A View from the Bridge: Miller's Language Devices!

This interesting and highly-stimulating lesson enables students to demonstrate a developed, sustained understanding of the language devices utilised in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. In particular, students engage analytically with Miller’s use of language at the beginning of Act II, in which Eddie Carbone appears to lose control over his actions. Students examine how similes, rhetorical questions, imperative commands, and other language features serve to highlight his descent into desperation.

The lesson follows a clear, logical, bite-size learning journey, which guides students towards differentiated learning objectives. Over the course of this journey, they become able to:
- Define and provide examples for each of the relevant language devices;
- Identify each of the language devices in short sentences, and begin to comment upon their effect;
- Understand some of Miller’s intentions behind writing the play;
- Critically engage with Miller’s use of language devices at the end of the Act Two, including the events leading up to Eddie’s call to the Immigration Office;
-Peer assess each other’s learning attempts.

This resource pack includes:
- A visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation;;
- Paper copies and online links to the extract needed for the lesson (beginning section of Act Two);
- Language Devices Cards;
- Language Devices worksheet (including answer sheet for teachers);
- A logically scaffolded essay template;
- A detailed lesson plan, complete with what the teacher and students should aim to achieve at each stage of the lesson.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.