Learning Objectives 

Students will: 

• Conduct research to gather information. 
• Explicate the power of visual and auditory expressionistic elements to help shape set design, narrative, characterization, and theme in the building of dramatic scripts.
• Craft essays of critical analysis.
• Identify elements that build artistic tension in dramatic scripts.
• Examine the cultural and artistic choices of a play.
• Research and gather information for analysis. 
• Write an informative text using supporting details from a play.

Standards Alignment

National Core Arts StandardsNational Core Arts Standards

Common Core State StandardsCommon Core State Standards

Recommended Student Materials

Editable Documents: Before sharing these resources with students, you must first save them to your Google account by opening them, and selecting “Make a copy” from the File menu. Check out Sharing Tips or Instructional Benefits when implementing Google Docs and Google Slides with students.

• Research Topics: Exploring New Orleans 
• Discussion Questions: Scenes 1 and 2
• Discussion Questions: Scenes 3 and 4
• Follow-up Questions

Books

• A Streetcar Named Desire Excerpt

Teacher Background

Teachers should obtain copies of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire from their school collection or a local library. Preview the play by reading A Streetcar Named Desire Excerpt, and exploring the following resources: PBS American Masters: Tennessee Williams and The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, The Setting of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Student Prerequisites 

Students should read the Tennessee Williams: Themes and Forms, which introduces characteristics of Williams’s works as well as those of American playwrights in the mid-20th century. Have students read and discuss Tennessee Williams’ Compelling Characters and Tennessee Williams Biography.

Accessibility Notes

Modify handouts, text, and utilize assistive technologies as needed. 

Engage

1. Tell students that they will be studying the Tennessee Williams's play, A Streetcar Named Desire. Note that Williams’ work is often reflective of the “Southern Gothic” aesthetic, which presents a lurid, decadent, and macabre vision of the American South. The setting of the play, New Orleans, is an essential element of Williams’s play.

2. Ask students, have any of you lived in or visited New Orleans (the setting of A Streetcar Named Desire)? If so, have them share their experiences in the city. Expand this discussion by asking other students to share any perceptions they have about New Orleans.

3. Assign students to collaborative groups to conduct research about New Orleans. Students will use the Research Topics: Exploring New Orleans to gather details and images for a brief presentation.

4. Have students present their findings to the class. Encourage students to ask and answer questions about their research. 

Build

1. Review the following vocabulary with students: character, actors, puritanism, drama, style, narrative, and theme. 

2. Initiate the reading of A Streetcar Named Desire in a large group format. Select a starting position in the room. Ask each student to pick up the reading of a line from Scene 1 in sequence (circling the room) through to where Eunice exits and Stella enters. (The brevity of the lines in the opening dialogue lends itself to this pattern of oral reading; such an approach seems to help draw students quickly into the “magic” of the play.)

3. Ask students, what “two worlds” are juxtaposed in the opening of Scene 1? Have students describe each “world” based on the context clues from the descriptions and dialogue.

4. Ask students to draw from other remarks Williams makes in the descriptions and from events and characterizations in the opening of the play, to define specifically their perception of this spirit. For example, in his account of the setting of the first scene, Williams calls attention to the music coming from a “tinny piano” being played at a barroom around the corner. He comments that “This Blue Piano expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.” 

Apply

1. Divide students into small oral play reading groups. Suggest that a director be named in the group to parcel out and rotate the reading of roles and the italicized passages. Assign the groups to read through to the end of Scene 2 and prepare for Discussion Questions: Scenes 1 and 2.

2. Realign the oral play reading groups for the reading of Scenes 3 and 4. Ideally, if time allows, these scenes would be read in class and practiced for homework. 

3. Distribute Discussion Questions: Scenes 3 and 4 and engage students in whole group or small group discussions. 

4. Read and interpret Scene 5 and discuss. The end of the scene, where the Young Man enters, offers a good opportunity for experimentation in how the scene should be acted out. You may wish to enlist the help of your school’s drama coach to run this classroom experiment. Divide the students into at least three groups and have them stage the scene as they believe it should be played. Have the class evaluate the success of each interpretation.

5. Assign Scenes 6 and 10 as outside reading assignments, covering Scenes 7, 8, and 9 in play reading groups, and reading Scene 11 in the large group (perhaps staging it).

6. In preparation for the large group reading of Scene 11, ask each student to analyze how the narrative unfolds in Scenes 6 through 10. Encourage students to pay close attention to the relationships of Stanley and Stella, Stanley and Blanche, Stella and Blanche, Blanche and Mitch as they are developed in Scenes 2 through 10.

Reflect 

1. Assess students’ knowledge with the Follow-up Questions resource. Divide the class into small collaborative groups. Assign the groups to collaborate and respond to questions about the play. Inform students that the conclusions will be shared in class. If the group cannot reach a consensus, dissenting opinions can be shared, too.

Extend

1. Research actors and actresses who were cast to play key roles in Williams’s plays, such as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The list includes such luminaries as Tallulah Bankhead, Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Marlon Brando, and others. Williams’s response to different “star” performances—especially that of Tallulah Bankhead as Blanche Du Bois—could be an added topic to pursue.