Teaching Irony Using Alanis Morisette.

I can't take complete credit for this lesson plan.

We had a guest speaker in one of my teaching/methods classes, and were given this idea to teaching irony using Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic."

Of course, if you're familiar with "Ironic" and the actual meaning of irony, you'll realize that many of the situations in Morissette's song aren't, in fact, IRONIC. But that's okay! That's where the real learning comes in.

Objectives:

* Students will be able to identify the three types of irony, and distinguish between them
* Students will be able to create their own examples of irony


Materials:

* Irony notes/worksheet
* "Ironic" lyrics with blanks
* "Ironic" music video or song recording
* "Actually Ironic" College Humor music video

Procedures:

* Hand out Irony notes/worksheet. Go over the three types of Irony, and have the students fill in the notes as you discuss them.

1. VERBAL IRONY: When you say one thing, but mean another. When done to be mean, this is referred to as sarcasm.
2. SITUATIONAL IRONY: When you expect one thing to happen, but another does.
3. DRAMATIC IRONY: When the audience knows something that a character does not.

* Have the students identify the examples of irony on their worksheets as either VERBAL, SITUATIONAL, or DRAMATIC examples of irony.
* When students have completed this exercise, discuss the answers as a class. Make sure that all students are clear on the different types of irony.
* Hand out the lyrics (with blanks) to Alanis Morissette's "Irony." Play the "Ironic" music video, or song recording. Have the students pay close attention to the song and fill in the blanks as it plays. If nothing else, this will keep them paying attention while the song plays.

* When the song has finished, make sure that all students have filled in their blanks correctly. Show the complete lyrics on the overhead or dot-cam, so that students who have missed important words can now fill them in.
* Tell the students that although the name of the song is "Ironic," and Morissette claims in her lyrics that all of these situations are, in fact, IRONIC, some aren't.
* Students will work in pairs to identify the situations in the song that are NOT ironic.
* List these situations on the board so that all students can mark them on their lyrics.
* Now, have students get back in their pairs, and ask them to make these non-ironic situations into ones that ARE ironic.
* For example, the lyrics "It's like rain on your wedding day," are not really ironic. However, if we change them to "It's like rain on your wedding day, when your wedding is taking place in the middle of the desert," it's VERY ironic!
* Have the students choose 3 of the non-ironic situations on the board, and make them ironic with their partners.
* Students will share their creations with the class.
* Show students the College Humor music video "Actually Ironic." This video is a parody of Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic," and it does the same thing you just had the students do. It takes those situations in "Ironic" that aren't really ironic, and makes them such. Also, it's just good fun!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Evaluation:
* As a sort of "Exit Slip" activity, project these three images for the students to see. Have students identify each comic/image as either Verbal, Dramatic, or Situational irony. (There is one of each.)

1.

2.

3.

* Students will turn this in as they leave class.

Credits:
"Actually Ironic" courtesy of CollegeHumor.com
Pearls Before Swine comics courtesy of Comics.com
Dead End sign image courtesy of Google Images