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9th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 14 of 14

Drama, Satire & Fallacies

Asides, soliloquies, dramatic irony and satire; understatement, straw men and red herrings.

What your child practices

Your teen identifies dramatic conventions (asides, soliloquies, dramatic irony, satire) and the purpose of understatement and overstatement, and spots straw man and red herring arguments.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: E1.7(C); E1.8(G) · dramatic conventions, understatement and overstatement, and straw man and red herring fallacies

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. An aside is a short line to the audience. A soliloquy is a character alone, speaking thoughts aloud. In dramatic irony, the audience knows more.
  2. Understatement makes something seem smaller than it is; overstatement exaggerates.
  3. A straw man twists an opponent’s view. A red herring distracts from the real issue.

Example: A character alone on stage speaks her fears aloud. What is this? She is alone, so she isn’t talking to anyone. Speaking private thoughts aloud alone is a soliloquy. Answer: a soliloquy

Drama, Satire & Fallacies in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 14 of 14 in 9th grade English Language Arts, after Borrowed Words & Connotation.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Why do playwrights use soliloquies?

    • to introduce the cast
    • to let the audience hear a character's private thoughts
    • to end every scene
    • to change the setting

  2. Question 2

    Which is understatement?

    • Calling a broken leg “a little scrape.”
    • Calling a broken leg “a broken leg.”
    • Calling a broken leg “the end of the world.”
    • Calling a broken leg “painful.”

  3. Question 3

    After a hurricane flattens a town, a resident says, “We've had a bit of wind.” This is…

    • a red herring
    • overstatement
    • understatement
    • a straw man

  4. Question 4

    What is dramatic irony?

    • when two characters argue
    • when the audience knows something a character does not
    • when a character tells a joke
    • when the play is a comedy

  5. Question 5

    How can a reader answer a straw man?

    • change the subject
    • point out that the real argument was different
    • exaggerate even more
    • agree with the distortion

  6. Question 6

    In a comedy, a servant gives the audience a sly wink and a one-line comment. What convention is this?

    • a soliloquy
    • an aside
    • an epilogue
    • a chorus

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