Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-65 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a book or story you know that was made into a film or series. Name one thing the film made bigger or more important than the book did, and one thing it left out. Why might the filmmakers have made those choices?"

   Take four or five answers and sort them on the board into two columns, emphasized and absent. Point out that students are already judging choices, not just noticing differences: every medium can do some things easily and others not at all. Tell them that today they will compare a story told in words with the same story told in paint.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Key terms. A medium is the material an artist works in: words on a page, paint on canvas, a film, a piece of music. A treatment is one artist's version of a subject in a medium. Every treatment makes three kinds of choices:

   • Selection: which moment or moments to show. A story can move through time; a painting shows one instant.
   • Emphasis: what the audience notices first and longest. In words, emphasis comes from how many words a detail gets, where it sits and how it is repeated. In a painting, it comes from size, position, color and light.
   • Absence: what is left out, shrunk or silenced. An absence matters when the audience expects something (because the other treatment, the title or the story itself leads them to) and does not find it.

   Then give the story. Daedalus, a brilliant inventor, is trapped on the island of Crete by King Minos. He builds wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son Icarus; the paragraph before our passage shows the boy playing with the feathers while his father works. Read Ovid's passage aloud.

   1After the finishing hand was put to the work, the workman himself poised his own body upon the two wings, and hung suspended in the beaten air. He provided his son with them as well; and said to him, “Icarus, I recommend thee to keep the middle tract; lest, if thou shouldst go too low, the water should clog thy wings; if too high, the fire of the sun should scorch them. Fly between both; and I bid thee neither to look at Boötes, nor Helice, nor the drawn sword of Orion. Under my guidance, take thy way.” At the same time, he delivered him rules for flying, and fitted the untried wings to his shoulders. Amid his work and his admonitions, the cheeks of the old man were wet, and the hands of the father trembled. He gives kisses to his son, never again to be repeated; and, raised upon his wings, he flies before, and is concerned for his companion, just as the bird which has led forth her tender young from the lofty nest into the air. And he encourages him to follow, and instructs him in the fatal art, and both moves his own wings himself, and looks back on those of his son. A person while he is angling for fish with his quivering rod, or the shepherd leaning on his crook, or the ploughman on the plough tail, when he beholds them, is astonished, and believes them to be Divinities, who thus can cleave the air. And now Samos, sacred to Juno, and Delos, and Paros, were left behind to the left hand. On the right were Lebynthus, and Calymne, fruitful in honey; when the boy began to be pleased with a bolder flight, and forsook his guide; and, touched with a desire of reaching heaven, pursued his course still higher. The vicinity of the scorching Sun softened the fragrant wax that fastened his wings. The wax was melted; he shook his naked arms, and, wanting his oar-like wings, he caught no more air. His face, too, as he called on the name of his father, was received in the azure water, which received its name from him.

   2But the unhappy father, now no more a father, said, “Icarus, where art thou? In what spot shall I seek thee, Icarus?” did he say; when he beheld his wings in the waters, and then he cursed his own arts; and he buried his body in a tomb, and the land was called from the name of him buried there. As he was laying the body of his unfortunate son in the tomb, a prattling partridge beheld him from a branching holm-oak, and, by its notes, testified its delight. ’Twas then but a single bird of its kind, and never seen in former years, and, lately made a bird, was a grievous reproof, Dædalus, to thee. [...]

   • Emphasis through words spent

     Look at how Ovid divides the passage. Before the flight, "the cheeks of the old man were wet, and the hands of the father trembled"; after the fall, "the unhappy father, now no more a father" calls his son's name twice. What does Ovid's treatment emphasize?

     Result: The father. Diagram 1 shows that the three parts centered on Daedalus take 268 of the passage's 480 words, while the fall itself takes 57. Ovid tells the story as a father's loss: his warning, his tears, his cry and the burial.

   • The same figures, a changed role

     Ovid writes that the angler, "the shepherd leaning on his crook, or the ploughman on the plough tail, when he beholds them, is astonished, and believes them to be Divinities." Breughel's painting keeps all three figures. How does their role change?

