The Threepenny Opera Lesson Plan

The Role of Translation

Kind of Activity:

Group Work

Objective:

Students will be able to consider the idea of translation through comparing and contrasting song translations

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.4; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.7

Structure:

Pair students up, and assign each pair one of the songs from The Threepenny Opera, giving them the titles of both the Manheim / Willett version and the Blitzstein version. Students have already discussed a number of differences between the two translations, but now they need to create a close read. If they can't read or understand German, how can they know what's really in the song, if the translations are so...