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The Woman Artist: Cather's Thea and Chopin's Edna
By Suzi Donnelly Overview This lesson plan will lead students to do a comparison of
how various aspects of becoming an artist is played out for women characters around the turn of the century. The two novels being used are The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather and The Awakening
by Kate Chopin. This lesson plan involves "into, through and beyond" activities. It will take students from the skills of reflection of their own opinion, to close textual reading, to accessing higher order thinking skills through the development of a research presentation.
Thematically these two pieces of literature are mature and difficult. They are appropriate for seniors or juniors in advanced placement or honors classes. The two pieces of literature lend themselves well to an
American literature course, since, besides their literary value, they paint a historical picture of geographical locations and time periods in America's history. Objectives Students will:
- Compare the characters of Edna and Thea, as emerging artists drawing similarities and differences between the characters, and between real life artists
- Analyze the motivations behind the characters' actions
- Communicate hypotheses through writing an essay and oral presentation
- Practice working in the group process
- Assess what they have learned from this comparative process
Skills Attained
- Close textual reading
- Group collaboration
- Summarizing story
- Brainstorming techniques
- Participation in the writing proces
- Developing research topics
- Oral presentation skills
- Note taking
- Listening skills
- Sense of self-assessment
Lesson Outline These two novels revolve around the struggles of two female characters to
become artists in time periods that do not look favorable on women entering non-traditional careers, let alone the art field. Both womenhave to make sacrifices in the areas of love, marriage, and children, in order
to fulfill their deeper desires to become artists. For Thea, the pioneer spirit and upbringing in Colorado give her the strength and tenacity to succeed in the music world. Unlike Thea, Edna is living in the more
traditional, claustrophobic society of New Orleans. The constant conflict between her desires to paint and the expectations of her family and husband's position that are foisted upon her, cause a painful and tragic
journey for this character. I. Into Activity – Quickwrite This lesson begins as an "into" activity while the students are reading the novels. Before the students read the novels have the students
do a quickwrite: What are the difficulties of being an artist? Does being a woman make being an artist more difficult? Using groups or the whole class have a discussion around what the students have written.
II. Through Activity – Guided and Independent Practice Give students a "quotation log" (see below) to be kept while reading the novels, The Song of The Lark and The Awakening. Students can
read the novels one after another or at different times in the year and just hold the quotation logs until both books have been read. Have students record text or quotations that refer to being an artist. Ask students
to look for any references that deal with:
- The struggle to become an artist
- Difficulty for a woman during that period of history to become an artist
- Society's view or restrictions on female artists
- Or, any other dilemmas or crisis that the characters experienced dealing with their creative selves on their life journeys.
III. Beyond Activities – Drawing Conclusions and Sharing
- Upon completion of the novels have the students get into small groups for discussion. Ask half of the class to share their quotations for The Song of the Lark
and the other half of the class to share their quotations from The Awakening.
- After their discussions, ask each group to write a brief summary (based on text) synthesizing the author's perspective of being a woman artist as experienced through the characters they created. Below are the
prompts for this assignment:
- The Song of the Lark; Summarize in one to two paragraphs your group's conclusions about Thea Kronborg's experiences as an artist.
- The Awakening: Summarize in one to two paragraphs your group's conclusions about Edna Pontellier's experiences as an artist.
- After this step is over have students use a jigsaw to form new groups made up of participants that have discussed both novels. Have the students share their summaries with this group.
- Each student then should complete their sheets making sure they have summaries for both novels. They can then use this material to write a compare and contrast essay on the similarities and differences between
the two characters and the author's opinions.
- As a class, have the students brainstorm and chart some of the more salient points about being an artist for both of these characters. They are to come up with a common list of these two authors' ideas about the
difficulties of a woman entering the art world.
IV. Way Beyond – Connecting to the Characters to Real Life The next part of the assessment is a research project. Put the class back into groups and assign each group a woman artist from the following list:
Georgia O'Keefe, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassat, the Bronte Sisters, and any others. Have the class go to the school library to research and prepare a group oral presentation on
the artist. Presentation should be at least 5 minutes long and include the following:
- Short bio on the artist
- Comparison between the life, struggles and work of that artist with the characters in the novels
- Some kind of visual (e.g., poster, a skit, a video, an overhead, a multi-media presentation) to explain what they discovered and showing the comparison
- Brief written report on their findings and what they are presenting orally to the class
Assessment Teachers should develop their own rubrics for the essays, but students should
have to hand in all the pre-writing templates to show the process that they went through to develop their essay. On the oral reports, have some kind of rating sheet for the audience and teacher to use. When students are
first introduced to the research project ask the class to brainstorm: "What makes a good oral report?" These items can then be charted and displayed in the class all during the time the students are working on
the reports. A rating sheet for the students can also be developed from this chart. After all the reports are finished student groups should reconvene to fill out the evaluation template (see template) about their
research report. Suzi Donnelly is a vice principal and former English teacher at Montebello High School in California.
Quotation Log
Every time you read log in your quotes on this sheet. Remember that you are looking for quotes that show the struggle to become an artist, the difficulties of women artists during that period of
history, how society looked or put restrictions on female artists, or any other dilemmas or crises that characters experienced dealing with their creative selves.Try to collect at least one quote every time you read.
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Group Assessment Template Group Members:
Subject of Report: Please discuss the questions 1-6 as a group and write out one answer. Please answer question 7 individually. 1. What do you feel were the strengths of your presentation?
2. On what areas of your presentation could you have improved? How? 3. Describe the process your group went through to create this project.
4. How well did your group function as a team? Explain. 5. What grade does you group deserve on this project? Justify your grade.
6. In your collective opinion, who was the hardest working member of the group? How did this individual shine above the other members?
7. Answer individually: What kind of group member were you? What strengths did you bring to the group? How could you have been a better group member? |
