Alienation, Belonging, and Learning AP-style Writing

Teaching for Understanding

The ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.

Title: Search for Self and AP-Style Writing (Summer Reading Seminars)	Course(s): Advanced Placement
Topic: Identity Development in Bildungsromans: Alienation and Belonging, Anxiety and Contentment in novels of formation	Grade: 12

Stage 1 – What do we want students to know, understand, and be able to do?

Understanding(s) Enduring ideas that are central to the subject. Students will understand that… Understanding: Students will understand how the author of a bildungsroman creates a protagonist that develops identities in response to environmental forces: interpersonal, social, historical, cultural, religious forces. Students will understand that the author of a bildungsroman shows how the protagonist’s experiences of environmental forces influences whether a character feels at-home or alienated in the environment. Authors also show the protagonist’s develop a belief that the world makes sense or is absurd. In bildungsromans these elements are dynamic and develop over the course of the novel through the author’s use of literary techniques. The protagonist’s development is shown not only through dynamic characterization and the plot—the logic of events—but also through imagery (allegorical, symbolic, and/or suggestive), other characters (including mentors, foils, and parallel characters), narrative point of view, tone, style, and other literary elements. Understanding: Students will understand that in a bildungsroman the author often creates a protagonist who has a naïve, innocent, received, incomplete, self-delusional, or otherwise insufficient understanding of the world. That understanding is threatened, undermined or shown to be wrong, naïve, insufficient, etc. (through encounters with elements of the environment, juxtaposition with other characters, etc.). The threatened understanding of the self in the world leads to a crisis (a break, a breakdown (an explosion, radical deprivation, etc.) which leads to a new identity for the protagonist. (The protagonist is transformed by ecstatic experience, is strengthened, broken, revealed by the conflict; the protagonist revises her identity, learns a lesson, etc.) The change is in response to the world as now understood in relation to the self. The change can be sudden, slow or some combination. Understanding: Students will understand that modern and post-modern bildungsromans often revise the traditional characteristics of the genre established in the nineteenth century. For example, in modern novels of formation the protagonist often does not come to manifest the spirit and values of the dominant society but rather lives in opposition to them, flees them, or is destroyed by them. (The source for tradition characteristics is Suzanne Hadler of Brown University.) Understanding: Students will understand that the depiction of identity formation in bildungsromans can be applied to the students’ own lives, particularly but not exclusively in personal essay writing which is the focus of the next unit of study.

Essential Question(s) Generative questions around which the topic may be organized. Question: How do bildungsromans show identity development in relation to the environment? How do bildungsromans address the following questions: Who are you and what is your place in the world? Does the world belong to you and do you belong to the world? Or are you alienated from the world? (Do you feel that you are an alien in your environment? Is your relationship to the world, your place in the world a problem? Do you feel anxiety, uncertainty about your place in the world? Or, perhaps you feel downright hostility from the world around you and therefore towards the world around you? Do you feel the world makes sense and rewards virtue and punishes vice? Or, does the world feel random and absurd?) Questions: How is identity formation depicted in a bildungsroman? Is a crisis (break / breakdown) necessary for development (break through)? How does that work? (What causes breakdowns? What causes productive breakdowns? Can it be in the nature of the circumstances leading to breakdown? Must it be in the person’s response? [After breakdown you can also remain broken down, no? (destroyed? defeated?) What is the role of ecstatic (heightened experience) and the crisis and the transformation? (Many of these questions were formed in direct response to comments made by Theo Theoharris of Harvard University.) Question: How have bildungsromans changed over time? Question: How can the study of bildungsromans be made relevant to a student’s own process of identity development.

Higher Order Thinking Skills	Analysis (in every lesson) Synthesis (in the creation of a prompt in lesson 1, in the creation of a thesis in lesson 3) Evaluation (in the self-assessment and peer-assessment aspect of lesson 3)
Knowledge and Specific Skills	Composition writing (including particular focus on prompt writing, thesis writing, use of direct evidence and quotation, and revision.)

Stage 2 – How students will demonstrate understanding

Performances of Understanding & Accompanying Rubrics	Lesson 1: AP Question 3 Style Essay (rubric attached) Lesson 2: Passage Analysis (rubric attached) Lesson 3: Thesis writing and finding apt support (rubric attached)
Other Evidence & Assessments	Student-led discussion notes and active read notes (read and/or collected in each lesson) provide further evidence of student understanding.

