Lesson Plan The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket

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Whether used in their entirety or in part, these activities will allow students to become more adept in understanding vocabulary, idioms, anagrams, word choice, character development, and thematic statements. This guide is meant to supplement and enhance the teaching of A Series of Unfortunate Events and to create a classroom environment that would impress Mr. About this Series When the Baudelaire parents perish in a terrible fire, Mr. Poe, a banker and friend of the family, assumes responsibility for the Baudelaire orphans and their fortune.

Poe places the children—Violet, a creative inventor at age 14, Klaus, an avid reader at age 12, and Sunny, a baby with a unique vocabulary and four very sharp teeth—with their nearest distant relative, Count Olaf, an actor who is determined to steal their fortune.

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Count Olaf relentlessly pursues the children from one guardian to another, hatching a series of ever-more-diabolical plots. The result is a series of misadventures in which the three children can save themselves only by out-thinking the treacherous villain and his associates. When the children discover his plan, Count Olaf kidnaps Sunny, intending to hold her hostage until the mockery of a wedding takes place.

Fortunately for Violet, she devises a plan to foil his scheme just in time to save Sunny and their fortune. Why does Lemony Snicket warn readers at the beginning and several times throughout the book to put it down and read something else? Why would anyone want to read a book when they have been forewarned that the likeable main characters will meet nothing but despair? What effect do they have?

How could the adults have helped the children? How are each of their special skills crucial to their survival? The morning after they visit Mr. Poe at the bank, Count Olaf serves the children oatmeal with fresh raspberries. Why is he suddenly so kind to them?

Count Olaf and his troupe are all actors. How does being actors help them in their villainous plots? The Baudelaires are often the victims of bad luck. What could they do to change their situation? Who is Lemony Snicket? How does he know so much about the Baudelaire children? Who is Al Funcoot? What did he write? Use one or all of the following three vocabulary activities in conjunction with this list of words.

Ask students to define the vocabulary words on a 3" x 5" note card. Then have students work in small groups to prepare a demonstration for each of the words.

Lemony Snicket

Have the small groups present their demonstrations and allow the class to guess their words. Ask students to identify the part of speech for each of the vocabulary words and categorize them accordingly. Have students work with partners or in small groups to write sentences using their vocabulary word and additional words that begin with the same letter alliteration.

Practice reading the tongue-twister sentences and share them with the class. Write about a difficult situation that was made better by the people you were with or by what you were doing. How did others help you adjust? How did your activity help make you feel differently? So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit. Why do you think crying helped?

Poe bought horrible, itchy clothes for the Baudelaire children to wear, and they hated wearing them. Write about a time that you had to wear clothing you did not like or that was uncomfortable. While you were suffering, where did you go and what did you do in those clothes? Which was worse—the event or the clothes? Even though Violet and Klaus cooked him and his troupe a delicious meal, Count Olaf was angry because he wanted roast beef.

How did you feel?

Books by Lemony Snicket

How do you wish the other person had acted? Students may also include artwork to illustrate their journal. Have students form small groups and ask them to go to their school or public library and peruse the collection of cookbooks. Ask each group to plan a three-course meal for Count Olaf and his acting troupe.

Course one should be an appetizer, soup, or salad; course two should be a main dish, including meat and vegetables; and course three should be a dessert. Ask students to make an illustrated menu. Using The Marvelous Marriage as a model, ask each group of three to five students to select a situation in The Bad Beginning and write a short one-act play about it. Students should write the script, cast the characters, and then, after practicing and gathering costumes, present their play to the class.

About the Book

Brett Helquist illustrates The Bad Beginning, but as with any book, not every scene can be pictured. Ask each student to illustrate with an original drawing or pictures from the Internet or magazines a place, a character, or an event from the novel that was not illustrated by Brett Helquist.

Students should add an appropriate caption under each illustration. Display the illustrations in the classroom. Poe invites the Baudelaires to contact him at the bank if they have any questions, but he refuses to help when they visit him. Invite students to write a formal letter to Mr. Letters may be posted together on the classroom bulletin board. Across the Series Books 2 through 13 Discussion Questions 1.

Violet says that everyone should keep a few secrets, and almost every character in A Series of Unfortunate Events keeps secrets. What are the disadvantages of keeping secrets?

How can keeping secrets be a good thing? A Series of Unfortunate Events takes place over an unspecified time period. During the course of events, in what ways does each of the Baudelaire children change? What are the most important lessons they learn? What do you think his relationship to the Baudelaire siblings is? Why is it Mr.

How do their fatal flaws endanger the guardian, the children, or both?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Baudelaire children and the Quagmire triplets realize that they are sending signals, breaking codes, discovering secrets, and wearing disguises, all the things the V. What role did their parents play in training them? Would their parents be proud of them?

