Take the Tangent and Run

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Dwellings Around the Globe

In this activity students will explore dwellings across the globe. They will conduct collaborative research on cliff dwellings, igloos, longhouses, and yurts.

›› Full lesson

	Coast-to-Coast B...
	60-30-10
	Turn Off the Tub...
	Tour + Workshop ...
	Tour + Workshop ...

›› Kids Rock

›› Design for the other 90%

›› working on design lesson/

›› Delease Nevels

›› CHAD Design Workshop for

8/2/2007 4:07:36 AM Posted By Carolyn Drake The title refers to a couple of tangents made by Jill Granberry and myself in the conversation more specific to arts and sciences. Jill brought up a concern over (correct me if I get this wrong) incorporating design into her Language Art curriculum with integrity -- in a way that corresponds to the themes and texts that are covered in an English classroom. I'm working on this at the moment; I teach high school English and Art, but this year the bulk of my classes are in English. While it is relatively straightforward to assign a great design project and use writing (creative, critical, and reflective) to link to standards, I want to go a little deeper. Right now I am working on a lesson that relates to Euripides' "Medea." One of the conventions of Greek tragedy is the deus ex machina (god from the machine), which was literally a crane that would lower in one of the "gods" on stage right before the end of the play. The god would then intervene in the actions taking place. Euripides was notorious for using this device in his tragedies as a way of resolving plots that were ensnared or had otherwise run amuk. The contemporary usage is broader, as wikipedia kindly puts it, "The phrase has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more palatable, ending." In "Medea", the sun god descends in a chariot to carry Medea and the bodies of her murdered children (grim, I know) away from Jason and Corinth: a clear example of deus ex machina. My plan is to have my students, after we have finished the play proper, study the history and engineering of chariots, and then in small groups design and build our own small-scale models (presenting the design challenge, of course, as 'design a structure that two dragons can pull that can transport a god, a vengeful woman, and two dead children through the air', not 'design a chariot'. I like this plan for a few reasons -- first and foremost is the explicit connection between the literary device that brings about resolution in the tragedy -- the deus ex machina -- and the physical chariot that embodies that function. Second, there are some excellent and wild interpretations of chariots (glow-in-the-dark-mummy's chariot, anyone?) that I think are very inspiring, and third, that the chariot in Medea is associated with a specific god, so we can discuss the visual power of iconography and symbols. I'd better just write the lesson and post it because this is going on and on. What I hope this conversation provokes is a discussion of other design projects specifically related to literary texts. And, as Jill requested, links to resources with relevant ideas, too.
8/2/2007 6:18:49 PM Posted By Jill Granberry Carolyn, that sounds like a great idea. I love it! You hit the nail on the head identifying what I was looking for. I would love to find more resources to help me with ideas. Thanks so much...let's keep up this conversation!
8/8/2007 10:39:24 AM Posted By Barbara Nikoomanesh Carolyn, I agree, this is a great lesson idea. The glow-in-the-dark-mummy's chariot is an inspiring idea for the young. You could also have them take the theme in to modern time, to design the transport structure. I can't wait to see examples of your student's designs.
8/10/2007 1:11:24 PM Posted By Cynthia Eaton Carolyn--hi! Your tangential thinking is dynamic! The bridge between literature and art is powerful. As individual readers, students (et al) visualize imagery and iconography uniquely in the mind's eye and bring individual meaning to symbols. It is the quantum leap of the film or drama director to make visually concrete and universally recognizable and meaningful: the archetypes, the characters, the plot, and theme of a literary work. It will be a quantum leap for students to go beyond the literary analysis and understanding to a more concrete, visual interp of such a device in tragedy. To suspend disbelief opens the door to "possibility". WOW. Cynthia
8/15/2007 2:23:51 PM Posted By Joyce Perdue Carolyn Great lesson! Just a thought...what about giving the students the choice to rewrite the end of the play therefore opening it up for them to "design a structure that can transprot their god and the other characters in the play they have rewritten". Love to here how the lesson goes!
8/18/2007 8:26:48 PM Posted By Carolyn Drake Thanks for all the positive feedback. I am very excited to begin implementing the lessons I've designed so far -- we teachers start back next week with students coming in the following Tuesday. I've been trying to apply learning by design to another project, as well. I'm leading an inservice on teaching grammar in context for teachers grades 4-12. One of the methods I'm advocating involves using legos color-coded as the parts of speech to physically build sentences. I would love to hear any other ideas you smart teachers out there have used to invigorate this oft-loathed part of language education.

