Satire


 * Overview: **
 * Students gain understanding of the early Enlightenment and its conception of reason. They see another side of the thought and literature of this period: an emphasis on human emotion, irrationality, and paradox. They consider how certain works express tension or conflict between emotion and reason while others present reason and emotion as complementary and interdependent. They will write a critical essay exploring an aspect of the conflict between reason and emotion. Or teachers might choose to culminate the unit with a research paper that answers the essential question.
 * Focus Standards: **
 * **RL.11-12.1: ** 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.
 * **RL.11-12.7: ** Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)
 * **RI.11-12.3: ** 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.
 * **RI.11-12.4: ** 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//).
 * **RI.11-12.6: ** 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.
 * **W.11-12.4: ** 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.)
 * **W.11-12.5: **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> 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 54.)
 * **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">SL.11-12.2: **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.
 * **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">L.11-12.1(a-b): **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Don Quixote A Modest Proposal Gulliver’s Travels
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Suggested Student Objectives: **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Read literary and philosophical works from the seventeenth century, with particular attention to questions of reason and emotion.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Consider the idea of reading literature as a quest—for truth, for beauty, and for understanding.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Analyze two philosophical works for their treatment of an idea related to the human condition.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Write literary and philosophical analyses with a focus on clarity and precision of expression.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Conduct research, online and in libraries, on a particular idea in order to write their own satire.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Analyze the relationship between reason and emotion as illustrated in literature.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Understand the use of humor as a device of protest.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Understand the use of satire as a technique to reveal authorial intent.
 * Literary Texts**


 * Informational Texts**

“Rape of the Lock” Pope “The World is a Beautiful Place” Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 * Poem**

Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail (great paired with Don Quixote) The Onion The Daily Show Saturday Night Live Man of La Mancha Political cartoons
 * Media**


 * Tasks:**


 * Students will read short satirical articles and identify the author’s purpose.
 * Research an issue of the student’s choice to write a satire on a contemporary issue.
 * Create a brief satirical newscast based on research garnered on a contemporary issue.
 * Write a literary analysis addressing the techniques of the author to create satire.
 * View political cartoons (and others) and identify the satirical purpose.