Fences by August Wilson

| Pre-Reading Lesson | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | Lesson 3 | Lesson 4 | Lesson 5 | Lesson 6 | Lesson 7 | Lesson 8 | Lesson 9 | Lesson 10 | Enrichment Activity |

Pre-Reading Lesson

Aim: What 's the setting of Fences? What's the significance of such a setting?

Activities:

1. Setting includes :

• place
• time
• mood
• conflicts
• foreshadowing
• historical background

2.   Read the setting (page 1) and the historical background information about the play. Do the following:

• Why is the background info important for reading the play?

3. Do research online and find out what was happening in the US in 1957.

HW. Write a report about what was happening in the US in 1957.

Fences Lesson 1

Aim: Who is Rose and how is she described?

Do Now: Read pages 5-9 Act I, Scene 1

Procedures:

Part I: Answer the questions:

• What does Troy mean to Rose (descriptions on Page 5 of the book)? 

• How does she see him? 

How do Troy & Rose communicate?

• How do they explain they way they met?

• What does this indicate about their marriage?

Part II: Illustrate one of the following topics

• Draw Troy’s family tree

• analyze the symbolism of baseball

1. Three-strike & you’re out

2. Nine Innings( father, Gabe, Lyon'e mother, Lyons, Rose, Cory, Alberta, Raynell, Bono)

3. Steal

  HW#1 In a well-organized paragraph, describe one of Troy’s Stones; and what it tells us about him as Character.

Lesson 2 Fences

Aim: To analyze how we understand Troy through the dialogue

Do NOW: Write a journal entry about -

• ( A story I’ve told more than once…)  Something I wanted to do, but couldn’t…

• How do parents react when you tell them you want to do something they’re never done before?
  
  Procedure:

Answer the questions:
1. How does Troy react? Why does he react in such a way?

• why doesn’t he want to acknowledge that times have change?

• what is Troy afraid of?

A, What does he say about Jackie Robinson?

B, What does this statement tell us about the kind of man Troy is?

C, Why can’t he acknowledge J.R as an outstanding player?

 2.  What kind of baseball player does Troy remember himself as?

A, What does he say about Jackie Robinson?

B, What does this statement tell us about the kind of man Troy is?

C, Why can’t he acknowledge J.R as an outstanding player?  

3.How might Troy’s frustrations hurt the ones he loves? 

HW#2 In a well-organized paragraph explain the problems Troy has relating to people.

Lesson 3 

Aim: To continue to analyze Troy through dialogues

 Answer the following questions:

HW #3 What sort of experiences change us?

  Composition: AN EXPERIENCE THAT CHANGED ME

• Paragraph 1- Before

• Paragraph 2-The experience

• Paragraph 3 - How it changed me/how I learned

Fences Lesson 4

Aim: To analyze Troy’s relationship with Lyons (Read Pages 13-19)

Do Now: In your journal, respond to- 

• "Something I felt, but could not express…"

• "Someone whom I feel distant from…"

Activities:

1. What sort of relationship might take place between an adult and a child whose  parent wasn’t there for him/her when he was growing up?

2. Discuss and Answer the following questions:

  HW #4 Write a paragraph to describe the relationship between Troy and Lyons

  Lesson 5 | Lesson 6 | Lesson 7 | Lesson 8 | Lesson 9 | Lesson 10 | Enrichment Activity |

Day 1 (Monday) Fences Lessons 5

Aim:  To compose our monologues

Do Now: Start your journal with: "  I dislike Mondays -the worst day of the week,  is because_______..."

Activities:

1. Analyze-  What is the purpose of a monologue?( Pg, 13, 14,15)

Forces: Troy’s monologue re: The devil

• How does Troy describe the devil?

• How does Troy really feel about the devil?

• what does he say?

• what does he really mean?

2. Illustrate death in Troy's eyes (make a collage or draw a picture of Death to Troy's point of view).

Create our own monologue about :Aids or Youth or any other topic you to  want talk about (Structure should begin in the present and go back into the past to feel the story experience that changed life)

 HW #5 Complete your monologue

Fences Lesson 6

Aim: To analyze the symbolism of Gabriel in Fences

Do Now: Respond to-"People aren’t always what they seem because…"

Activities

Read Act I, Scene 2-the dialogue between Troy and Rose (Page 21-28) and discuss & answer the questions-

1. What is a fence?

2. What  sort of problems do Troy and Rose have?

3. Why does Rose want Troy to build a fence?

4. What is a fence to Rose?

5. Why doesn’t Troy finish building the fence?

6. What is a fence to Troy?

7. Why doesn’t he want to be kept in?

8. What are some handicaps that people have?

9. How do people overcome their disabilities?

10. How are normal people also handicapped?

11. What is Gabe’s handicap? Pg. 24

12. What is Troy’s?

13. In what ways does Gabe seem severely handicapped?

14. How does Gable seem more aware of things than he appears?

• Troy’s mad

• why he moved out

• wants to be independent

• Saw Troy’s name in the book

• listens to Troy

15. How does Troy react to Gabe?

16. How does Rose defend him?

HW# 6: If Gabe could talk sanely to Troy, what would he say to him in a letter?

