Rhinoceros Lesson Plan

Theatre of the Absurd 101

Kind of Activity:

Classwide Discussion

Objective:

Students will be able to understand and experiment with the artistic movement of which Ionesco was a part.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5

Structure:

Discuss with students the tone of the play. How is it different from other plays they may have read in school or seen performed? What makes it unique or odd? Some students may point to the heightened and stylized dialogue, or the sheer weirdness of having a rhinoceros run through a town, or in particular the conversation between the Logician and the Old Gentleman. It doesn't sound like real life, even real life in the 1940s....