Stage 3 – Learning Plan and Instruction

Learning Experiences	Think-pair-share using student active reader notes. Student-led discussions related to essential questions and understandings. Student creation of essay writing prompts. Self-assessment and peer-assessment of writing.
Formative Assessment & Feedback	Self-assessment and peer-assessment Teacher feedback of essay writing leads to targeted areas of improvement for revision and subsequent assignments. Teacher feedback on student-led discussion Extension of discussion on class blog (apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com) with responses by peers and teacher

Massachusetts Framework Standards

8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood. 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time. 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme. 12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. 15.10 Analyze and compare style and language across significant cross-cultural literary works. 16.12 Analyze the influence of mythic, traditional, or classical literature on later literature and film. 19.30 Write coherent compositions with a clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation. 21.9 Revise writing to improve style, word choice, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning after rethinking how well questions of purpose, audience, and genre have been addressed. 22.10 Use all conventions of standard English when writing and editing.

Attachments:

For the lessons I’ve chosen three of the summer seminars I conducted after taking “Tragedy and Hope”. (Lessons and assignments from the four summer sessions can be found at apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com.) In each session I used ideas from the “Tragedy and Hope” course, especially but not exclusively from the first two days which pertained most directly to the content of the summer seminars. Each session was four hours long.

Lesson #1

Lesson Plan #1 (four hours)

Integrated Learning Scenario:

Invisible Man (part two) Summer Seminar #2

The Blog Page for This Lesson:

http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/07/summary-of-second-session-post-session.html

Reading and Literature Strand: 8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood. 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time. 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme. 12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. Composition Strand: 19.30 Write coherent compositions with a clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation.

Students have read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and have prepared pre-session notes on the novel as a “ticket” for participating in the student-led discussions. Pre-Session #2 You will show me this work as a "ticket" before the session. It's the hottest ticket in town. * Continue to follow a motif you have chosen. Write down a motif you tracked along with at least five places you found the motif. (Some motifs will appear in every chapter.) A brief mention of how the motif appeared & the page number will suffice). You don't need to analyze or explain the motif at this point. * Follow the key moments (scenes) in the protagonist's identity development in relation to his environment. Where does the environment change? Where does his understanding of his environment change? Where does he change in response to his environment, especially in terms of ideology (what he believes and thinks is important), vocation (what he does), and sexuality? I'm especially interested in the choices the protagonist makes in response to his environment. Mark down the most important moments in the novel that deal with the protagonist's identity development (at least five). A brief comment about the moment & the page number will suffice. http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-session-post-session-1.html (scroll down to #4) At the beginning of the session I remind students of some of the big ideas we focused on in the last session and will focus on in this one including the relationship between environment and identity, the causes of alienation, and the ways authors depict themes through symbolic imagery and action. Each student then engages in a think-pair-share activity. Each student thinks of the scene that s/he would most like to discuss and why. Each student then shares that scene and explanation with a nearby peer. The student who listened then shares with the class a summary of the scene and explanation of what makes it worth discussing.

Students participate in student-led discussions generated from their pre-session notes. Each student writes three discussion questions for the motif s/he has been tracking and for the scenes s/he noted. The discussion questions should be focused upon illuminating how the way the novel is written (the choices the writer makes, the techniques the writer employs) contribute to the meaning and effect of the novel (in this case a bildungsroman). I then roll the dice and choose a discussion leader who will introduce the motif and ask a question. The leader then facilitates the discussion for fifteen minutes. I take notes through the discussion. At the end of fifteen minutes I read from the notes to point out strong insights. I also correct misunderstandings, point students toward related parts of the novel, and ask follow up questions. I then roll the dice for a scene discussion leader. And on we go… After the student-led discussions I lead a charting of the novel’s motifs while students take notes (motifs along the x-axis, chapters along the y-axis). As we do this I ask the unit’s identity formation essential questions as they pertain to the content. I ask students to propose other scenes ones we haven’t delved into during the student-led discussions or during the charting of motifs. I ask questions and model observations about how the choices made by the author contribute to the author’s exploration of the unit’s big ideas. With some guidance the students then write a prompt that gets them to use their pre-writing and in-class activities to produce an AP composition. (See note below on “culminating performance”.)

