DAY 8

Aesthetic Lesson Plan:

THEMES, SYMBOLISM, & BLACKOUT POETRY

Teacher Thinking… Students and Teacher doing…

Lesson Plan Element: Creating the Expressive Objective
What am I going to teach Students will identify major themes and symbols from the novel
that is in the curriculum? and find textual evidence to support their significance in the text.
How can students have a
wow experience with the The expressive objective is for students to demonstrate their
content? understanding of the big ideas from the text in the form of a
blackout poem, a form of artistic expression consisting of both
poetry and images.

Designing the Experience from the Inside Out: Connections

Looking at the four types of Intellectual Connection:
connections, in what ways Students will find textual evidence to support major themes and
can we help the students symbols found in the novel. This knowledge will be demonstrated
make meaningful in the theme station activity and on the symbolism chart handout.
connections to the content? Supplementary texts1 will be available for students who want to
read more about themes and symbols when working on their
Intellectual:​ Some students blackout poems.
will connect to the ideas
right away. My task is to Social Connection:
keep them engaged. Students will work together in small groups to complete the
Social:​ Some students will theme station activity and the symbolism chart handout. Students
connect to the content may also brainstorm ideas and converse while completing their
through social interactions. own individual blackout poems.
Sensorial​: Some students
will connect to the content Sensorial Connection:
any or all of their five The students will connect to the content through their sense of
senses. sight and touch. First, movement will be involved as students
Personal:​ Some students must move from station to station for the first activity. They will
will connect to the content also be engaging with sight and touch as they create their
through personal blackout poems which require attention to detail and
connections to time, culture, considerations to be made in terms of supplies to be used.
place, or people.
Personal Connection:
Students will connect to the content through the personal choices
they are able to make in their blackout poems. Not only can they

1
​"Themes and Construction: Fahrenheit 451." ​EXPLORING Novels​, Gale, 2003. ​Student Resources in Context​,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2111500022/SUIC?u=elizhs&xid=4476f7c7. Accessed 8 Jan. 2018. And
excerpt from LitCharts.com.

Building out the Experience by looking at the RISPA Menu
What else can I do to help
students realize the
expressive objective?
Consider risk-taking,
imagination, sensory
experience, perceptivity,
and active engagement
2
Adie (2018)
3
“Staff create opportunities for students to be creative and innovative, and to engage in active learning experiences
that allow them to realize their fullest potential for success as students and as individuals” (Elias, 1997, p.76-7).
4
Dewey (2015)
choose a theme, symbol, character, etc. that interests them, but
they have many options artistically in how they create the poem
on the page. (i.e. use of color, drawings, how they block out the
words they are not using.)2
Risk-taking
Students will be sharing in groups for the first part of class.
Students will be expressing their knowledge in a creative, artistic
way while creating their blackout poems. While this medium may
come easily to some students, others students may struggle with
this method. Additionally, many students lack confidence in their
ability to create poetry or visual art; they will have to take risks
and trust in their abilities to complete this task.
Imagination
The blackout poem assignment leaves much to the imagination.
Students have a variety of topics related to the novel to choose
from to get them started, and then the possibilities are endless in
terms of how they present their chosen topic on the page.3
Sensory Experience
Movement is involved in the theme stations activity.
In the creation of their blackout poems, students will need to
consider the sensory experience they want to create for the
reader/viewer of their poem. What colors will they use? What
images will they include? What sounds, smells, and emotions do
they want to convey? What will they do artistically to create their
overall desired effect?
Perceptivity
Students will need to consider the methods available to them to
communicate the message they want their poem to deliver. (i.e.
color, words arrangement, images, materials, etc.)
Active Engagement
Students will be actively engaged in conversation and
collaboration during the theme station and symbol chart activities.
Students will also be actively engaged when creating their poem
as it is a very creative process requiring focus.4

How will I open the lesson?
(Beginning)
What is the order of
experiences? (Middle)
How will we critique the
students’ experience? (End)
5
​Soares (2011)
Sequencing the Events
Beginning
The class will start with a journal that will get students discussing
the novel as a whole and making connections between our society
and the dystopian world in the novel.5 Students will have just
completed the novel, so getting them to start having conversations
about the novel as a whole will be useful as we then transition
into more closely examining the threads that stretched through the
entire narrative (themes and symbols).
Middle
Next, students will work collaboratively to build their knowledge
about major themes and symbols used in the novel. They will
support their ideas with evidence from the text and then use their
findings to inform their poem creation.
Students will pick a major idea from the text (theme, symbol,
character, location, event, etc.) that stood out to them and
communicate a message about this idea in the form of a blackout
poem.
End
I will be able to assess my students’ understanding of theme and
symbolism by monitoring their conversations as they complete
the stations and charts. I will be able to further assess their
understanding when grading the blackout poems and explanations
they submit.
Critique of the students’ experience will take the form of an exit
ticket in which they respond to the following:
How was your experience creating your blackout poem? What
aspects did you like, and what aspects didn’t you like? Do you
feel like you have a solid grasp of the main ideas (themes,
symbols, characters) in the novel? If not, what would you like
clarification on?
I will read their responses prior to next class session and make
sure to address any confusion or concerns before they begin their
Socratic Seminar preparation.
 Notes:

