August: Osage County Lesson Plan

The Play and Osage History

Kind of Activity:

Mixed Media

Objective:

Students will study the history of the Osage Reign of Terror to better understand the play's setting and characters.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Structure:

The uneasy relationship between the play's white characters and the indigenous Cheyenne woman, Johnna, reveals some of the Plains region's racial and ethnic tensions. Though all of the United States bears the history of Native American genocide and oppression, Osage County became especially notorious in the 1920s due to the serial...