Text set key assignment
- 1. PURITAN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS Scarlet Letter Unit Text set Calago Hipps Johns Hopkins University
- 2. TKE STANDARDS• 5(A) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction. Students evaluate how different literary elements (e.g.,figurative language, point of view) shape the author’s portrayal of the plot and setting in works of fiction; • (6) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Literary Nonfiction. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the varied structural patterns and features of literary nonfiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze how rhetorical techniques (e.g., repetition, parallel structure, understatement, overstatement) in literary essays, true life adventures, and historically important speeches influence the reader, evoke emotions, and create meaning. • (7) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Sensory Language. Understand how sensory language creates imagery, Analyze the meaning of biblical allusions in words, phrases, passages, and literary work • (8) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze how the style, tone, and diction of a text advance the author's purpose and perspective or stance. • (9) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Expository Text. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to: • (C) make and defend subtle inferences and complex conclusions about the ideas in text and their organizational patterns; and • (D) synthesize ideas and make logical connections (e.g., thematic links, author analyses) between and among multiple texts representing similar or different genres and technical sources and support those findings with textual evidence. • (10) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Persuasive Text. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about persuasive text and provide evidence from text to support their analysis. Students are expected to: • (A) evaluate how the author's purpose and stated or perceived audience affect the tone of persuasive texts;
- 3. STANDARDS CONTINUED • 12) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are expected to: • (A) evaluate how messages presented in media reflect social and cultural views in ways different from traditional texts; • (B) evaluate the interactions of different techniques (e.g., layout, pictures, typeface in print media, images, text, sound in electronic journalism) used in multi‐layered media • (C) evaluate the objectivity of coverage of the same event in various types of media • (26) Listening and Speaking/Listening. Students will use comprehension skills to listen attentively to others informal and informal settings. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:(C) paraphrase the major ideas and supporting evidence in formal and informal presentations.
- 4. UNIT OBJECTIVES • SWBAT • Analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. • Analyze an author’s theme and how it shapes meaning • Use evidence to support their assertions of theme and context • Communicate through expository, narrative and persuasive writing • Evaluate how messages presented in media reflect social and cultural views • Use elements of the writing process to compose a text • Analyze how an author’s style shapes the meaning of a text
- 5. TEXT SET • The Scarlet Letter: Anchor Text (Fiction, Novel) • Supplemental Text • Still Puritan After All These Years (Nonfiction, Op-Ed, Expository) • The Price of Shame (TED talk, Video) • Sexism and the Single Murderess( Nonfiction, Op-Ed, Expository) • Their Eyes were Watching God (Fiction, Excerpt) • Gallup Poll “Religion” (Image) • Upon the Burning of my House (Poetry) • John Brown’s Speech to the Court at His trial (Speech)
- 6. ANCHOR TEXT: THE SCARLET LETTER • Grade: 11th • Author: Nathaniel Hawthorn • Genre: Fiction • Word Count: 84,190 • Lexile level: 1420L • Mean Log Word Frequency:4.52 • Mean Word length: 23.17 • Purpose: Moderately Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: • Language Features: • Conventionality: Moderately Complex • Vocabulary: Moderately Complex • Sentence Structure: Slightly Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Moderately Complex Quantitative Qualitative
- 7. ANCHOR TEXT ANALYSIS The Scarlet Letter is a historical drama set in Puritan Boston written by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Hawthorn creates a story about a long triangle inside a theocratic community and the effects of isolation and sin on Hester Prynn. Hester is a young Puritan woman dealing with the aftermath of an affair that resulted in a child. Hawthorn’s novel looks at the characteristics of a society ruled by religion and the ways that our beliefs can distort the relationship between justice and sin. Hawthorn uses an omniscient narrator allows him to use a character removed from the original events to fill the reader in on the drama. The narrator allows Hawthorn to make observations about the moral corruption of the Puritan community while also making the reader question their sense of morality. Students will examine the themes that Hawthorn presents in the novel and conclude if America has completely shaken its Puritan past, and if not, what characteristics are still prevalent in our DNA.
