Education Standards
Fences by August Wilson - Characterization, Conflict, and Theme
Overview
This is a project for the play Fences by August Wilson.
Project Instructions
Advanced students should complete multiple fence posts and explain how the characters are connected or disconnected by their own personal fences.
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2.B
Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.
This is a culminating project after reading the play Fences by August Wilson.
Each student will be assigned a character from the play - Troy, Rose, Bono, Gabriel, Corey, or Lyons - to use for the project. For that character, each student will create a fencepost with information and inferences. The fence post must include:
- Character name
- Description (at least 3 sentences)
- physical description
- relationship(s) description
- personality description
- Character Conflict
- in your own words, identify and explain a main conflict for the character in the play
- quote and in-text citation that relates to that conflict
- Theme
- in your own words, explain how the character interacts with literal and/or figurative fences in the play
- quote and in-text citation that relates to that theme
- All writing must be neat and in color
The fence posts will be connected and displayed in the hallway to create a long, literal fence. An example fence post has been attached for Raynell.