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Why or why not? The Baudelaire orphans are betrayed or neglected by many of the people they trust, and mistreated by many of the villains they fear. How does the behavior of the volunteers ultimately affect the decisions the children make? What villainous acts do Violet, Klaus, and Sunny commit? How do their crimes affect what others think about them?

How do these acts affect how they feel about themselves? Can something be funny and sad at the same time? Who is Beatrice and what connection does she have to the Baudelaire orphans? Why did Lemony Snicket dedicate the books to her? Why is she an important character in the series?

Across-the-Series Activities Art, Language, and Literature I n g e n i ous I l l ust r at i o n s Ask students to choose from one of the ideas listed below or find another equally descriptive passage to illustrate. Students may want to draw a triptych as Mr. Snicket described in The Austere Academy to illustrate some of the events including both the Quagmire and Baudelaire orphans. Students should be encouraged to use different types of art media: The orphans go to lunch; Carmelita Spats mocks them again as they try to sit down.

Duncan and Isadora Quagmire ask the Baudelaires to sit with them. The Quagmires are in a similar situation to that of the Baudelaire orphans—they are triplets, but their brother, Quigley Quagmire , died in a fire along with their parents. They, like the Baudelaire orphans, were left an enormous fortune in the form of sapphires. Duncan would like to be a journalist, and Isadora is a poet who writes couplets. They both have notebooks, or commonplace books, which they use to write down observations and notions.

Remora , is a man who tells very short, dull stories while eating lots of bananas as the children take notes. Bass , obsesses over the metric system and makes her students measure countless dull objects. Later, they are introduced to Coach Genghis. The Baudelaire orphans immediately recognize him as Count Olaf in disguise but pretend to be fooled. He makes an unusual remark about how orphans have stronger legs.

Then they all rush to the auditorium to listen to Vice Principal Nero's daily concert, in which the entire school is forced to listen to Nero playing the violin for hours. At the concert, the Baudelaire orphans decide that they will go to Vice Principal Nero's office the next day to drop hints about Genghis, but they are thwarted by "Coach Genghis", as he is present in the office.

At lunch, Carmelita Spats delivers the message that the Baudelaire orphans are to meet Coach Genghis on the front lawn at sundown, the time of Nero's violin concert. Violet and Klaus start failing their tests, too exhausted to tell one end of a metric ruler from another. Sunny's work suffers because she runs out of staples.

Then Vice Principal Nero tells the children that if they keep failing their tests, they are going to be tutored by Coach Genghis, and that Sunny will be fired. He says that they will have extra-hard comprehensive exams the next morning. He also demands that they give him nine bags of candy each which he mistakenly counts as 29 bags of candy, instead of 27 , as punishment for missing his concerts, and give Carmelita Spats earrings for each time she brought them a message. The Baudelaires go see the Quagmires and tell them what happened. Then the Quagmires plot a plan. The Quagmires disguise themselves as Klaus and Violet, get a sack of flour to represent Sunny, and do the exercises at night so that the Baudelaire orphans can study and make staples Coach Genghis doesn't know that it's the Quagmires that are running because it is night time and he can't see them.

The Quagmires leave their notebooks with Violet and Klaus so that they can study. Violet invents a staple-making device using a small crab, a potato, metal rods, creamed spinach, and a fork and makes staples while Klaus reads the notebooks out loud. The next morning, Vice Principal Nero and the two teachers, Mr.

Bass, come to the Orphans Shack. They test Violet and Klaus, and give Sunny a stack of papers to staple. Then Coach Genghis arrives. He has discovered, by trying to kick Sunny, that Sunny had been substituted with a sack of flour. Genghis uncovers the Quagmires' disguises as a result, and gives them canteen duty.

The orphans, unable to stand it any longer, attempt to reveal that Coach Genghis is Count Olaf. About that time, Mr. Poe comes to deliver the candy and earrings. Vice Principal Nero tells him that the orphans have been caught "cheating", and announces that the Baudelaire orphans are going to be expelled, despite Mrs. Remora's attempts to defend them. The Baudelaire orphans tell Mr. Poe that Coach Genghis is Count Olaf.

Coach Genghis runs out of the shack, and after the orphans manage to remove his disguise, he succeeds in kidnapping the Quagmires. The two lunch ladies remove their metal masks and reveal themselves as Count Olaf's assistants, the white-faced women.

The orphans see Olaf's assistants shoving the Quagmires into an old car. Before they close the door, Duncan yells to the Baudelaire orphans "Look in the notebooks! Unfortunately, Olaf steals the notebooks before he and his henchmen drive away. The orphans weep in the lawn by Mr. Poe because they miss their friends. The Austere Academy; or, Kidnapping! The book was set to include approximately seven new illustrations, and the fifth part of a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade , which was to include a part comic by Michael Kupperman entitled The Spoily Brats , and an advice column written by Lemony Snicket, along with other additions.

An audio book of this novel was released.

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