- 8. ANCHOR TEXT ANALYSIS (CONTINUED I anticipate the text to be fairly challenging for my students. However, the lesson will be structured to ensure that the vocabulary and complex sentence structure does not frustrate students to the point where they reengagement. In anticipation of students being disengaged with Hawthorne’s use of archaic idioms and terms, the class participated in a variation of four corners. We used the activity to explore our opinions about some of the novel’s broader concepts such as forgiveness and public shaming. The entry activity allowed students to connect with the big ideas of the text without being intimidated by the novel’s language. In preparation to read the novel, however, a structure involving whole class reading and audiobooks will allow each student a way to access the text.
- 9. ANCHOR TEXT ANALYSIS (CONTINUED) Students will access the text in several different modes; whole group readings, audiobooks, and independent reading. Through multiple access points, each level of reader is given a chance to grapple with the high-level text. There will also be modern articles that examine themes of the novel and will allow students to have Socratic seminars that analyze the complex meanings within Hawthorne’s text. Through close reading strategies and multiple class discussions, students will be able to create an essay answering an AP style question regarding ”The Scarlet Letter”.
- 10. STILL PURITAN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS • Author: Matthew Huston • Genre: Non-fiction • Word Count: 712 • Lexile level: 1330L • Mean Sentence Length: 20.34 • Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.19 • Purpose: Moderately Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: Moderately Complex • Language Features: • Conventionality: Moderately Complex • Vocabulary: Moderately Complex • Sentence Structure: Slightly Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Very Complex Quantitative Qualitative
- 11. “STILL PURITAN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS” RATIONALE ”Still Puritan After all These Years” is an Op-Ed that will allow students the opportunity to access the theme of religion that is found in the Scarlet Letter, from a modern perspective. Students will be able to connect the ways that religion informed the behaviors and climate of Puritan Boston during the time of The Scarlet Letter, with the way it informs our modern society. Students will use the rhetorical triangle to connect the author’s purpose, audience, tone, and subject and how each section of the triangle adds to or diminishes the articles meaning. Due to the article being from a prominent newspaper, the article’s purpose falls into the “moderately complex” portion of the rubric. For example, lines such as, “These results suggest a tight Puritanical intermingling of work, sex, and morality in the American mind,” showcase the average sentence complexity inside of the article. After breaking down the author’s purpose the rhetorical techniques he uses to advance his argument, the article will be revisited during a Socratic seminar.
- 12. THE PRICE OF SHAME • Author: Monica Lewinsky • Genre: Media/Ted Talk • Length: 22:31 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0W Lm78U Quantitative Video Link
- 13. THE PRICE OF SHAME RATIONALE Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk “The Price of Shame” focuses on the effects of our culture of humiliation. In her lecture, Lewinsky tells the tale of her battle with depression after her affair with Bill Clinton. Lewinsky talks extensively about the dangers of cyber bullying in the digital age and shows how our society profits off of the shame of others. Students will watch in conjunction with their reading of the novel. While watching the TED talk, students will have a specialized graphic organizer to track their thinking throughout the video. In addition to the graphic organizer for notes, students will be watching the TED talk with a transcript of the lecture, as well as subtitles. Presenting the media in text form as well provides students a resource they can use to compare to the digital media. The printed lecture will be combined with the student notes for a whole class discussion on the similarities of the Puritan practice of public shaming in the novel’s scaffold, to the digital scaffold of the digital age.
