Activities for the Crucible: Focusing on Discrimination, History and Law Overview Students will respond to a survey regarding their outlook on man within his society. Students will then read Arthur Miller s drama, The Crucible. Following the reading of the play, students will participate in unit-related activities. Their final assessment is a debate of issues and a writing assignment. Objectives 1. Examine the rights of the individual during times of crisis and conflict within society 2. Compare and contrast the themes of The Crucible to historical events in our nation s history 3. Debate the issue of the rights of the individual versus the protection of the common good of society Grade 10 Course Civics and Economics North Carolina Standard Course of Study Objective 1.01: Describe how geographic diversity influenced economic, social, and political life in colonial North America. Objective 1.07: Evaluate the extent to which the Bill of Rights extended the Constitution. Objective 10.01: Explain the distinction between personal and civic responsibilities and the tensions that may arise between them. Objective 10.02: Develop, defend, and evaluate positions on issues regarding diversity in American life. Objective 10.03: Evaluate the importance of supporting, nurturing, and educating oneself in the United States society. Objective 10.04: Demonstrate characteristics of effective citizenship. Objective 10.05: Describe examples of recurring public problems and issues. Objective 10.06: Discuss the consequences and/or benefits of the freedom of economic, legal, and political choices. Materials Student copies of Arthur Miller s play The Crucible and/or The Crucible video Student Handout #1 Student Survey Student Handout #2 Comparing and Contrasting Events Student Handout #3 Identifying Themes in Law, Literature, and Society Student Handout #4 Responsibility Chart Duration One + block period, depending on how many of the attached activities you choose to do Procedure 1. As a warm-up, project the following quote from Russian writer Leo Tolstoy <theatre is> the strongest pulpit of the modern man more effective that schooling and preaching could ever be (Miller 1983, 27). Tell students that they will be examining societal issues of direct concern to them through a famous drama, The Crucible. Tell students it was written by Arthur Miller and is about the Salem witch hunts of 1692. 2. Distribute copies of the Student Survey, Activity Handout #1. Allow time for completing the survey and debriefing students views. A quick way to assess their views is to have students stand along a line that represents the ideas on the survey spectrum. Far left and far right end points represent the strongly agree and strongly disagree positions while positions inside the end points represent agree and disagree. Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/
3. Read The Crucible or watch the video, afterwards how the themes in the Student Survey are prevalent in the play/movie. 4. Place students in cooperative learning groups to prepare research on one of the following historical events to determine its relationship to issues raised in The Crucible: Red Scare of the 1920 s: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case The McCarthy Era of the 1950 s: Senator Joseph McCarthy s House on Un-American Activities Committee Hearings Japanese American Interment in the 1940 s: Japanese Americans interned in camps in America during World War II Racial Profiling: Should Arab Americans be profiled to provide security in an era of terrorist threats? Activity 1: Have students present their findings to class, filling in the attached Handout # 2 for students to fill in based on the presentations. Activity 2: Using Handout #3, students will identify societal themes as they are revealed through quotations from the script of The Crucible. Activity 3: Students will complete a responsibility chart to determine the role of the individual in conflict situations. Chart responses on Handout #4. Activity 4: Hold a debate on the following topic: Resolved: That the greater good of society ought to supersede the rights of the individual. Activity 5: Students will write a two-page composition in response to John Proctor s words: I speak my own sins: I cannot judge another. Created by New Jersey Center for Civic and Law-Related Education: http://civiced.rutgers.edu/