The Sound of Silence

Overview: Silence and sounds outside of speech can play an important rhetorical role in movies, plays, and spoken word pieces. This activity asks students to think about the decisions that composers of visual and aural texts make when they choose to use silence and then consider how they can use "silence" and other techniques effectively in their writing.

Materials: A video or audio clip from a movie, song, or speech in which silence or noises other than voices play prominently. Two good examples are the "You Can't Handle The Truth" speech from A Few Good Men and the dancing scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I.

Procedure:

1. With your students, discuss the role that silence and noises play in movies and audio recordings. Ask students if they can think of any examples where silence or noises were more powerful than speech. To get the ball rolling, you might mention newscasts in which listers here several seconds of gunfire or battle before the reporter comes on with a war update or songs which are introduced by sounds rather than music.
2. Tell students that they will be listening for the importance of silence (or noises) in the example that you are about to play. Ask students to write down the point in the example where they see silence or noises as playing an important role. 
3. Play the example. 
4. Silently, for 3-5 minutes, ask students to jot down note as to why they think the composer/director chose to use these moments of silence or sound effects.
5. In groups, ask students to compare and contrast their lists. 
6. As an entire group, discuss the moments in the example where silence and noises played an important role and why the director/composer chose to use them. Discuss pathos, audience and purpose. 
7. Pass out a student or teacher example in which the writer has managed to use silence effectively through sentence pacing and variation or description.
8. Compare and contrast the textual and aural/visual example. Discuss the effectiveness of the silence in terms of audience and purpose. Introduce or discuss tone and discuss how different tones may have had different effects on the audience and purpose of the piece. 

Differentiation:

1. Have students act out a short drama. Each group gets the same drama, but each group gets different instructions regarding sound effects or moments of silence.  Compare and contrast the effects of the different uses of silence and non-verbal sound. 
2. As a follow-up activity, ask students to revise a part of their current papers or to write a new scene/segment paying special attention to tone, especially silence.