Introduction

Use this Real-Life Lens Plan to help students dive deep into William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and examine the story’s events, themes, and characters through the lens of civilization versus savagery. What does Golding have to say about why the boys devolve into behaving savagely? How do different characters respond to the choice between acting civilized or behaving savagely? What draws the characters toward savagery? What is necessary to maintain civilized behavior? Are adults more capable than children of acting civilized? Can either civilization or savagery ever finally win?

Materials

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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Introduce the Lens

To activate students’ thinking, choose one or two of the following Real-Life Links to use in an engagement activity. Have students read or listen and discuss the content. Encourage students to jot down notes, or record class notes on the board for future reference.

Pose the following Big Idea Questions to the class:

What does it mean to act civilized or behave savagely?  

What causes people to behave savagely? 

What helps maintain civilized behavior?

Engagement Activity

1. Have students write quick initial responses to the questions.

2. Discuss the questions, either as a class or in small groups.

3. Have the class create a working definition for what it means to act civilized and what it means to behave savagely and record these definitions on the board or have students record them in their notebooks. Remind students to test and adjust these definitions as they read and discuss the text.

CCSS

Introduce the Driving Questions

Begin by having students write their own questions about the lesson topic. Encourage them to think about what they already know about what it means to behave in a civilized or savage way.

Hand out the Driving Questions Worksheet. Review the questions as a class. Students should enter initial answers to the questions both before and as they read Lord of the Flies. They will revisit the questions and revise their answers following the lesson activities, classroom discussion, and the completion of the text. Remind students to support their responses with evidence from the text.

Integrate the Driving Questions into your classroom discussions. Use them to help guide students’ thinking about the Big Idea Questions.  

1. Why do the boys struggle to build shelters and maintain the fire? 

2. What leads the boys to cross lines into behaving savagely? 

3. What is the effect of the hunters painting their faces? 

4. In what ways is the hunting of pigs significant to the story and its meaning? 

5. What do Ralph, Piggy, and Jack each value? 

6. What different impressions does the story give the reader about the adult world? 

7. What does Simon discover about the beast? 

8. What does Piggy understand about his situation on the island? 

9. What does Ralph discover about human nature and life while on the island?

CCSS

Introduce the "Through the Lens" Activity

Activity: Personal Experience 

In this activity, students will write a paragraph description about a time they experienced or witnessed a situation becoming uncivilized. If necessary, allow students to write about a scene that fits this description from a movie or book instead of from their own lives.

Before students begin the activity, take time as a class to define uncivilized. Record students’ ideas on the board and then, as a class, agree upon a single definition. Record this definition on the board and remind students to keep this definition in mind as they work through the activity.

  1. Have students write their paragraphs as described above. 

  1. In pairs, have students share their paragraph descriptions and discuss the following:

    What caused events to go as they did?
    What helped to reestablish order?
    Could the situation have been avoided? Why or why not?
     

  2. Invite a few volunteers to share their scenarios.

  3. As a class, discuss and record reasons why people behave savagely. 


Have students compare the reasons they gave for why people behave savagely when they were thinking in general about this question in the Big Idea Questions to the reasons they gave after they wrote about a specific, personal experience.

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Have two or three volunteers verbally share their experiences with the class instead of writing paragraphs. Then answer the questions listed above as a class.

Increase difficulty

Have students write a personal essay about witnessing or experiencing a situation becoming uncivilized. The essay should include their reflection on what caused the situation to unravel as it did, whether the event could have been avoided, and what helped reestablish order.

Introduce the Final Project

Before moving on, introduce the final projects to the class (see below for details). Have students choose the project they will complete and encourage them to keep their project in mind as they read the text. Facilitate the formation of project groups if necessary.

Assign the Midpoint Activities

Activity 1: Make Predictions 

Considering what they now understand of civilization versus savagery, students will make predictions based on a close reading of the text through Chapter 5. Students will need to cite specific evidence for their reasoning. Later, they will have the opportunity to assess their thinking and that of the author. 

After reading Chapter 5, students will make predictions about how the story will turn out and whether Jack or Ralph will prevail as chief. 

