THE
BEAT GENERATION
The purpose of this Unit is to
suggest teachers a possible way of dealing with the subject "Beat
Generation literature", supplying a general outline of the literary and
historical period and a survey of the main authors, as well as the most important
information about the texts chosen for the analysis.
UNIT PLAN
Beat
Generation literature : an analysis of two crucial
texts
- Jack
Kerouac's "On the Road"- excerpt from Part Two - Chapter Six
-
Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California"
Pre-requisites:
learners are supposed to have a smattering
of American Literature ( the knowledge of authors such as Whitman,
Thoreau,
H.James, Hemingway, just to name a few of the greatest, will be taken
for
granted ), as well as a slight knowledge of the social and historical
situation
in the U.S. before and after World War II.
Objectives:
by the end of
the Unit learners will be able to recognize a Beat Generation text and
to
contextualize it in the broader US literary tradition of the 20th
century and,
more precisely, they will show an awareness of Beat Generation authors'
stylistic innovations and recurrent themes.Furthermore, the class will acquire new
vocabulary and will be facilitated in developing personal emotional
responses
to the texts.
Materials:
-a cd with "bebop" music by jazz musicians like
Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespy, Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Billy
Holiday
-copies of the texts
-pictures of Beat authors (taken from the Internet or books)
-copies of written exercises to be used for the analysis
Level:
upper-intermediateDuration: 5 hours of 60 minutes
(two hours
for a socio-historical introduction of the period and authors, two hours for the analysis of the first text and
one hour for the second text)
procedures
Procedures: preliminary
presentation of
context, subject and authors by the teacher; interactive lessons:
individual
and pair work, listening and reading activities, plenary work, open
discussions
and checking of the tasks with the teacher.
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