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ESL materials & ideas developed in China
"Last Message from the Titanic" lesson plan
a) Scenario
1. The year is 1912. You are a passenger on the ship, S.S.Titanic, in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship has hit an iceberg and is about to sink. You are doomed to die.
2. A certain Mr. McDavitt is also aboard the ship. He is an inventor, and is carrying a very clever clockwork machine with a magnetic wire which will record voices. He collects together some of the passengers (you) and suggests that you record a message to pass on to future generations. Maybe the machine will be recovered someday, and your message will be passed on to the world.
3. There is only enough magnetic wire for each small group of four people to record one, five minute magnetic message. Mr. McDavitt therefore insists that the message must not be something personal to your family (who will probably never hear it anyway). Rather the message should express the feelings of the group as a whole, their idea of the world in 1912, and any advice they might like to pass on to future generations.
4. Remember that in 1912 the world was a very different place. England was the most powerful country in the world, and was in intense competition with Germany. In a short time they would go to war (World War I). America was becoming rich very rapidly, and in the East, the power of Japan was rising. In China the Qing dynasty had fallen at last, but a stable government had not yet replaced it, and the common people were suffering great hardship. There were no electronic gadgets, no television, no computers, no commercial aircraft.
b) Project Plan
1. Form small groups of 4 Titanic passengers.
2. Appoint a secretary
3. Discuss the kind of message that you, as a group, want to leave to the world. For example, you could think about these things:
i) the Titanic was advertised as "unsinkable". What lesson do you draw from that?
ii) many people in 1912 thought that Man would soon be master of Nature. How would you be feeling about that idea?
iii) many Europeans in 1912 thought that their empires and technology proved that they were superior to "other races" (while many Chinese thought that China had a superior civilization to "other races", and the Japanese thought they themselves were best, ... and so on). In 1912 the soon-to-come world wars would be partly driven by these superiority ideas. How sensible would such ideas seem to you, if you were about to die on the Titanic?
iv) there is a story that the ship's band kept playing while the Titanic sank. What do you feel the musicians were thinking in those moments, and why did they keep playing? What lesson would you draw from that?
v) when people face certain disaster, some give up and become nervous wrecks. Some remain hopeful to the end. Some become violent. Some try to live frantically for a little time, like making love to anyone. Some make jokes. Some keep acting as they have always acted. What did you notice about your fellow passengers on the Titanic, and what lessons did you draw?
4. Brainstorm things that you might include in your message.
5. Assign each person in the group to make up at least two minutes of content for the five minute message.
6. Collect the content from group members and edit into one, coherent message.
7. Rehearse your message as a group and decide how to present it to all the other passengers (i.e. to the class).
"Last Message from the Titanic lesson plan" copyrighted to Thor May 1999; all rights reservedback to Last Message index