Good, Evil and Freewill Choral Reading Assignment
Purpose: This is the first assignment in a series of activities designed to ready you for responding to the synthesis prompt on the AP exam. You will practice drawing quotes from a variety of different sources and organizing them in a unified manner to convey one of the underlying themes of the unit.
Directions: You will choose groups of four to six members. Your group will choose a theme from this unit from the list generated by the class and quotes from the different selections that we read that connect to your chosen theme. Then, you will organize these quotes into a choral reading performance. You must include quotes from at least three different sources. This performance should include movements, variations in vocal tones and selection of speaker for effect (i.e. one person, a pair of voices or the whole group) in order to convey the theme. Your performance may also include costumes or props, but the quotes you choose should be the centerpiece of your performance.
Product: Your group will turn in a script to me similar to the one that accompanies this assignment. In addition, your group will perform the choral reading in front of the class.
Grading: Your group will get one grade for the performance based on the Choral Reading Rubric. All members will receive the same grade, therefore it is up to you as a group to divide up the work and hold each other accountable.
Due Date: All scripts are due on October 17th. All performances are on October 18th.
Sample Script:
When the Laws Are Unjust
Theme: When the laws themselves are unjust we have a responsibility to oppose them so that they will be changed and made fairer.
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Speaker 1: [as if giving a decree] I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust…is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law”(King 222).
All: “The highest respect” (King 222).
Speaker 1: A just law is a manmade code that squares with the moral law or law of God”(King 222)
All: “Just”
Speaker 2: “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law” (King 222).
All: “Unjust”
Speaker 1 and 2: [In strong voices] ‘“An unjust law is no law at all”’ (King 222)
All: “We will never obey them”(Gandhi 220).
Speaker 3: “We will gladly die”(Gandhi 220).
Speaker 2: “We will never comply with your arbitrary laws” (Gandhi 220).
Speaker 1: “I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust…is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law”(King 222).
Speaker 4: Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience”(Thoreau 213)?
All: “Conscience”
Speaker 4: The only obligation I have to assume, is to do at any time what I think is right”(Thoreau 213).
All: “Right”
Speaker 5: “If you make laws to keep us suppressed in a wrongful manner and without taking us into confidence, these laws will merely adorn the statute books”(Gandhi 220).
Speaker 1: “An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating”(King 222).
Speaker 4: “To be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed”(Thoreau 216).
Speaker 3: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others”(King 221)?
All: “An unjust law…is out of harmony with the moral law”(King 222). “We will never obey them”(Gandhi 220).
Speaker 1: “I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust…is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law”(King 222).