Lesson Plan Title: Introducing students to Canto III of La Divina

Commedia - Inferno

Duration: 50 minutes
Key concepts • Identity • Communication • Representation

Specific skills developed:- Knowing, understanding, and interpreting

Analyzing and evaluating
Communicating

Teaching and support materials:

• A volume of La Divina Commedia - Inferno
• Antologia della Divina Commedia a cura di Bice Saletti
• Video projector
• Worksheets
• Images of Famous paintings representing Canto III such as Caronte by Paul
Gustave Dorè, La porta dell’Inferno by William Blake, L’Antinferno by Luca
Signorelli

Activities:

Activity 1 ( Time required: 10 minutes)

After being introduced to the topic, Canto III of La Divina Commedia - Inferno which
comes in the continuation of the previous two Canti supposedly already studied, the
students will be put in groups of 3 and 2 and they will be asked to collaborate in order to
give their own definitions of the 3 concepts Identity, Communication Representation. A
worksheet fill-in-the-space will be provided. Each group will be asked to compare its
definition with the other groups. In the end, the answers will be modeled by the teacher
and a common definition will be agreed upon for each concept.
Students with dyslexia will be closely monitored by the teacher who will make sure that
they understood the requirements and wrote down the answers.

Once they have a clear understanding of the 3 key concepts, the students will have to
connect them with the lesson topic and content.
Activity 2 (Time required: 15 minutes)
The students will continue working in groups and receive a second worksheet containing
a set of 4 passages: La Porta dell’Inferno, Gli Ignavi, Caronte, Dante e Virgilio, not
seen before, from Canto III, La Divina Commedia - Inferno, and a set of guiding questions
to match up. The 4 questions are: 1. What does the Gate of Hell represent? 2. Could
you describe the characteristics of Ignavi? 3. Who was Caronte? What is Vergilius’ role?
(The passages will be accompanied by notes aimed to explain the unknown terms of the
text. The different groups could then compare their answers and annotations).

Activity 3 ( Time required: 10 minutes)

The students will be asked to use their interpreation and analysis skills in order to
answer 1 of 4 questions of their choice, from the questions that they previously matched
up with the respective 4 passages. Each student will work on the task individually and will
write his/her answers in the notebook or on their computers.

Students with dyslexia will be provided with extra time and with additional guiding
questions aimed to help them solving the task). The teacher could read the instructions for
them and will make sure that the font is big enough to facilitate their reading and
understanding of the text.

Activity 4 (Time required: 10 minutes)

The teacher will project the passages on the interactive whiteboard in order to check the
students’ answers and provide an in-depth analysis of the text. Different markers will be
used on the board for specific annotations based on the text’s meaning.

The last 5 minutes will be used for summing up the main ideas of the lesson discussed
and for giving and explaining the homework task. The homework aims at reinforcing the
key concepts introduced by the lesson, Identity, Represenation and Communication.

As a homework, students should answer the following questions:

1. In your opinion, who are the “Ignavi” of our times? (Identity)
2. How do personally you imagine the “ l’oltretomba” and the after-life?
( Represenation )
3. To what extent does the painting L’Antinferno by Luca Signorelli communicate Dante’s
idea of the suffering experienced by the souls in the hell ? (Represenation and
Communication)