August: Osage County Lesson Plan

Understanding Tragicomedy: The Dinner Scene

Kind of Activity:

Mixed Media

Objective:

Students will study the tragicomedy genre and explore how it appears in different adaptations of the play.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.4

Structure:

Begin the activity by having students revisit the dinner scene. Ask them to call out any moments in the scene that struck them as sad, and any moments that struck them as humorous. Next, have them read the a definition of tragicomedy from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Ask whether they think the play could be classified as a tragicomedy, and why or why not. For...