders that brings the place TO LIFE. Make use of strong diction and other writing techniques that support your intended tone and mood. Think of this as a “geo-autobiography”!
The Personal Writing Prompt poses as a formative or summative assessment. Under the teacher’s guidance, students can be provided with guidelines and/or a rubric.
Additional Resources
“Long Division” by Tara Betts
How many decades of calendars reveal what is starkly plantation? How wide the green fields are within the walls. Floors polished spotless as walls sag with layers of paint older than me. It is endless counting for the regimented lines to meals, walks within gated yards for men on crutches, infinite uniforms to wash, dawns and nights, but time hangs, looms for acts committed so quickly (or not). Time lassoes anchors to their necks - most of those necks are dark inheritors of knotted rope legacies. Moments in a classroom with a broken window remind me of younger students, but they are men, men who are fathers and uncles, in a place where books are minted as rare capital. They think. I am sitting at a table full of black and brown men in a classroom which never happens outside these walls. The wrongness of prisons and schools collide. The grand execution of an intentional mistake, and intentional means a deliberate act, not an accident. An accident is not orderly rows or an easy rhythm to follow. Recovering from accidents is easier. The frittering away of lives behind concrete and bars punches into registers, rings incessantly — calculated yet incalculable.
Tara Betts’ “Long Division” is from The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Towards Freedom (2018).
Creative Writing “Stepping Stones” (to be used prior to or with the personal writing prompt):
Write from IN THE WELL (00:04:38-00:07:51); the dungeon is your only companion! Personify the dungeon — is it a friend or foe? How does your relationship with one another evolve over time?
Choose a different image than the one Mesro uses to tell his story (00:10:03-00:12:21). Then, ask yourself Nigel’s question: Can you tell a story based on looking at this image? Access your own memories and write! Still need more inspiration? Check out Bonaru's (00:22:02-00:24:06), Norman Willhoite's (00:25:31-00:25:58), and Gregg Sayers' (00:27:14-00:28:33) stories of inspiration from the other photographs.
Content Warnings
00:02:06: shit
00:06:33: reference to violence and torture
00:10:07: reference to extreme violence
00:14:59: reference to execution