The Crucible

[Louise Robinson-Lay]

I was wondering how many people were doing this play for the Context. My students have enjoyed reading it, but I'm not sure how well they know it as we have only read through it once and they have not read it at home. some are saying that they want to write as Proctor or Abigail after the play's end, which should be interesting. I was wondering if anyone had already had students complete this and how they went?

[Nienna Sirfalas]

Show them the film. It is pretty true to the play and reinforces the concepts and ideas, also highlighting events they may have missed and making it easier to understand since they can see the reactions and responses to the conflic more clearly. Writing as Proctor or Abigail is an interisting task, but not particually relevant to the main themes. It says in there somewhere that Abigail ended up being a prostitute. You can't really write about Proctor, since he is dead, and bringing him back would defeat the purpose of the play and defy Miller's message: that through dignity and personal strength, one can overcome hysteria and corruption.
Hope this helped :)

[Louise Robinson-Lay]

Hi, we did this last year and it was successful. We got students to perform scenes from the play and we viewed the film to help them to understand it. We actually did some writing tasks as the characters because the language was quite difficult for students to really use.
Lots of students preferred this to our other text, Secret River, as it had more interesting themes for them. We had lots of debates over Abigail and some students ended up writing her journal after she had arrived in Barbados. They were quite cruel in what they did to her!!! Several said she would end up as a prostitute.