Students will learn language art skills through the medium of performance. We will watch, listen to, read, and discuss important plays, movies, poetry, speeches, paintings, and songs. The students will understand the power of the arts as we focus on the ideas they bring to our culture today. Basic logic and faulty thinking will be touched on, but the emphasis will be on arguing a viewpoint based on the evidence found in the material.

We will cover vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension while promoting active reading and listening. One goal of this class is to understand that literature is more than big, old, stuffy books. It is a powerful tool to create empathy, understanding, and possibly even change.

Language arts through performance will provide the stimulus for critical thinking, argumentation, as well as analysis of methods of writing. We will focus on the six traits of exceptional writing (ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, mechanics) as we uncover the secrets found within the material.

All language arts skills will be challenged and enhanced through classroom discussions.

I have formulated a list below that I will pull from. It is not a race to go through the material, but rather a deep dive. We may not complete the list, but we will get a sampling of some of the most powerful performance art—or to flip it a little, how works perform on us!

Average hours for homework: 2-4 hours a week

Required: Selected readings from the list below; short writing assignments; and one presentation per semester by each student highlighting something that we have discussed during the semester.

We will pull material from the following plays, movies, poetry, speeches, paintings, and songs – REMEMBER, this is not a race to get through all the material. We will deep dive into excerpts to teach analysis skills: 

1. Greek myths: Icarus, King Midas, Echo and Narcissus, Orpheus and Eurydice, The Three Sisters of Fate, The Abduction of Persephone by Hades, Pandora’s Box, and Prometheus and the Theft of Fire

2. A Golden Thread painting by John Melhuish Strudwick

3. The Kiss (1907-1908) painting by Gustav Klimt

4. The Goddess of Spring 1930s Walt Disney Production

5. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

6. Songs from Hades Town

7. Selected readings of the KJV of the Bible

8. Hans Holbein the Younger’s 1533 painting The Ambassadors

9. Excerpts from The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, The Tempest, and Othello by Shakespeare

10. Movie of Hamlet 

11. Excerpts from The Lion King by Disney

12. Miranda – The Tempest (1916) painting by John William Waterhouse

13. Selected songs from Six

14. Selected readings from Edgar Allan Poe

15. The Starry Night (1889) painting by Vincent van Gogh

16. “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

17. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1819) painting by Caspar David Friedrich

18. “A Report to An Academy” by Franz Kafka

19. “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

20. “The Lady and the Toy Dog” by Anton Chekhov

21. Quicksand by Nella Larsen

22. “I Have a Dream” and related speeches

23. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

24. Impression, Sunrise (1874) painting by Claude Monet

25. The Wizard of Oz – excerpts from the novel written by L. Frank Baum

26. The Wizard of Oz – excerpts from the 1939 film

27. Wicked – excerpts from the musical by Stephen Schwartz (which is from a book by Gregory Maguire)

28. “Take a Train” song by Billy Strayhorn

29. “Strange Fruit” song by Billie Holiday

30. “Savoy Blues” song by Louis Armstrong

31. Selected speeches from Martin Luther King, Jr.; Winston Churchill; William Wilberforce, Jesus (“The Sermon on the Mount”); Chief Joseph

32. Selected poetry by Emily Dickinson

33. Selected poetry by Walt Whitman including “O Captain! My Captain!”

34. Selected poetry by Native Americans

35. Selected poetry from the Harlem Renaissance

36. “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry

37. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

38. “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick

39. The Minority Report – movie directed by Steven Spielberg (PG-13)

40. “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier

41. The Birds – movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock