Sanity & Madness in A Streetcar Named Desire & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Students engage in comparative textual analysis, exploring the concepts of sanity, truth, and power, through their reading of two iconic plays by Tennessee Williams and August Wilson.

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ELA

Unit 10

10th Grade

This unit has been archived. To view our updated curriculum, visit our 10th Grade English course.

Unit Summary


Sanity & Madness in A Streetcar Named Desire & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom has been archived. You are welcome to use the resources here, but there are limited Fishtank Plus features offered within this unit. If you’d like to implement one of our complete Fishtank Plus units, including all in-lesson and unit-specific Plus features, check out 10th Grade ELA.

In Unit 5, students will examine the concept of madness and sanity and their relationship to reality and fantasy while also exploring the price of conformity and nonconformity. During this unit, students will dissect Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, engaging in a comparative analysis of the two plays and how they approach the concept of madness and sanity and use conflict and plot to develop themes and characters in their plays.

This unit starts with a close reading/watching  of Catron’s TED Talk "A better way to talk about love" and provides students the opportunity to begin to unpack the idea of madness while also examining how an author uses evidence and claims to develop an argument. In the remainder of the first arc of the unit, students read a variety of supplemental texts to further explore madness and its relation to sanity. Texts include "Much Madness is divinest Sense" by Emily Dickinson, "Landlady" by P.K. Page, and "Gaslight Stories: The Madwoman in the Attic" by Sarah Wise. At the end of Arc 1, students will engage in a Socratic seminar and write an insight piece, putting various authors and texts into conversation with each other and reaching a new conclusion.

The second and third arcs of the unit contain a study of A Streetcar Named Desire, a play about the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who leaves her privileged background to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law, Stanley, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a play about blues singer Ma Rainey and her experiences recording in a music studio in Chicago in 1927. While reading these plays, students will track each character’s desires including how they pursue them and ultimately how their desires impact their overall development. Additionally, both texts are ripe with tension, and thus students will analyze the conflicts in each and how both playwrights use conflict to deliberately propel the action in a play and convey complex ideas. 

In the fourth and final arc of the unit, students will prepare for the unit performance task which asks students to craft a review of either the 2020 film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom or the 1951 film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire

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Texts and Materials


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Core Materials

Supporting Materials

Assessment


These assessments accompany Unit 10 and should be given on the days suggested in the Lesson Map. Additionally, there are formative and creative assessments integrated into the unit to prepare students for the Performance Task.

Free Response Question

The Free Response Question is an open-ended prompt that assesses students ability to analyze and interpret a given text or literary work, apply critical thinking skills, and construct well-supported arguments. Free Response Questions can be on-demand timed writing or take-home assignments, depending on the needs of students.

Performance Task

The Performance Task is the culminating assessment of the unit in which students have the opportunity to show the skills and content they have learned.

Unit Prep


Essential Questions

Thematic

  • What does it mean to be sane? What does it mean to be mad? 
  • To what extent is sanity synonymous with reality? To what extent is madness synonymous with fantasy? 
  • What is the price of conformity? What is the price of rebelling and pursuing one’s desires and needs? How does one’s decision to conform or rebel impact the way they are perceived by others?

Skills

  • How do authors use conflict and tension to develop plot, characters, and overall meaning in plays? OR What impact does tension and conflict have on the development of plot, characters, and overall meaning in plays?

Themes

In order to successfully teach this unit, you must be intellectually prepared at the highest level, which means reading and analyzing all unit texts before launching the unit and understanding the major themes the authors communicate through their texts. By the time your students finish reading this text, they should be able to articulate and explain the major themes the authors communicate through their texts related to the following thematic topics as they uncover them organically through reading, writing, and discourse. While there is no one correct thematic statement for each major topic discussed in the unit texts, there are accurate (evidence-based) and inaccurate (non-evidence-based) interpretations of what the authors are arguing. Below are some exemplar thematic statements.

  • Reality and Fantasy
    • We hide from reality because it is often easier to live in a fantasy world than to confront the truth of the present. While fantasy helps people trying to cope with reality by often giving them something more positive to look forward to, it harms people trying to cope with reality by taking their focus completely away from what is real. In other words, fantasy masks reality. Some people have the ability to break down the masks while others become unable to separate what is real from what is fantasy. 
  • Consequences of Pursuing Desire
    •  Some consequences of pursuing overwhelming desire include a loss of self-respect as well as respect from others. Pursuing overwhelming desire (our wants and needs) can be powerful and even destructive forces in life’s journey.

Vocabulary

Text-based

callousdestitutedivestedeffeminategallantryhighbrowimageryincongruousprodigiouslyraffishreprovingreverberatedsinisterspectraltransitoryvivacity

Literary Terms

ambiguityarchetypedictionmonologuemotifsettingsymbolismsyntax

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 10 , view our 10th Grade Vocabulary Glossary.

Lesson Map


Common Core Standards


Core Standards

RI.9-10.1
RI.9-10.3
RL.9-10.1
RL.9-10.2
RL.9-10.3
RL.9-10.4
RL.9-10.5
SL.9-10.1
W.9-10.2
W.9-10.3
W.9-10.4
W.9-10.9

Supporting Standards

RI.9-10.1
RI.9-10.2
RL.9-10.1
RL.9-10.2
RL.9-10.3
RL.9-10.4
SL.9-10.1
W.9-10.1
W.9-10.2
W.9-10.10

Pre-AP English Standards


Core Standards

LO 1.2A
LO 1.3A
LO 1.3B
LO 1.4B
LO 2.2A
LO 2.2B
LO 2.2C
LO 2.2E
LO 2.3A
LO 2.3B
LO 2.3C
LO 2.3D
LO 2.4A
LO 2.4B
LO 2.4C
LO 3.3A
LO 4.1B
LO 5.1A
LO 5.1B

Supporting Standards

LO 1.3A
LO 1.3B
LO 2.2A
LO 2.3A
LO 2.3B
LO 2.3C
LO 2.3D
LO 5.1A
LO 5.1B

Next

Analyze how Catron develops her argument about love and madness using logical reasoning and supporting evidence.

Lesson 1
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