     Result: In Ovid they are witnesses who look up in wonder at the flying men. In the painting nobody looks at the fall at all. The painter borrows Ovid's cast of ordinary people and turns their wonder into indifference, so the ordinary working world becomes the painting's main subject.

   • The official example: Auden's poem and Breughel's painting

     The standard pairs the painting with W. H. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1938), whose title names the Brussels museum that holds the painting. The poem is under copyright and is not quoted here. How would a student analyze this pair?

     Result: Auden's poem treats the painting itself as its subject. It picks out the ploughman, the ship and the legs in the water, and reads them as a statement about how suffering happens while everyone else goes on with ordinary life. Like the painting, it does not retell Daedalus's warning or his grief, which Ovid stresses.

   • Absence of an expected figure

     The written description of the painting ends: "Daedalus, the father, does not appear anywhere in this version of the painting." Why does this absence matter?

     Result: Ovid's reader expects the father, because Ovid gives him most of the passage. Without him the painting has no one to grieve and no warning to disobey, so it can no longer be read as a family tragedy.

   How to write the comparison. A strong answer names the detail in both treatments, says what each emphasizes or leaves out, and explains the effect: "Ovid ___, but the painting ___, so the painting's version of the fall is about ___." Warn students against listing differences without saying what they do.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Project a public-domain image of the painting from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium website or another museum source, and read the written description together. Ask pairs to find the ploughman, the shepherd, the fisherman, the legs and the ship on the image and to number the paragraphs of the description. Then work through the three steps below with the class.

   1Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is an oil painting on canvas, a little more than a meter wide, made around 1560. It belongs to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. It was long credited to Pieter Breughel the Elder (also spelled Bruegel); many scholars now think it is an early copy of a lost original by him.

   2The largest figure is a ploughman in a red shirt who fills the lower left of the picture. He walks behind his horse and plough on a hillside above the sea, and his head is bent toward the furrows he is cutting.

   3Lower down the slope, a shepherd stands among his sheep with his dog, leaning on his staff. He is looking up into the empty sky, away from the water.

   4At the bottom right, a fisherman sits at the edge of the sea with his rod, watching his line. Close to him, in the water, two pale legs kick above the surface, and a few loose feathers drift nearby. This is all the painting shows of Icarus. The legs are so small that many viewers need a second look to find them.

   5A large sailing ship with full sails passes close to the splash and heads out to sea. Beyond it lie a bay, a harbor town, rocky islands and far mountains. The sun sits low on the horizon, half sunk into the sea, and its pale light spreads across the water.

   6On a branch just above the fisherman sits a small gray bird that many viewers identify as a partridge. Daedalus, the father, does not appear anywhere in this version of the painting.

   1. Size and position (paragraph 2). Teacher note: the ploughman is "the largest figure" and "fills the lower left of the picture," where a viewer's eye lands first. The painter gives the most space to a man doing ordinary work, not to the myth.
   2. Where the eyes point (paragraphs 3-4). Teacher note: the shepherd looks "up into the empty sky, away from the water," and the fisherman is "watching his line." In a painting, where the figures look directs where we look. Here nobody's gaze leads to Icarus, so the viewer has to find him alone.
   3. What is added (paragraph 5). Teacher note: the large ship is not in Ovid's passage. Ask students what an added detail does. The ship sails on past the splash, a second example of the world moving on, and it adds beauty and calm to a scene of death.

   Close the guided practice by returning to the title. Ask: the title names the fall of Icarus, but the fall takes up a tiny corner. What tension does that create between the words of the title and the paint? Take answers but leave the question open; students return to it in the quiz.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students work on their own on a second pair. Give this summary of Parts I-III of Tennyson's poem: the Lady of Shalott lives alone in a tower on an island in a river that flows down to Camelot. Under a curse she does not understand, she may not look directly at the world, so she watches it in a mirror and weaves what she sees into a woven cloth, her "web." When she sees the knight Sir Lancelot ride by in the mirror, she leaves the loom and looks out of the window. The web flies out, the mirror cracks, and she cries that the curse has come upon her. Part IV follows.

   Students read Part IV, then the description of Waterhouse's painting, with the image projected. On the chart handout they (1) find the lines of Part IV that match the moment Waterhouse painted; (2) list two things the painting emphasizes or adds and two things from the poem it leaves out; (3) write one sentence on what each treatment is mostly about. Quiz questions 9-15 check this work.

