Song Lesson of the Week ~ The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence is a very powerful song and although it is from a very remote past for our teens, they love it when they hear.

When I do the song in the class, I choose images from the web. Just type ‘silence’ and choose the images you want to use in your lessons.

I chose the following photos;

A. Discussion Questions

1. List the words or phrases that come to your mind when you hear the word ‘silence’.
2. List the antonyms of ‘silence’.
3. Compare the silence visualized in the pictures.
4. Have you experienced a situation when there was deadly silence?

B. Guess the meanings of the underlined words:

1. My brother came home very late and crept into his room so as not to wake dad up.
2. He killed his victim by stabbing with a kitchen knife.
3. Don’t dare to come home late again. Your dad will be furious.
4. He bowed his head when he saw the principal.
5. The concert didn’t start and the audience became restless.

C. Understanding the song:

1. The singer says ‘hello darkness, my old friend’ What does he want to say?
2. Is he alone in his dream? Does that make any difference? Why or why not?
3. What does silence refer to in this song?
4. Does the melody help you convey the meaning of the song? How?

D. Follow up:

You have to choose 2 of the tasks.

Write your own poem called ‘The Sound of Silence’

Summarise the song creating a comic. You can use the following comic creators: http://www.creaza.com/frontpage

http://www.toondoo.com

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com

Make a presentation visualizing the song.

You can use powerpoint or glogster or photopeach/animoto.

My students’ responses to the follow-up tasks