- 14. SEXISM AND THE SINGLE MURDERESS • Author: Frank Bruni • Genre: Non-fiction • Word Count: 878 • Lexile level: 1060L • Mean Sentence Length: 15.40 • Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.35 • Purpose: Moderately Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: Moderately Complex • Language Features: • Conventionality: Moderately Complex • Vocabulary: Moderately Complex • Sentence Structure: Slightly Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Moderately Complex Quantitative Qualitative
- 15. SEXISM AND THE SINGLE MURDERESS” RATIONALE Students will read an Op-Ed that examines the case of Amanda Know. Knox was a college student who was on trial for murdering her roommate. Knox’s case is unique in that the focus of her case focused on her promiscuity more than the murder itself. Students should be able to connect the themes of a person’s sin being sometimes outweighing justice in society. Just as Hester must contend with the tainting of her character by her community because of a private mistake, Knox found her private life the center of her court case. After reading and analyzing the author’s purpose, students will discuss the connections between the article and several other pieces of informational text in a Socratic seminar.
- 16. GALLUP POLL Author: Gallup Title: How Important is religion in your life? Quantitative
- 17. GALLUP POLL RATIONALE The Gallup poll provides a modern context for America’s current views on religion. The survey asked Americans The Gallup poll can be used to frame student thinking about the role of religion in America today and compare it to Puritan Boston. Students will be able to read the graphic and compare it to their ideas of where religion stands on our societies priority list. The Gallup poll can be combined with the article “Still Puritan After All These Years” to provide students a chance to discuss two divergent ideas. Students will learn to use numbers and statistics to support an argument in additional to written text.
- 18. ACTIVITIES • Socratic Seminar ( ”Sexism and the Single Murderess”, ”Still Puritan After All These Years”, “The Price of Shame”) • Socratic Seminar Questions • What Puritan values do we still hold dear? • How are our actions motivated by our beliefs? • How do the stories change if Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky were men? • The Scaffold in ”The Scarlet Letter” is the place where people are condemned publically for their actions, do we have a modern equivalent? • Group rhetorical triangles • Whole class discussions
- 19. EXCERPT: THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD • Author: Zora Neal Hurst • Genre: Fiction • Word Count: 181 • Lexile level: 830 L • Mean Sentence Length: 13.92 • Mean Log Word Frequency:3.75 • Purpose: Very Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: Moderately Complex • Language Features: • Conventionality: Moderately Complex • Vocabulary: Moderately Complex • Sentence Structure: Very Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Very Complex Quantitative Qualitative
- 20. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD RATIONALE Zora Neal Hurston’s “Their Eyes were Watching God” will be taught as a mini-lesson that focuses on style. Like Hawthorne, Hurston uses a unique writing style to advance the themes in her novels. Hurston utilizes dialects, dialogue, and vivid descriptions to provide the reader with details about her characters. In comparison, Hawthorne uses figurative language such as irony and complex descriptions to describe his characters and their community. These two texts can combine for a close examination of an author’s style, and it’s effectiveness in advancing their themes. The mini lesson will begin with a read aloud of an excerpt of ”Their Eyes Were Watching God” to identify how the dialect Hurston uses reveals the characters relationship. Then, Students will be provided with several examples of how to analyze style and will work in groups to identify instances of Hawthorne’s style in the first few chapters of the novel and how they impact the story’s meaning.
- 21. EXCERPT “Jody must have noticed it too. Maybe, he had seen it long before Janie did, and had been fearing for her to see. Because he began to talk about her age all the time, as if he didn't want her to stay young while he grew old. It was always "You oughta throw somethin' over yo' shoulders befo' you go outside. You ain't no young pullet no mo'. You'se uh ole hen now." One day he called her off the croquet grounds. "Dat's somthin' for de young folks, Janie, you out dere jumpin' round and won't be able tuh git out de bed tuhmorrer." If he thought to deceive her, he was wrong. For the first time she could see a man's head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth. She saw he was hurting inside so she let it pass without talking. She just measured out a little time for him and set it aside to wait. “ Their Eyes Were Watching God” Zora Neal Hurston
- 22. EXCERPT QUESTIONS 1. Based on Hurston’s use of dialects, what can we infer about stories setting? 2. How would you describe the relationship between the two characters? What about Hurston’s word choice tells you this?