Fences Lesson 7

Aim: To analyze Cory's relationship with his parents

 Do Now: Write a journal entry about-

• How do mothers and sons often relate?

• How do fathers and sons often relate?

  Activities:

1.  Define each word and write a sentence:

   • Flabbergasted

   • Circumlocution

   • Facetious

   •  indubious

   • emulate

   • Belligerent

   • dissipate

   • hideous

   • melancholy

   • Quintessential

2. Read Act I, Scene 3 and discuss-

   • How do Cory and Rose relate to each other( Honestly/openness/She’s on his side)

   • Where is Troy coming from?

   • How does he lie to Rose?

   • How do Troy and Cory relate to each other?

     • Yes, sir;

     • TV

     • Baseball: How does Cory shut Troy up?

     • Why doesn’t Troy want Cory to play football?

     • Why might Troy not want Cory to go to college?

   • Why can’t Troy show love for Cory?

   • Why doesn’t Troy want Cory to emulate him?

   • Why can’t Troy face the truth?

   • Do Troy and Cory demonstrate a typical father/son relationship?

   • Are Cory/Rose a typical mother/sons relationship?

   • How does Rose try to protect Cory from Troy?

   • What sort of problems exist between Troy/ Cory and Rose/Cory? How might these problems be solved?

HW#7 Use a poetic form to describe Cory's relationship with Troy and Rose respectively.  

Fences Lesson 8

Aim: To analyze Cory’s relationship with his father

Do Now: Write a journal about " A person I didn’t want to be like…"

Activities

Begin reading Act I Scene 4 and answer the following questions:

• Why doesn't Troy want to listen to Lyons's play?

•  How has Cory been successful? 

• Why doesn’t Troy want to accept Lyon’s money pg. 46?

• What does Troy discover about Cory? Pg.49

• How does Troy describe his father pg.50-53( Selfish, Eleven children/no wife, irresponsible)

• What does Troy reveal about himself? Pg. 54-44(robbery, murder, jail, Rose)

• How is Troy similar to his father? Pg.57

• How do Troy's feelings about his own wife affect his relation with his son?

• Why did he destroy Cory’s chances of playing football?

HW #8 Write a well-organized paragraph describing what Rose might have done if Fences took place in 2003..

 Fences Lesson 9

Aim: To analyze how Troy has built a fence around himself

Do Now: Write a journal about " A time when a friend and I had two different ideas about the same thing..."

Activities:

Continue reading 64-72 and 73-77 and discuss & answer the following questions:

1. What does marriage mean to Troy?

2. What does marriage mean to Rose( having loving and caring for a family; being faithful; Sticking by )

3. Why does Tory become violent?

4. How does Troy react when confronted with the truth?

5. How has Troy shut out all the people who care about him?

6. Why does Rose speak out later?

7. Why doesn’t Troy hit Cory?

  Lesson 10

Aim:

1. To analyze how Troy& Rose’s marriage has deteriorated pgs 70-77 (Setting six months later)

2. To analyze how Troy lives out the rest of his life

Do Now: Write  a journal about "If I could have anything in life, I would want ____because..."

Activities:

1. What has life become at the Maxons? ( not speaking, Troy not coming home after work; Running in & out)

2. How has Troy betrayed Gabe?

3. Read pg.78-79 : What does Troy ask of Rose? How does Rose answer?

4. Read pg 80-90: How has Troy/Bono’s relationship changed? Pg82

5. How does Troy Confront death?

6. Why does he now say he’s going to build a fence?

7. How does Cory come to terms with his father? Pg 90-95 ( Setting: 1945 (8 years later))

8. How has Lyons followed in Tory’s footsteps?

Enrichment Activity: How to write an autobiography?

1. When I think of my life, I remember that…

2. What is an autobiography?

• Why do people write auto?

• What can we learn from someone else’s life?

3. Format:

• 1^st memory-how, when, why, where

• Birth

• 1^st years

• childhood years

• Preteen

• Teen years

• future goals

 4. Timeline

    Format:

  A, At least five pages

1^st men

birth—present

present—birth

B, Cover page

C, Time line

D, Pictures optional