Students will support their predictions with three specifics from the text, focusing their ideas on patterns they’ve noted in the story so far about civilization versus savagery. 

After they have finished reading the novel, have students reread their predictions and write a one-page reflection that explains what they see as the reasons for the author’s choices versus the ones they foresaw for the story. Questions students should consider: Did civilization prevail, or did the boys turn to savagery to meet their goals? What role did the concepts of civilization and savagery play in the story’s ending?

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Have students make predictions together in small groups and support their predictions with three pieces of textual support. After reading the book, have students return to their same small groups to discuss the author’s choices versus their predictions.

Increase difficulty

Have students use their creative writing skills to write the ending of the story as they predict it now. After they have finished reading the novel, students can write a one-page assessment of the effectiveness of their ending versus Golding’s ending.

Activity 2: Making a Case About the Beast

Students will have the chance to engage imaginatively with the text and make inferences based on clues the text provides. 

Have students pretend that they are at one of the assemblies that Ralph calls on the island. Holding something that is meant to represent the conch, students will take turns saying what they think the beast is, provide reasons for their belief, and then share what they think needs to be done to protect themselves from the beast. Before students complete this activity, they should review Chapter 5 to remind themselves of what the story’s characters have to say about the beast.

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

In small groups, have students discuss what the beast is and what needs to be done to protect themselves from it. They will then present their thoughts and plan to the class.

Increase difficulty

Students will write a two-page persuasive essay about what the beast is, using evidence from the text to support their thinking.

Final Projects

Students will work on their final projects after they have finished reading Lord of the Flies. The first project can be completed by individual students or in pairs, while the second project calls for small groups.

Final Project 1: Character Study

Using the guiding questions below, students will trace the development of one character—Piggy, Ralph, or Jack—over the course of the story. They will then create a multimedia presentation that offers a portrait of this character, his evolution, and his significance to the story.

Students should include in the project: 

What is revealed about your chosen character through his appearance, behavior, or background in the first two chapters? Provide specific evidence. 

What does your character represent, and how does he develop the central conflict of the story? 

What symbol is connected to your character, and what does that symbol reveal about him? 

What motivates your character? 

In what ways does your character change over the course of the book? 

In what ways does your character try to hold onto civilization versus falling into behaving savagely? 

Choose three passages that reveal something important about your character and explain what each passage reveals. 

What is an important moment of change for your character? What does your character realize, or how does he change?

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Students will choose one character—Piggy, Ralph, or Jack—and respond in written form to the questions provided but will not put information into a multimedia format.

Increase difficulty

In addition to completing the project as described, students will compose an “I Am . . .” poem. They will decide whether they are most like Piggy, Ralph, or Jack and address their similarities to this character in poetry form.

Final Project 2: Reflecting On and Organizing Group Efforts 

This project invites students to reflect on how people work together productively. Students are asked to think about how to do this both on the real-life level of the group they are participating in and on the imaginative level of the world in the story. 

Step 1: Students discuss and then create a contract for how they will work together as a group. 

What ground rules will they set? 

Will one person be in charge, or will the decision-making process be democratic? 

What specific roles will each person play to facilitate an effective working relationship? 

How will students make sure everyone in the group is contributing fairly and effectively? 

Step 2: Students work together in their groups to create a plan to keep life on the island in Lord of the Flies civilized. They will consider the following: 

What is most important to accomplish? 

How should things be organized? 

What kind of leader do they want? 

What rules will they make? 

How should those rules be enforced? 

Step 3: Students test out their plan against the events in the book and identify potential problems with their plan and revise it accordingly.

Step 4: Students decide how to present their plan and their reasoning to the class. Consider recording similarities and differences between each group’s plans on the board. 

Step 5: Students write a one- to two-page assessment of how well their group worked together on this project, identifying what made their work together successful or not.

CCSS

Assess the Assignments

Use the Rubric for Student Assessment to evaluate student work on the lesson assignments. 

Distribute the Student Reflection Worksheet. Guide students through the self-assessment and reflection questions. 

Complete the Teacher Reflection Worksheet. Record which elements of the lesson plan worked well for your class and which elements you might revise for future classes.

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