- 24. UPON THE BURNING OF MY HOUSE • Genre: Poetry • Author: Ann Bradstreet • Published: 1666 • Word Count:363 • Purpose: Exceedingly Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: Very Complex • Language Features: • Conventionality: Very Complex • Vocabulary: Very Complex • Sentence Structure: Very Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Exceedingly Complex
- 25. UPON THE BURNING OF MY HOUSE RATIONALE Anne Bradstreet’s ”Upon the Burning of our House” will provide students background information on Puritan values and belief systems. Bradstreet’s poem is essentially the musing of a Puritan woman who has lost her home and belongings in the fire. However, regardless of her circumstance, the poem's narrator is grateful for her life and because of her strong faith, beliefs that it was in God’s plan for her house to burn. Students will be exposed to the Puritan belief of a divine plan and their admiration for nature. It will also provide students with additional knowledge of figurative languages use in adding meaning. Students will read the poem aloud identify the figurative language that Bradstreet uses to describe her outlook on the situation. Since it is a poem, the sentence structure is very complex and will allow the students a chance to interact with extensive figurative language examples and apply their thinking to text-based questions.
- 26. UPON THE BURNING OF OUR HOUSE: TEXT BASED QUESTIONS 1. Paraphrase lines 1-6 to clarify their meaning. How does the poet use contrast to convey a sense of fear? 2. Reread lines 13-39. How does this allusion work with the allusion in the word dust to express Bradstreet’s theme in this poem? 3. Reread lines 43-48. What two things does Bradstreet compare in the Metaphor in these lines?
- 27. JOHN BROWN’S SPEECH TO THE COURT AT HIS TRIAL Quantitative • Genre: Speech nonfiction • Author: John Brown • Lexile: 1210 • Year:1859 • Word Count: 637 • Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.34 • Mean Sentence Length: 637 Qualitative • Purpose: Exceedingly Complex • Text Structure: • Organization of Main Ideas: Very Complex • Language Features: • Conventionality: Very Complex • Vocabulary: Very Complex • Sentence Structure: Very Complex • Knowledge Demands: • Subject Matter: Exceedingly Complex
- 28. JOHN BROWN’S SPEECH RATIONALE Students will examine John Brown’s speech in conjunction with chapters 13 and 14 of The Scarlet Letter. Both texts focus on the connection of justice and religion and will allow the students a chance to discuss how the current themes of the novel connect to Brown’s speech. In his speech to the court, John Brown grapples with his society’s justification of the right to own slaves, and the word of God. Students will need to have knowledge of American society in the 1800’s in addition to background knowledge of the Puritans. The language structure falls into the very complex side qualitatively and will need to be supported with a group reading and audio version of the text. Students will work together to analyze Browns argument focusing on several text-based questions.
- 29. JOHN BROWN’S TEXT QUESTIONS 1. Identify two central ideas being discussed. What is Brown’s stated purpose? 2. Explain the structure of Brown’s argument based on how each paragraph relates. Does the structure support his argument and make it more clear, convincing, or engaging? Use text evidence to support your thinking 3. How do the central ideas interact over the course of the text? Identify three quotations from the text that support this intersection and the relationship between the ideas.
- 30. WORK CITED References Anne Bradstreet.Upon the burning of our house Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43707 Gallup. (2016). Religion. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/Religion.aspx Hawthorne, N. (1994). The scarlet letter Dover Publishing. Hurston, Z. N. (2004). Their eyes were watching god (repr. ed.). London: Virago. John Brown.John brown's speech to the court at his trial. Retrieved from http://www.nationalcenter.org/JohnBrown%27sSpeech.html Matthew Hutson. (2012, Aug 5,). Still puritan after all these years. New York Times Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1031045850 Metametrics. (2017). Lexile analyzer. Retrieved from https://lexile.com/analyzer/ Text to text -- ?the scarlet letter' and ?sexism and the single murderess'. (2013).