Title: Marked

Subject: English I
90 min
Objectives:
1)Trace the development of a common theme in two different artistic mediums.
2) Investigate how literary texts and related media allude to themes and archetypes from
historical and cultural traditions.

Materials:
The Scarlet Letter
Chromebook
Projector
Smartboard

Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to immerse students into the life of Hester Prynne, the
adulterer who was almost sentenced to death for her transgressions. Students will experience
what it is like to be marked as she was, and we will see how this affects their opinion in their
persuasive essay, if at all. Students are to have read up to chapter 4 at this point.
Procedure:
As students come into class, there will be a question on the board that will count
as their participation for the day: If you lived in the story of The Scarlet Letter, what
would you do with Hester Prynne? Would you have sentenced her to jail? Executed her?
Let her off free? Explain in detail what you would have done and why. This counts for
participation for the day. (10 minutes)
Two students will be randomly assigned a scarlet letter to match their crime
theyve committed. You can be creative here, and perhaps have C for cheater, B for
bully, or whatever. I would advise avoiding students who tend to be more shy, as this
could be potentially traumatic for them.
Ask these students to step to the front of the room, while the class looks on. The
class will then be asked to pair with the person next to them and create a punishment
fitting their crime, writing it on padlet where they will sign their names after the
submission (10 minutes)
After this time, one student per pair will be asked to share their punishment for
both students, justifying it with some sort of logic. (10 minutes)
Next, its time for introspection and reflection. Students will get into groups of
three and discuss how they would feel if they were put into the shoes of their two
classmates. The two classmates will be placed into separate groups and give their
feelings on what it was like to be labeled and judged. The teacher will then call one
members of every group and aggregate responses on the smartboard / whiteboard. The
two students who were labeled will have their own category. (20 minutes)

Closing
For the remainder of class, students will independently work on the following
essay topic (2 pages):
Is Hester Prynne a strong female character? What are her
strengths and weaknesses? Do you like her? What do you think is going to
happen to her later in the novel? Explain.