Title: In Platonic darkness...

Lesson plan elaborated by: Katarzyna Maciejak

Topic:

In Plato's dark cave...

Target group:

1st‑grade students of a high school.

Core curriculum

Core curriculum (old)

I. Receipt of statements and use of information contained.

1. Reading and listening. Student:

1. reads the meaning of the whole text (and in it the meanings of words, phraseological relationships, sentences, groups of sentences ordered in a paragraph, distinguishes real and etymological significance) and fragments separated by it; can explain their meaning and function on the background of the whole;

2. Self‑education and access to information. Student:

1. searches for literature useful for the development of various issues; selects it according to the indicated criteria (in library resources it uses both traditional book collection as well as multimedia and electronic records, including the Internet);

II. Analysis and interpretation of cultural texts.

3. Interpretation. Student:

4. reads the allegorical and symbolic content of the work;

5. confronts the literary text with other cultural texts, eg art, theater, film; ZR

4. Values and evaluation. Student:

1. recognises the relationship between language and values, understands that the language is subject to valuation, (eg clear, simple, understandable, pictorial, beautiful language), is a valuation tool, and a source of cognition of values (values fixed in the meanings of values such as: good , truth, beauty, faith, hope, love, freedom, equality, brotherhood, God, honor, fatherland, solidarity, independence, tolerance);

2. sees national and universal values present in literary works and other cultural texts;

3. sees in the world different hierarchies of values (eg equality and freedom, law and mercy) and understands the sources of conflicts of values;

Core curriculum (new)

I. Literary and cultural education.

1. Reading literary works. Student:

4. recognises in the literary text the means of artistic expression learned in primary school and the means of meaning: oxymoron, periphrase, euphonia, hyperbole; lexical, including phraseologies; syntactic: antithesis, parallelism, enumeration, epiphora, ellipse; versioning, including the launcher; defines their functions;

5. interprets the allegorical and symbolic content of a literary work;

6. presents a proposal for interpretation of the work, indicates in the text places that may constitute arguments in support of its interpretation proposal;

7. uses the necessary contexts in the interpretation of literary works, especially the historical, literary, historical, political, cultural, philosophical, biographical, mythological, biblical and existential context;

8. recognises universal and national values present in literary works; determines their role and relationship with the work's issues and the importance to build their own value system.

2. Receipt of cultural texts. Student:

2. analyses the structure of the text: it reads its meaning, main thought, way of leading the argument and argumentation;

3. determines the influence of the ancient Greek theater on the development of theatrical art; understands the concept of catharsis and characterizes its role in shaping the reception of the work;

4. characterises the main philosophical trends and determines their influence on the culture of the era;

III. Creating statements.

1. Elements of rhetoric. Student:

3. understands and applies the compositional principle in rhetorical texts (eg thesis, arguments, appeal, point);

4. explains how the rhetorical means used (eg rhetorical questions, calculations, exclamations, parallelisms, repetitions, apostrophes, metadases, inversions) affect the recipient;

5. understands what is the logic and consistency of reasoning in argumentative statements and uses them in their own texts;

2. Speaking and writing. Student:

1. agrees with other people's views or polemicizes with them, substantively justifying their own opinion;

2. build a statement in a conscious manner, with the knowledge of its language function, taking into account the purpose and the addressee, keeping the principles of rhetoric;

3. in the interpretation presents a proposal to read the text, formulates arguments based on the text and known contexts, including personal experience, and performs a logical argument for the validation of formulated judgments;

IV. Self‑study. Student:

5. develops the ability of independent work, inter alia, by preparing various forms of presenting their own position;

6. organises information into the problematic whole by valuing it; synthesizes the learned content around the problem, topic, topic and uses it in your statements.

General aim of education

The students, on the basis of fragments of the „State”, learn the basic assumptions of Plato's philosophy and consider the meaning of the metaphors he uses.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• gives the basic assumptions of Plato's philosophy;

• considers the categories of beauty and good;

• explains the meaning of the metaphors contained in Plato's „State”;

• explains the meaning of terms related to the subject of classes, including ontology and epistemology ;

• discusses different ways of seeing the world and refers them to their own experiences.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion;

  • drama.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. The students check the definitions of terms on available sources: ontology and epistemology..

Introduction

1. The teacher states the subject of the lesson, explains the aim of the lesson and together with students determines the success criteria to be achieved.

2. Brainstorm. Students exchange various sources of knowledge about the world. They organize them in notebooks or on a blackboard. The teacher asks in what circumstances one of the sources can be considered more important than the other..

Realization

1. Students wonder and give their explanations as to why the word Dobro was written in Plato with a capital letter..

2. Students wonder and give their explanations as to why the word Dobro was written in Plato with a capital letter.

3. Students are arranging puzzles. They are looking for the form of Diogenes, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

4. Common discussion of the text. Exercise exercise 7 on the class forum. Students wonder and give their explanations why the word „good” was written in Plato with a capital letter.

5. The teacher divides the class into 4 groups. Each band is to prepare a staging that is an illustration of a cave metaphor. The students separate roles between themselves, they appoint the director and screenwriter. Having at their disposal basic props (you can ask students to bring a blanket and a flashlight in advance), they prepare a short performance. Thanks to this exercise, the teacher will find out if the pupils have understood the Platonic metaphor.

Summary

1. The teacher asks a willing student to summarize the lesson from his point of view. He asks other students if they would like to add anything to their colleague's statements.

Homework

1. Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

2. Plato criticized relying on myths and parables. Sam, however, used the parable of the cave to explain his beliefs. Why did he reach for this form? Write an argumentative statement on this topic..

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

In Plato's dark cave…

The Greeks created philosophy. One of the most eminent ancient philosophers was Plato, who was Socrates' student and Aristotle's teacher. The closing of the Academy founded by Plato − the first school of philosophy in the history of Europe − in A.D. 529 is considered by some to be the symbolic end of Antiquity, which proves how important Plato's role was.

Plato lived in the years 427 − 347 B.C. He was the most famous student of Socrates whose teachings he wrote down in the so‑called philosophical dialogues, e.g. in The Symposium, Socrates' Defence and The Republic. He is the author of 35 dialogues in total. His master's death convinced Plato, who belonged to the Athenian aristocracy, that democracy was not the best political system. This was one of the reasons why he left his home country for many years and travelled to gain knowledge and experiences.

In the most famous part of his dialogue entitled The Republic, Plato presented his views on the ideal political system and the ideal citizen. This was by no means a democratic system. In his reflections written in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon (Plato's brother), he presented among other things his allegory of the cave.

Combining physical and intellectual fitness was an ideal recommended in Greece. Kalokagathos meant striving for fitness in both these areas of human activity, as the name itself suggests: in Greek kalós means 'beautiful' (also in the physical sense), k(ai) − 'and', and agathós − 'good'. Plato often combined the concepts of beauty, goodness and truth in his philosophical works. This means that he did not consider ethics and aesthetics to be separate domains: what is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is good.