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Dieder Bylsma

Twelve Angry Men and Media Literacy

Rationale

The Ministry of Education specifies that senior level English (Grade 11 and 12) aims to provide “a framework for students to experience language in its full range of contexts and purposes”. Within this incredibly broad objective, there are a number of areas that will be built-upon based on what is seen through the lens of the play “Twelve Angry Men”.


The play offers a wide variety of opportunities to achieve these objectives, some of which can be leveraged into talking about media literacy at a later point in the unit. Given the opportunity for interpretation, a series of 12 packed lesson plans are presented as a basis from which to work in creating a more detailed set of lesson plans. Some possibilities for student and class activities that can be included in lesson activities are:

  • reading aloud
  • reading on their own
  • conducting critical analysis of the evidence under consideration
  • considering the emotions and involvement of the characters involved
  • consideration of any contemporary corollaries
  • dramatizing a scene from the play
  • determining how it could be staged in-situ or in the school auditorium for a
  • single-class period. (logistics, locations, actors, sets)
  • rewriting a scene as a creative writing assignment in alternate formats such as:
  • prose
  • poetry
  • visual
  • critiquing a pre-existing production of the play (1957 B&W Film Twelve Angry Men) how faithful it is to the screenplay, how it compares to the students’ efforts.
  • application of critical thinking and analysis to media literacy and its effect on viewers/readers