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Students will consider the different ways that humor can be used by a writer to criticize people, practices, and institutions that he or she thinks are in need of serious reform. Students will read satirists ranging from classical Rome to modern day to examine how wit can be used to make important points about culture.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Students research an aspect of modern life that they would like to lampoon.
- Students read from satirists across history to absorb the style and forms of humor and institutions satirized.
- Students write their own satire, drawing on techniques of famous satirists to criticize their targets.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
- What is satire, and when is it too harsh?
- How can humor and irony make you more persuasive?
- What do you think is funny? How far would you go to satirize it?
- Who gets more reaction—satirists or protestors?
Education Standards
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Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Learning Domain: Reading for Literature
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Learning Domain: Reading for Literature
Standard: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
Learning Domain: Reading for Literature
Standard: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
Learning Domain: Reading for Literature
Standard: 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. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
Learning Domain: Reading for Literature
Standard: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and informal tasks.
Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (See grades 11-12 Language standards 1 and 3 on page 54 for specific expectations.)
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 11-12 on page 55.)
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Draw evidence form literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11-12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Language
Standard: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading for Informational Text
Standard: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading Literature
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading Literature
Standard: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading Literature
Standard: Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading Literature
Standard: 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. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Reading Literature
Standard: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11���12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others�۪ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and informal tasks.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Speaking and Listening
Standard: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (See grades 11-12 Language standards 1 and 3 on page 54 for specific expectations.)
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1���3 above.)
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1���3 up to and including grades 11-12 on page 55.)
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
Maryland College and Career Ready English Language Arts Standards
Grades 11-12Learning Domain: Writing
Standard: Draw evidence form literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: 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. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Cluster: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity.
Standard: By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.
Standard: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
Cluster: Craft and Structure.
Standard: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.
Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.
Standard: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Cluster: Text Types and Purposes.
Standard: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
Cluster: Range of Writing.
Standard: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing.
Standard: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing.
Standard: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 11-12 on page 55.)
Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing.
Standard: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.
Standard: Draw evidence form literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Cluster: Comprehension and Collaboration.
Standard: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Cluster: Comprehension and Collaboration.
Standard: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Cluster: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.
Standard: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and informal tasks.
Cluster: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.
Standard: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (See grades 11-12 Language standards 1 and 3 on page 54 for specific expectations.)
Cluster: Conventions of Standard English.
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
Cluster: Conventions of Standard English.
Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
Cluster: Knowledge of Language.
Standard: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
Cluster: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.
Standard: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
Cluster: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.
Standard: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
“Once Upon a Time” Annotation
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“The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse” Annotation
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Gulliver’s Travels Annotation
File size 231.5 KB
“Satire XIV: Bad Parenting” From The Satires Annotation
File size 411.1 KB
“Poverty’s Poster Child” Annotation
File size 507.9 KB
“A Modest Proposal” Annotation
File size 391.3 KB
- Roots of Satire
Lesson 1
Defining SatireLesson 4
Referencing EventsLesson 5
Juvenalian SatireLesson 8
Determining The Satirical NatureLesson 9
Juvenalian or Horatian approachLesson 10
Creating A Response From An AudienceLesson 11
A Modest ProposalLesson 12
Studying Swift's EssayLesson 13
Grammatical Principles
- Common Targets of Satire
Lesson 15
Centuries Of Satirical StrategiesLesson 16
An Age-Old Target Of SatireLesson 17
Presentation PreparationLesson 18
Classroom PresentationsLesson 19
A Popular Way To Voice CriticismLesson 20
Experts On Political SatireLesson 21
Group Feedback
- Voices of Satire
Lesson 22
Creating Satirical VideosLesson 23
Contemporary SatiristsLesson 24
Satirical Video PlotlinesLesson 25
Storyboards (Peer Reviews)Lesson 26
Finalizing The Satirical VideosLesson 27
Final DiscussionLesson 28
Video Assessment