   1In the stormy east-wind straining,
   The pale yellow woods were waning,
   The broad stream in his banks complaining,
   Heavily the low sky raining
   5Over tower’d Camelot;
   Down she came and found a boat
   Beneath a willow left afloat,
   And round about the prow she wrote
   The Lady of Shalott.

   10And down the river’s dim expanse—
   Like some bold seër in a trance,
   Seeing all his own mischance—
   With a glassy countenance
   Did she look to Camelot.
   15And at the closing of the day
   She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
   The broad stream bore her far away,
   The Lady of Shalott.

   Lying, robed in snowy white
   20That loosely flew to left and right—
   The leaves upon her falling light—
   Thro’ the noises of the night
   She floated down to Camelot;
   And as the boat-head wound along
   25The willowy hills and fields among,
   They heard her singing her last song,
   The Lady of Shalott.

   Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
   Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
   30Till her blood was frozen slowly,
   And her eyes were darken’d wholly,
   Turn’d to tower’d Camelot;
   For ere she reach’d upon the tide
   The first house by the water-side,
   35Singing in her song she died,
   The Lady of Shalott.

   Under tower and balcony,
   By garden-wall and gallery,
   A gleaming shape she floated by,
   40Dead-pale between the houses high,
   Silent into Camelot.
   Out upon the wharfs they came,
   Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
   And round the prow they read her name,
   45The Lady of Shalott

   Who is this? and what is here?
   And in the lighted palace near
   Died the sound of royal cheer;
   And they cross’d themselves for fear,
   50All the knights at Camelot:
   But Lancelot mused a little space;
   He said, “She has a lovely face;
   God in his mercy lend her grace,
   The Lady of Shalott”.

   1John William Waterhouse painted The Lady of Shalott in 1888, and it belongs to Tate, which usually shows it at Tate Britain in London. He returned to Tennyson's poem in two later paintings of other moments from it.

   2The Lady sits upright in a wooden boat on a narrow river lined with reeds and dark trees. She wears a long white dress, and her loose red hair falls over her shoulders. The river is calm, and the light is soft and gray.

   3With one hand she holds the chain that ties the boat to the bank, as if she is about to let it go. Her face is pale, her lips are parted, and her eyes look ahead down the river, wide and unfocused.

   4Over the side of the boat hangs a large piece of woven cloth, the web she has spent her life weaving. One end of it trails into the water.

   5At the front of the boat stand a crucifix and three candles. Two of the candles have gone out; one still burns.

   6The painting shows no other person. The towers of Camelot, the knights and the crowd on the wharfs do not appear, and the Lady is still alive.

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name one thing Breughel's painting leaves out of Ovid's story and explain in one sentence what the absence changes. (2) Finish this sentence about Tennyson and Waterhouse: "The poem can ___, but the painting can ___."

   Teacher note on content and language: both stories end in the death of a young person, and the Lady of Shalott's death is described in some detail. Tell students before reading; the homework story also concerns a grandmother who is seriously ill. Riley's 1851 translation uses older forms ("thee," "thou shouldst") and prints in italics the words he added to make the Latin read smoothly. Tennyson's 1842 spellings ("Thro'," "seër") are as printed. The paintings should be shown only from public-domain images; this page describes them in words and does not reproduce them.

   For homework: students read the two original texts below, a short story and the shot list for a short film made from it. The homework uses both.

   1The ticket office clock said 9:52 when Leila reached the top of the ramp, and the last ferry to Orcas Point left at 9:55. The envelope was in her coat pocket, the one her grandmother had asked for on the phone in a voice so small that Leila had pressed the phone to her ear until it hurt.

   2Inside the envelope was a photograph: her grandmother at nineteen, laughing on the deck of this same ferry, her hair blown sideways. "Bring me that one," she had said. "I want to see who I was before I forget her."

   3Leila ran. Her backpack slapped against her spine. She thought about the nurse who had said that tonight would be best, and about how the word best had never sounded so much like a warning.

   4The deckhand was already hooking the chain across the gangway. He was an old man with a gray beard and a yellow jacket, and he looked at her face for one second before he let the chain fall again.

