Last-Minute Solar Eclipse Lesson Plans for English Teachers

Why let STEM teachers have all the fun? With the solar eclipse looming on Monday, here are three lesson plans to make the most of the rare astronomical event in your English classroom, inspired by classic works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

1) Short Story Inspired by Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Provide students with a brief plot summary of Mark Twain’s 1889 satirical novel A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, as well as some background about the history of solar eclipses and their mythic status as dark omens. Before reading “Chapter 6: The Eclipse,” set the scene for what’s happening at this point in the novel: Hank Morgan, a nineteenth-century man who has been mysteriously transported to medieval England, has been sentenced to be burned at the stake because of his odd manner and appearance. Ever the clever trickster, Hank conveniently remembers from his history books that there was a solar eclipse very near the date he is scheduled to be executed, and threatens that he will “blot out the sun” if the king follows through with his plan to kill him. In this chapter, although Hank gets the timing of the eclipse slightly off, he takes advantage of the event to secure his fate.

With this context in mind, play an audio reading of the chapter “The Eclipse” for your students.

Ask students to take a cue from Twain and write a creative short story about being in a time and place where people didn’t know what a solar eclipse was. Have students narrate their reactions to witnessing a solar eclipse without any understanding of it. They might think about questions such as: what would happen? What would you do? How would you interpret the unexpected darkening of the sky? What philosophical, religious, or scientific ideas would you use to make sense of the event? How might the people around you respond? Students should aim to structure their stories with a central conflict, climax, and resolution.

After stories are drafted and revised, they can be collected on a shared blog or printed booklet so that students can read and enjoy each other’s tales.

2) Personal Essay Inspired by Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse”

Read Annie Dillard’s account of traveling to witness a total solar eclipse in 1979.

In her essay “Total Eclipse,” Dillard gives a moment-by-moment account of seeing this unsettling event, using vivid language to capture the experience, as seen in this excerpt: “From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light.” Despite the fact that an eclipse only lasts a few minutes, Dillard meditates on the experience for over 5000 words.

Drawing inspiration from Dillard’s example, have your students write a first-person account of witnessing the eclipse, slowing down to capture every second of the experience. Have them consider questions such as: how did you feel before the eclipse? How did the people around you react during the eclipse? How did you feel afterward? What kinds of emotions did the experience evoke? What did the eclipse look like? What images or objects would you compare to the eclipse? How did the eclipse make you see the world differently? Like Dillard, they should try to incorporate as many unusual metaphors and concrete descriptions as they can.

Students should then share what they wrote with a partner, discussing how their experiences compare with each other’s and with Dillard’s. Then reflect and discuss as a class: what does your partner’s account of seeing the eclipse tell you about who they are as a person?
 

3) Poem Inspired by Emily Dickinson’s Eclipse Poetry

Provide students with copies of two of Emily Dickinson’s eclipse-inspired poems, “Sunset at Night — is natural” (c. 1862) and “It sounded as if the streets were running” (c. 1877). (For more context, take a look at this article about Dickinson, Mabel Loomis Todd, and eclipses.) Have volunteers read the poems out loud twice. The first time, invite the class to just listen, absorb, and appreciate the poems. The second time, ask the class to mark up their copies of the poems, underlining important words, circling phrases that strike them as interesting, writing questions in the margins, and paying attention to Dickinson’s distinctive use of capitalization and punctuation. Discuss what they marked: what stands out as unique about Dickinson’s poetry? What literary techniques does she use to capture the experience of seeing an eclipse? What mood does she create? What deeper meanings does she derive from the eclipse?

After discussing the poems, have students write a short poem of their own inspired by the eclipse. Encourage them to incorporate some of the literary strategies they identified during discussion of Dickinson’s poetry. If time allows, have a few volunteers (or the whole class!) share their poem out loud.

***

Sunset at Night — is natural —

But Sunset on the Dawn

Reverses Nature — Master —

So Midnight’s — due — at Noon.

Eclipses be — predicted —

And Science bows them in —

But do one face us suddenly —

Jehovah’s Watch — is wrong.

***

It sounded as if the streets were running —

And then — the streets stood still —

Eclipse was all we could see at the Window

And Awe — was all we could feel.

By and by — the boldest stole out of his Covert

To see if Time was there —

Nature was in her Opal Apron —

Mixing fresher Air.

Written by Heather D. Wayne

Heather teaches high school English at Kingswood Oxford in West Hartford, Connecticut.