10th Grade The Joy Luck Club Lesson Plan Example

Topic: The Joy Luck Club

Objectives & Outcomes

• Understand the effects of trauma on relationships and the role of forgiveness in healing

Materials

• Copies of the novel The Joy Luck Club
• Handouts with questions and prompts related to the novel
• Access to computers or other devices with internet connection

Warm-up

• Ask students to share their experiences with trauma and relationships. What have they experienced personally or witnessed with others? How have these experiences affected relationships?
• Encourage students to be open and honest with their responses.
• As a class, brainstorm a list of possible causes of trauma, such as loss, abuse, violence, etc.

Direct Instruction

• Introduce the characters and storylines of the Joy Luck Club by reading a few excerpts from the novel.
• Ask students to think about how each character has experienced or is experiencing trauma. What kinds of traumas do they experience? How does this trauma affect their relationships with others?
• Use the handouts with examples of dysfunctional and healthy relationships to help students identify the differences between the two.
• Discuss the importance of healthy relationships in healing from trauma and building resilience.

Guided Practice

• Divide students into small groups and assign each group a character from the Joy Luck Club.
• Have each group use the examples from the novel to construct a hypothetical story about how this character might deal with a trauma they have experienced.
• Have each group present their stories to the class and discuss how the character's relationships might be affected by the trauma.

Independent Practice

• Assign each student a character from the Joy Luck Club and have them write a short essay about how that character's relationships might be affected by a trauma they have experienced.

Closure

• As a class, discuss the various ways that trauma can affect the relationships between characters in a story and how these effects might be portrayed in the text.

Closure

• Have students work in small groups to create a presentation that explores the impact of trauma on a relationship in the book. The presentation could take the form of a skit, a series of posters or images, or a multimedia presentation, or any other format that suits the group's needs and abilities.