Lesson Overview 

Beginning the Lesson & Excusing some students

When I taught this lesson, we were operating remotely - the students did NOT read the text beforehand - I wanted to be there with them during this very sensitive (but cathartic) topic.
Here is the text from the first slide on the presentation - those students who wished to be excused could read silently  (The Diary of Samuel Pepys) while the rest of the class read aloud and discussed "The Journal of the Plague Year":

Because we are going to be reading Issues that include sickness, and death – this may be too sensitive for some of you – I totally understand. Instead of today’s lesson you may read about something I hope is more distant – the great fire of London in The Diary of Samuel Pepys – 544-554.  Come to my division to take a short oral quiz, after you read – do the same question on Google Classroom (10 minutes)

Quiz

No quiz as we were reading this text (and background) aloud in class

Defoe & Historical Background & Context

We read aloud (with students taking turns - see my page on Reading Aloud in class) the biographical information about Daniel Defoe and the literary and historical context of his text, "A Journal of the Plague Year".  Because it is our only exposure to Defoe (and a quick one at that - I want the students to know more about him, what he wrote and his importance).  As for the historical background - the students (along with the rest of the world) were living through the worst Pandemic in a hundred years.  By seeing the context of what Defoe writes about it - it allows the students to make connections to (and hopefully be helped by) the horrible Plague that he writes about.

The first thing we do is is to read aloud about Daniel Defoe's bigraphical information (this is all included below in the Power Point and PDF).  Next we read about the Plague that Defoe references in his text - an event that occured nearly 60 years before he composed "The Journal of the Plague Year."  Finally, we read background on his publication of that work.

Reading aloud excerpts from "A Journal of the Plague Year."

We then read aloud seven of the eight excerpts from Defoe's text - stopping for discussion whenever necessary - taking inquiries and concerns whenever needed.  We skip Excerpt #4 - as the content of that part of the text is simply to graphic and potentially upsetting for what we were all going through at that point in time.  Here are the Excerpt Sections as we read them: 1. The Infection Spreads, 2. Dismal Scenes, 3. Escape from Quarantine, 4 - OMITTED, 5. A Poor Piper (a sad story of a particular victim of the plague), 6. A Violent Cure, 7. I'm Alive (a hopeful ending to a very sad tale).

Two Other Quotes by Daniel Defoe

The students will have a handout (found below) with these quotes & also the poems that follow

This excerpt is all that we will get a chance to study by Daniel Defoe - However, there were two quotes, that when I was planning this lesson stood out so very strongly for their application to what we all were going through during the Pandemic - that I put them in the presentation so we could read them and talk about them as we did.  Here they are:
1) “Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.”
― Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
2) “Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.”― Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

It was then - and is now - my firm belief that perhaps out of this horrible tragedy of the Pandemic - something good could come - we could learn something about ourselves, we could grow closer, more empathetic - and emerge - like we read so long ago in that poem about the tree that bent over many times from the forces of the wind - stronger.

"Everything is Going to be All Right" by Derek Mahon & other poems

This poem, "Everything is Going to be All Right" by Derek Mahon, emerged from the Pandemic as a voice of hope, and empathy.  In today's class - students take turns reading the stanzas - after each stanza we talkl about what it means - and more importantly, what it means to us.

Everything is Going to be All Right by Derek Mahone

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart;

the sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.                                

Then - a line from "Ode to the West Wind": "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind" by Shelley - and to the beginning of the school year and the poem, "Deor": "That passed away...so can this".

Remote Enhancements 

This can all be done remotely of course -  In fact, I did do this remotely.  I used a chart I had made of the class with their pictures to divide them into the groups for finding satire in the text.