● Materials needed: ​Journal Prompt Ppt, butcher paper labeled with themes, markers,
Symbolism Chart Handout, Chromebooks, photocopies of pages from ​Fahrenheit 451,​
art supplies (markers, colored pencils, crayons, white out), quote posters
● Time and Space: ​94 min; Desks arranged into five separate table groups for the station
activity.
● Adornments (quotations, photos, sketches, and other interesting inspirations)​: Pages
printed out that have some key quotes from the novel posted around the room for
inspiration:

❖ “It was a pleasure to burn.”

❖ “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this
as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off
across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and
ask for it back.”
❖ “‘We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long
is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something
real?'”
❖ ‘There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a
burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.'”
❖ “‘A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the
weapon.'”
❖ “‘Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel
stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking,
they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that
sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie
things up with. That way lies melancholy.'”
❖ “‘Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid
we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what
books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for
us.'”
❖ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A
time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes, all that.”
❖ “‘Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See
the world. It’s more fantastic that any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no
guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it
would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day,
sleeping its life away. To hell with that,’ he said, ‘shake the tree and knock the great
sloth down on his ass.'”

 
 
 
 
 Logistics/Ops

Materials:​ Journal Prompt Ppt, butcher paper labeled with themes, markers, Symbolism Chart
Handout, Chromebooks, photocopies of pages from ​Fahrenheit 451​, ​art supplies (markers,
colored pencils, crayons, white out), quote posters
Space:​ Desks arranged into five separate table groups for the station activity.

Activity Time Description: What will I do? What will students do?
Review: How can I formatively assess that students met the
learning targets while getting them to capture their thinking?

Journal 10 min Prompt: Now that we have finished the novel, what similarities
do you find between our current society and the dystopian
society Bradbury portrays in ​Fahrenheit 451?​ What aspects of
our current society do you see potentially leading us down this
path?6

Theme Station 25 min -The class will be divided into five groups and the room will be
Activity divided into five stations. At each station, there will be a piece of
butcher paper and markers. In large font in the center of each
piece of butcher paper will read one of the following motifs:

Stations
● Alienation & Loneliness
● Conformity & Individuality
● Change & Transformation
● Censorship
● Reliance on Technology

-Each group will have about 5 minutes at each station to add at

least one quote from the text that illustrates the theme written on
the paper. Students will need to read what previous groups have
contributed to make sure there are no repeats.
-After all the groups have been to every station, all five posters
will be displayed at the front of the room so students can view
them during the Blackout Poem activity.

Symbolism 10 min -Next, in their same groups, students will fill out the “Symbolism
Handout Chart” together for 5 minutes. Many of these symbols will be

6
As teachers, we must understand why students are fascinated with these stories, helping them find ways to think
through the issues they raise. We must help them find answers to questions they keep asking: What can I do to
prevent such a world? How can we survive? How can we remain human?” (Hill, 2012, p. 101).
 familiar to students as they have probably come up in some of
our discussions while reading the novel.
-Then, we will come together as a class for 5 minutes and briefly
go over our charts together to work through any confusion or
discrepancies.
-Students will hold onto their Symbolism Chart as a reference
while they work on the Blackout Poem activity. *This chart will
not be collected, but should be placed in the Notes section of
their binder.

Blackout Poem 40 min -Students will now create blackout poems using photocopied
pages from ​Fahrenheit 451​. A blackout poem is created by
blacking out, whiting out, or covering some of the words on the
page (perhaps with a drawing) and leaving others visible so that
the words that remain create a poem.
-This process is much easier to explain with an example, and I
will provide my students with a number of examples done by
students in the past as well as a couple I have created.
-Students will need to create a poem about one of the following
topics related to ​Fahrenheit 451:​ a theme, a symbol, a character,
a location, an event. If a student has an idea that is not explicitly
listed here, they may seek approval from me.
-Students will also be provided with the grading rubric that lays
out the requirements. They will submit the rubric with an
explanation of the big idea (topic of their poem) and explanation
of the artistic choices they made along with the poem itself.
→ Chromebooks may be used as a tool for brainstorming ideas
and looking up images to model after.

Homework 1 min -Finish filling out Part 3 Annotations Assignment (due Tuesday
at beginning of class)
-Complete Discussion Board #3 (due Monday at 11:59pm)
-Students may take home their blackout poem to finish if they do
not finish in class. It will be due at the beginning of next class
session.

Exit Ticket 5 min How was your experience creating your blackout poem? What
aspects did you like, and what aspects didn’t you like? Do you
feel like you have a solid grasp of the main ideas (themes,
symbols, characters) in the novel? If not, what would you like
clarification on?