   5"Go on," he said. "I'll tell the captain the clock was fast."

   6She found a seat by the window. The island lights were very small. She took out the photograph and held it flat against the glass, so that the young woman on the deck and the dark water outside seemed, for a moment, to be the same place.

   1Shot 1. Close-up: the ticket office clock at 9:52. Sound: loud ticking, and under it a ferry horn. (3 seconds)

   2Shot 2. Wide shot: Leila, very small in the frame, runs down a long empty ramp under orange lights. Music begins: one piano note, repeated. (8 seconds)

   3Shot 3. Close-up: her hand in her coat pocket, gripping an envelope. The envelope is never opened on screen. (2 seconds)

   4Shot 4. Tracking shot from behind: her backpack bouncing, her breathing loud. There is no voice-over. (6 seconds)

   5Shot 5. Medium shot: the deckhand, a young woman in a yellow jacket, hooks the chain across the gangway and checks her watch. She does not look at Leila. (4 seconds)

   6Shot 6. Two-shot: Leila stops, out of breath. The deckhand unhooks the chain without a word and steps aside. (5 seconds)

   7Shot 7. Wide shot from the dock: the ferry pulls away, and its lights shimmer on the black water. The music stops. The camera holds on the empty dock. (10 seconds)

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Ovid compares the flying Daedalus to "the bird which has led forth her tender young from the lofty nest into the air" (T1, paragraph 1). What does this comparison emphasize in Ovid's treatment?

   AThe father's care as he leads and watches his son BThe boy's skill, since he soon flies better than his father CThe danger of wild birds that attack the flyers over the sea DThe father's pride as he flies ahead without looking back

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Ovid names the islands the flyers pass: "Samos, sacred to Juno, and Delos, and Paros, were left behind to the left hand" (T1, paragraph 1). How does this differ from the landscape in the painting (T2, paragraph 5)?

   AOvid's islands are imaginary, while the painting labels real Greek islands by name. BBoth name the same islands, so the setting is the one thing the two treatments share. COvid's names trace a journey in space and time; the painting gives one unnamed view. DOvid gives no setting at all, while the painting adds a bay, a town and far mountains.

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Ovid writes that "The vicinity of the scorching Sun softened the fragrant wax" (T1, paragraph 1). How does the painting change the role of the sun (T2, paragraph 5)?

   AIt paints the sun high and blazing, so it looks even more deadly than in Ovid. BIt paints the sun low and pale, so it no longer seems the cause of the fall. CIt leaves the sun out, so the viewer cannot tell what melted the wax. DIt hides the sun behind the ship, so that only the sailors can see it.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Ovid, it is the father who "beheld his wings in the waters" (T1, paragraph 2). The painting also shows "a few loose feathers" in the water (T2, paragraph 4). What changes?

   AThe fisherman holds up the feathers to show them to the ploughman on the hill. BThe feathers are still fixed to Icarus's arms as he flies over the ship. CThe feathers form a trail across the sky that leads the eye up to the father. DThe feathers float where no one looks, so no one grieves over them.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   As he falls, Ovid's Icarus "called on the name of his father" (T1, paragraph 1). Which statement best explains why this detail is absent from the painting?

   AA painting cannot sound a cry, and it shows his legs but not his face. BThe painter thought the cry too violent for a picture meant for a church. CThe cry is shown by the shepherd, who has turned around to face the water. DThe painting shows the moment before the fall, while Icarus is still silent.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   While Daedalus teaches his son, the narrator calls flying "the fatal art" (T1, paragraph 1). What can this word choice do that a painting of a single instant cannot?

   AShow the reader exactly how the wings were built BProve to the reader that Daedalus meant to harm his son CWarn the reader of the ending before the flight begins DLet the reader hear the sound of the wings in the air

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The painting's title names "the Fall of Icarus," yet the description says the largest figure is a ploughman. What effect does this gap between the title and the picture create?

   AIt shows that the title was a mistake made by a later owner of the painting. BIt sends the viewer searching for the event and makes its smallness the point. CIt proves that the painter had never read Ovid's version of the story. DIt shows that the ploughman is really meant to be Daedalus disguised as a farmer.

