5: 12 Angry Men- Introductions- Lesson Plans and Activities

Introductions

SLO: Establish a clear framework of essay and paragraph organization appropriate to the writing task and the thesis.

The instructor will replay the first three minutes of 12 Angry Men. 

https://archive.org/details/12AngryMen1957

After the viewing, the instructor will project/write these questions on the board:

• In what ways does the filmmaker catch the audience’s attention?

• What information is established in the first three minutes of this film?

• What does the judge say about “reasonable doubt” in the opening minutes of this film?

• Based on purely visuals, what does the audience know about the accused? 

Instructor will tell students to write down the answers then share them after ten minutes. 

Instructor will then segue into a lecture about introductions, going over the basic structure:

• Hook/Attention Grabber

• Response to the Hook

• Introduce the General Information/Background Information

• Bridge Sentence

• Thesis Statement

Instructor will also share this information from Integrated Reading and Writing

https://human.libretexts.org/Courses/Evergreen_Valley_College/Integrated_Reading_and_Writing/03%3A_Building_the_Academic_Essay/3.04%3A_Introductions

“Open with an attention grabber. Sometimes, especially if the topic of your paper is somewhat dry or technical, opening with something catchy can help. Consider these options:

1. an intriguing example (for example, the mistress who initially teaches Douglass but then ceases her instruction as she learns more about slavery)

2. a provocative quotation (Douglass writes that “education and slavery were incompatible with each other”)

3. a puzzling scenario (Frederick Douglass says of slaves that “[N]othing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries!” Douglass clearly asserts that slave owners went to great lengths to destroy the mental capacities of slaves, yet his own life story proves that these efforts could be unsuccessful.)

4. a vivid and perhaps unexpected anecdote (for example, “Learning about slavery in the American history course at Frederick Douglass High School, students studied the work slaves did, the impact of slavery on their families, and the rules that governed their lives. We didn’t discuss education, however, until one student, Mary, raised her hand and asked, ‘But when did they go to school?’ That modern high school students could not conceive of an American childhood devoid of formal education speaks volumes about the centrality of education to American youth today and also suggests the significance of the deprivation of education in past generations.”)

5. a thought-provoking question (given all of the freedoms that were denied enslaved individuals in the American South, why does Frederick Douglass focus his attentions so squarely on education and literacy?)

Pay special attention to your first sentence. Start off on the right foot with your readers by making sure that the first sentence actually says something useful and that it does so in an interesting and error-free way.

Be straightforward and confident. Avoid statements like “In this paper, I will argue that Frederick Douglass valued education.” While this sentence points toward your main argument, it isn’t especially interesting. It might be more effective to say what you mean in a declarative sentence. It is much more convincing to tell us that “Frederick Douglass valued education” than to tell us that you are going to say that he did. Assert your main argument confidently. After all, you can’t expect your reader to believe it if it doesn’t sound like you believe it!”

The instructor will then model the example paragraph below:

“The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.”