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Online Teacher's Guide for A Death in the Family
By Suellen Alfred
Tennessee Technological University In March 2002, EXXONMOBIL MASTERPIECE THEATRE'S AMERICAN COLLECTION presents
A Death in the Family,
based on James Agee's novel with the same title. Set in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1915, the film focuses on a close-knit family's struggle to accept the accidental death of young husband and father, Jay Follett. The
film distills the dream-like quality of Agee's prose into a tight, incisive script that moves the viewer along at a measured pace. Performances by principals Annabeth Gish as Mary Follett, John Slattery as Jay Follett,
Austin Wolff as Rufus, David Alford as Andrew, Kathleen Chalfant as Aunt Hannah, and James Cromwell as Joel are subtle, fluid, deep, and shining. Because the novel may prove a bit difficult for the average high
school student, and because instructional resources are few, teachers will appreciate the helpful links on this web site to access information and materials for teaching the novel and the film.
Introduction
"Let Us Now Praise James Agee
," provides helpful background information on the author: Agee's other works, his East Tennessee roots, and his educational background along with a list of Agee biographies. A very good starting place for teaching the
A Death in the Family and other Agee works. Production Information
An interview
with Dennis Doty, co-producer, and Gil Gates, director and co-producer reveals insights about the filmmakers' devotion to the book and the choices they made for the screenplay. One would think because of its lyric nature and use of interior monologues
A Death in the Family
would not readily lend itself to a movie script. However, Cates and Doty clearly love the book and saw the cinematic possibilities in "the way in which Agee dramatized the way the family came together. . ." The interview shows the importance of "thinking outside the box" among creative people. Students interested in movie making will find this site helpful.
Author Links
The web sites
in this list, evaluated by classroom teachers, link teachers to valuable background on James Agee and his works. The reviewer for the first site states, "The value of this site 'lies in its clear introduction to Agee's life and works. The second site contains a biography of Agee. The third site connects teachers to the Agee Collection at the University of Texas for students who may want to do further research on Agee's life and works. Unfortunately the resources are merely listed but not provided on line. A third site has a very good bibliography. The fourth site show a spoof of " Knoxville: Summer 1915" by a Knoxville writer, and the last site contains interesting information about
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men which Agee wrote with photographer Walder Evans.A Death in the Family Teacher Resources For teachers, this link is the meat and potatoes for
teaching the novel and the film. Lesson plans and writing prompts on such elements as point of view, setting, and the language of faith encourage students to view the film and read the novel with clear purposes. The
links below will take you to specific sites. Essays –
"The Language of Faith and Self Identity in A Death in the Family" by Marshall N. Surratt is an excellent discussion of
Agee's faith. Surratt quotes liberally from Agee's close associate Walker Evan, who took the photographs for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Evans reveals Agee's respect for the human soul and the spiritual
conflicts faced by people of faith, a conflict that is readily apparent in A Death in the Family. Teachers and students working with the element of conflict and the theme in the novel will find this essay
very helpful. At the end of the essay are 5 challenging Activity Suggestions and a list of works cited. There is also a short essay discussing the director's use of light
by a graduate student from Tennessee. Students can use this insightful essay as a springboard into their own discussions of director choice and vision in the film.Lesson Plans Novel to Film - This plan by Suellen Alfred provides a set of prompts requiring students to read and view carefully in order to compare the novel with the film. The introduction to this
lesson provides ideas for how to "read" a film, and what to look for while viewing. One excellent feature of this lesson is its link to actual parts of the film script for comparison with the novel.Study Guide – Like she did with The Song of the Lark and The Ponder Heart, teacher Susan Thurman has again created a comprehensive guide for the novel and the film. Among
other things it contains sections on religious references, Pre- and Post-viewing/reading questions and assignments, research topics, biographical information, lists of literary devices and challenging vocabulary in the
novel. Unique to this lesson is the great number of links to web sites for information on such topics as Samuel Barber's opera "Knoxville 1915," the history of improving hearing, the book The Grammar of Ornament
which Aunt Hannah gives to Andrew, information on the Morris chair referred to in the novel, the history of the telephone, clothing of the period, and The New Republic, which Joel reads while waiting for
news about Jay. Thurman also has links to the songs "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and "Go Tell Aunt Rhoda." This guide is a gold mine.Being There – Another
gold mine of resource information, this lesson is an in-depth look at Agee's connection to East Tennessee, his family in Knoxville and La Follett, his marriages, and his children. The information about various aspects
of Knoxville at the turn of the century is very thorough. Retired teacher Sue Huetteman also provides ideas for inter-disciplinary approaches to the novel in biology, geography, history, music, and literature.Exploring Grief Issues in A Death in the Family - In this lesson, Sheila Skeans, a high school counselor in Clinton, Tennessee, not far from La
Follette, uses psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief in connection with specific passages in A Death in the Family
to examine how the family copes with the loss of Jay Follett. Skeans traces those stages among the characters in their responses to Jay's death. Along with those passages are words of advice from Kubler-Ross on how to comfort people in various stages of grief. For young people who often feel awkward around friends who have lost loved ones, this lesson provides practical ideas about what to say and what not to say to someone who is grieving.
Exploring Setting in A Death in the Family – by Lynn Lemmon is a pre-reading/viewing activity requiring students' use of the Internet to research
facts about life in the early 1900's. The lesson also requires students to create a banner based on their research and present the banner and their research to the class. This is an effective use of reading, writing,
speaking, listening, and presenting for students.Grief and Renewal Through Poetry
– by Ann Gann, is a post-viewing lesson that requires students to write an essay about their own grief using vivid, expressive, concrete words. Using those concrete words they are then to write a poem and then illustrate the poem. They may but are not required to present their work to the class. This is an effective use of multiple genres to express a single idea.
Narrative Perspective in A Death in the Family – Students closely examine the subtleties of character development through narrator perspective in
this collaborative learning lesson. It is a good approach to the ideas of point of view and character development. Groups of students are asked to choose one character and search the book for ideas about that character.
Helpful questions to consider for each character guide students in their research. A special inter-textual activity connects the characters in A Death in the Family to Holden in The Catcher in the Rye
and to Gene in A Separate Peace.Symbolism in A Death in the Family – Students take the skills of identifying and analyzing symbols from printed text to film.
The lesson has pre-viewing, during-viewing, and post-viewing activities. It contains a very good chart requiring students to find the scene in which a given symbol appears, the dialogue associated with the symbol, and a
statement about the meaning of the symbol.Image Gallery
Photos from the film shoot can be enlarged, printed, and saved. These are excellent visuals for
pre-viewing discussions, for assignments on comparing students' views of characters from the novel with the images of the actors in the film. These images can also be used by students who are researching period costumes
and hairstyles.Student contributions
Student Robert Annibale reviews the film as do many other students in the Reviews section of the A Death in the Family issue of the student online literary magazine, Between the Lines. The students chose as the theme, Grieving Loss, Finding Hope, connecting Agee's themes in the novel with their own experiences. Their outpourings of loss
and hope give everyone, teachers and students alike, an opportunity to take pause. |