8. Question 8 of 20 · Short Answer

   Ovid's partridge "testified its delight" as Daedalus buried his son (T1, paragraph 2), and the painting has "a small gray bird that many viewers identify as a partridge" (T2, paragraph 6). Explain why this detail means more to a viewer who has read Ovid, and what that shows about how the two treatments depend on each other.

   Show model answer

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which lines of Part IV match the moment that Waterhouse painted, as the description (T4) presents it?

   ALines 1-4, the storm over the woods and the rain on Camelot BLines 15-16, as the day closes and she loosens the chain CLines 42-44, as the crowd reads her name around the prow DLines 33-35, as she dies before reaching the first house

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Part IV opens with "the stormy east-wind straining" and "Heavily the low sky raining" (lines 1-4). How does the painting's treatment of the setting differ?

    AThe painting makes the storm even wilder, with waves breaking over the boat. BThe painting moves the scene indoors, to the room with the loom. CThe painting shows a bright summer morning with a blue sky. DThe painting leaves out the storm: the river is calm and the light soft.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Waterhouse adds "three candles," of which "Two of the candles have gone out; one still burns" (T4, paragraph 5). Which lines of the poem does this added detail point toward?

    ALines 30-35, where her blood freezes, her eyes darken and she dies BLines 19-22, where her white robe blows loosely to left and right CLines 6-9, where she finds the boat and writes her name on it DLines 46-50, where the knights of Camelot hear the news with fear

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Part IV ends with Lancelot's words: "She has a lovely face; / God in his mercy lend her grace" (lines 52-53). How does the painting treat this ending?

    AIt shows Lancelot waiting on the bank, so the ending is kept but moved earlier. BIt replaces Lancelot with a crucifix, so it shows him as a priest instead. CIt leaves out Lancelot and Camelot, so the Lady alone fills the picture. DIt shows the whole crowd, so the Lady's face becomes one detail among many.

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    The woven cloth that "trails into the water" (T4, paragraph 4) is not mentioned anywhere in Part IV. What does adding it emphasize?

    AThat she plans to sell her weaving at the market in Camelot BThat the boat is sinking because of the weight of the cloth CThat the Lady is a skilled weaver who is proud of her work DHer link to the life and the curse she is leaving behind

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which part of Part IV can the poem present fully but a painting can only suggest?

    AHer snowy white robe, which the painting shows as a long dress BHer song as she floats, heard over time until it stops CThe boat and the broad stream that carries her down the river DThe willow trees that grow along the banks of the river

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Line 16 says "She loosed the chain, and down she lay," and line 19 begins "Lying, robed in snowy white." Waterhouse shows her sitting upright, holding the chain. Explain what the painting emphasizes by choosing the instant before she lies down, and what that choice leaves out.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student plans to add Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts," the standard's own example, as a third treatment. Which question fits RL.9-10.7 best?

    AWhich of the three versions tells Ovid's story the most completely? BDid Auden agree with Ovid that Icarus deserved to fall into the sea? CWhich of the three works was the most popular in the years after it appeared? DWhich painting details does the poem select, and what do they stress?

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student compares a comic novel with its film version. Which sentence makes a claim about absence, rather than only describing a difference?

    A"The film adds a long car chase, and the novel does not have one." B"The novel's main character has red hair and a green coat." C"Leaving out the narrator's jokes turns the film into a darker story." D"The novel is told in the first person, and the film is not."

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student claims: "The painter did not know Ovid's story, because the father is missing." Which evidence best answers this claim?

    AThe painting includes Ovid's angler, shepherd, ploughman and a partridge. BThe painting is more than a meter wide, so it must have taken months to make. CThe painting shows a harbor town, which proves the painter visited Greece. DThe painting leaves out Daedalus, just as Ovid's own version of the story does.

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Compare the two pairs in this lesson. In one or two sentences each, state what the painting in each pair leaves out that the written treatment emphasizes, and explain whether the two painters made a similar kind of choice.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a paragraph of 5-7 sentences arguing what Breughel's painting is about, as opposed to what Ovid's passage is about. Use at least one quotation from Ovid and two details from the description of the painting, and explain one absence.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RL.9-10.7: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.