Teacher Page
Subject: English
Suggested Year Level: 11
Topic: Oscar Wilde/Composing Creative Responses
Activity:
The students are to compose an internal reflection, from the perspective of Oscar Wilde. The students will work in groups of five, with each student writing a reflection from a different period in Wilde's life. The students will then combine their reflections to form a lifelong journal for Oscar Wilde.
Students are to research Wilde's context through the links provided and through any other sources they can find.
Purpose:
There are two main aims of this activity. The first is that by researching Wilde's context, the students should gain a fuller understanding of Wilde's character. An author's context has a strong influence on their writings. Once students have an understanding of his context, they should be better able to construct a personal first-person reflection.
This activity is also aimed at improving student's diary writing/first-person writing skills. Often when students write diary or journal entries the quality of their writing decreases significantly. Students who normally would write a quality essay, narrative, speech, or any other type of writing, when given a diary entry, will forget all the literary techniques they have learned, and write poorly and colloquially.
Points to consider:
Note that the use of the words 'internal reflections' is intentional. We want the students to consider Wilde's life from his perspective, while remembering that what they write must be to the same standard as any other assignment. Their reflections must still contain proper structuring, and should only have colloquial language where appropriate.
The links to the film Wilde (1997) are given to help the students gain an insight into Wilde's nature. They should see Wilde as being a complex character possessing a variety of feelings and emotions.
Wilde's sexuality could be quite a controversial subject, so the teacher should ensure that students do not become fixated on this aspect of his life. While the subject should be treated with some caution, it is an important part of his character. Students should be encouraged to stay away from stereotypical representations of his nature.
Students should feel free, if they choose, to use some of Wilde's quotes in their reflections.
The task should be completed over a period longer than a single lesson. While discussion does need to occur between students, if you are unable to find class time, students could take the worksheet home to complete, as the webquest is available online. A weekend period or a couple of days could be allowed for the students to do so, alternatively, returning for a class lesson to learn about the example reflection entry and discuss. Students should really be allowed about a week to complete the task of writing the actual entry, with a discussion group meeting two days or so before the hard copy is due. This way the students peer assess each other, and practice literacy and evaluation skills, and may enhance their understanding by teaching each other.
For a greater understanding of the task, see the marking criteria for teachers and for students.
Extension Activities:
To extend the task, you may choose to expand the activities, or integrate it into a larger unit of learning. For example, the students could be asked to perform a written rationale of their own work, discussing why they chose which topic, whether they were satisfied, how they could have improved, how they interpreted Oscar Wilde's voice, as such.
Alternatively, or together with the previous, the students could present their work to the class in an oral presentation, thus giving them an opportunity to expand both their written literacy and spoken literacy skills.
Options for individual study are available. The webquest would be appropriate for beginning a larger unit, perhaps on reading Oscar Wilde's work in an English class, or rewriting and presenting a production piece of one of his plays.