Poetry Commons^™

Rhinocéros: Animals, Ideologies And Global Awareness, Brenda Crosby

French

French IV-V students read the Theater of the Absurd play Rhinocéros by Eugène Ionesco. The foci of this unit are more oriented toward history, politics, global awareness, and unexamined assumptions (les idées reçues) than theater as such. Students do, however, present most of the play in the Reader’s Theater style. The pre-reading activity introduces the final evaluation of the unit. Students first associate animals to ideologies and concepts. This first activity also allows the instructor to introduce the ideas fanaticism, totalitarianism, and conformism. The final assessment asks each student to chose one country, not necessarily a French speaking country. For …