8/2/2007 4:07:36 AM

Posted By Carolyn Drake

The title refers to a couple of tangents made by Jill Granberry and myself in the conversation more specific to arts and sciences. Jill brought up a concern over (correct me if I get this wrong) incorporating design into her Language Art curriculum with integrity -- in a way that corresponds to the themes and texts that are covered in an English classroom. I'm working on this at the moment; I teach high school English and Art, but this year the bulk of my classes are in English. While it is relatively straightforward to assign a great design project and use writing (creative, critical, and reflective) to link to standards, I want to go a little deeper. Right now I am working on a lesson that relates to Euripides' "Medea." One of the conventions of Greek tragedy is the deus ex machina (god from the machine), which was literally a crane that would lower in one of the "gods" on stage right before the end of the play. The god would then intervene in the actions taking place. Euripides was notorious for using this device in his tragedies as a way of resolving plots that were ensnared or had otherwise run amuk. The contemporary usage is broader, as wikipedia kindly puts it, "The phrase has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more palatable, ending." In "Medea", the sun god descends in a chariot to carry Medea and the bodies of her murdered children (grim, I know) away from Jason and Corinth: a clear example of deus ex machina. My plan is to have my students, after we have finished the play proper, study the history and engineering of chariots, and then in small groups design and build our own small-scale models (presenting the design challenge, of course, as 'design a structure that two dragons can pull that can transport a god, a vengeful woman, and two dead children through the air', not 'design a chariot'. I like this plan for a few reasons -- first and foremost is the explicit connection between the literary device that brings about resolution in the tragedy -- the deus ex machina -- and the physical chariot that embodies that function. Second, there are some excellent and wild interpretations of chariots (glow-in-the-dark-mummy's chariot, anyone?) that I think are very inspiring, and third, that the chariot in Medea is associated with a specific god, so we can discuss the visual power of iconography and symbols. I'd better just write the lesson and post it because this is going on and on. What I hope this conversation provokes is a discussion of other design projects specifically related to literary texts. And, as Jill requested, links to resources with relevant ideas, too.

8/2/2007 6:18:49 PM

Posted By Jill Granberry

Carolyn, that sounds like a great idea. I love it! You hit the nail on the head identifying what I was looking for. I would love to find more resources to help me with ideas. Thanks so much...let's keep up this conversation!

8/8/2007 10:39:24 AM

Posted By Barbara Nikoomanesh

Carolyn, I agree, this is a great lesson idea. The glow-in-the-dark-mummy's chariot is an inspiring idea for the young. You could also have them take the theme in to modern time, to design the transport structure. I can't wait to see examples of your student's designs.

8/10/2007 1:11:24 PM

Posted By Cynthia Eaton

Carolyn--hi! Your tangential thinking is dynamic! The bridge between literature and art is powerful. As individual readers, students (et al) visualize imagery and iconography uniquely in the mind's eye and bring individual meaning to symbols. It is the quantum leap of the film or drama director to make visually concrete and universally recognizable and meaningful: the archetypes, the characters, the plot, and theme of a literary work. It will be a quantum leap for students to go beyond the literary analysis and understanding to a more concrete, visual interp of such a device in tragedy. To suspend disbelief opens the door to "possibility". WOW. Cynthia

8/15/2007 2:23:51 PM

Posted By Joyce Perdue

Carolyn Great lesson! Just a thought...what about giving the students the choice to rewrite the end of the play therefore opening it up for them to "design a structure that can transprot their god and the other characters in the play they have rewritten". Love to here how the lesson goes!

8/18/2007 8:26:48 PM

Posted By Carolyn Drake

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I am very excited to begin implementing the lessons I've designed so far -- we teachers start back next week with students coming in the following Tuesday. I've been trying to apply learning by design to another project, as well. I'm leading an inservice on teaching grammar in context for teachers grades 4-12. One of the methods I'm advocating involves using legos color-coded as the parts of speech to physically build sentences. I would love to hear any other ideas you smart teachers out there have used to invigorate this oft-loathed part of language education.

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