Write a composition in response to the prompt generated by the class. Here’s an example from the summer of 2009: Use your "personal key" (the events, objects, motifs you have tracked through the novel) to illustrate the purpose of the novel as you understand it. (Instead of "purpose" you might deal with the "meaning and effect" of the novel as a whole.) Write an essay (oh, five hundred to a thousand words or so) responding to the prompt. I'll be looking for an idea (not a single sentence) about the significance of the novel as a whole that boldly and insightfully encapsulates Ralph Ellison's exploration of the identity development of an African-American man in hostile environments. Then, I'll be looking for close, careful analysis of specific passages in the text that support and develop your bold, insightful central idea. Finally, I'll look for the final conclusions your careful analysis has driven you toward. http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/07/summary-of-second-session-post-session.html (Rubric attached) Here’s how I discussed the rubric with the students in class and on the blog: "A+/A" essays will thoroughly and convincingly develop a bold, insightful idea about the novel's apparent meaning and effect with commanding, precise, and well-chosen details from the novel. "A-/B" essays will develop a plausible response to the prompt with enough relevant supporting evidence to come across as reliable. "B-" essays will often develop a plausible but superficial response to the prompt with some errors and omissions in interpretation of details. "C/C-" essays will often include significant errors and omissions in the central idea and in the supporting details, though these essays will show an understanding of some aspects of the text. Essays with lower scores will not meet requirements or will show little to no understanding of the prompt and/or the text.

AP Style Rubric for Invisible Man Responses

AP English Literature and Composition 9-point Rubric Adapted for Summer Session #2 Post-Class Assignment on Invisible Man

Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for 8 papers and, in addition, are especially full or apt in their analysis or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language.

Essays earning a score of 8 respond to the prompt convincingly. They show a perceptive, precise understanding of how particular elements found throughout the novel contribute to the work as a whole. The textual references are apt and specific, demonstrating a command of the text. Their prose demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing but is not flawless.

Essays earning a score of 7 fit the description of 6 essays but provide a more complete analysis or demonstrate a more mature prose style.

Essays earning a score of 6 adequately respond to the prompt. They show a plausible, reasonable understanding of how particular elements found throughout the novel contribute to the work as a whole, but their discussion is more limited. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear.

Essays earning a score of 5 analyze the relationship between elements found throughout the novel and the work as a whole, but they may provide uneven or inconsistent analysis. They may treat the prompt in a superficial way or demonstrate a limited understanding of the prompt. For example, a theme (identity, for example) might be mentioned as important to the work as a whole, might be shown to be present in particular scenes, but never adequately explained or analyzed. (What does the scene and/or work as a whole suggest about identity?) While the writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, it usually conveys ideas adequately.

Essays earning a score of 4 respond to the prompt inadequately. They may misrepresent the work as a whole, analyze the individual elements (scenes, motifs, etc.) inaccurately, or offer little discussion of specific aspects of the novel. The prose generally conveys the writer's ideas but may suggest immature control of writing.

Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria of the score of 4 but are less perceptive about the prompt or less consistent in controlling the elements of writing.

Essays earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in responding to the prompt. These essays may offer vague generalizations, substitute simpler tasks such as summarizing the novel’s plot. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing.

Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for the score of 2 but are undeveloped, especially simplistic in discussion, or weak in their control of language.

Indicates an on-topic response that receives no credit such as one that merely repeats the prompt or one that is completely off topic.

Lesson #2

Lesson Plan #2 (four hours)

Integrated Learning Scenario:

Translations and Waiting for Godot

Reading and Literature Strand: 8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood. 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time. 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme. 12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. Composition Strand: 19.30 Write coherent compositions with a clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation.

Students have read Translations by Brian Friel and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and have completed the following pre-session notes as a “ticket” for class: For Translations note passages (at least ten) that deal with the relationship between culture (especially language, learning, and history) and identity. For Waiting for Godot note passages (at least ten) that deal with the absurdity of existence. (Culture-and-identity, on the one hand, and the absurdity of existence, on the other hand, are important aspects of Invisible Man. With these plays we'll focus a bit more closely on these two themes. (If we had gotten to the Harlem riots we'd have talked a bit more about absurdity today.) http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/07/summary-of-second-session-post-session.html

Here’s a summary of the lesson prepared for students: During the first part of day's class we discussed Translations, exploring the relationship between one's surrounding culture and one's identity. We were especially keen to think about the ways (and reasons) that individuals either embrace cultural change or resist it. We talked about this in relation to Gloucester too. We also explored the techniques that Brian Friel used in the play to develop ideas about threats to and preservation of cultural identity; we focused especially upon language (and issues of language such as translation and naming) as an aspect of individual identity and cultural identity. * Then we talked about writing passage analysis. * Finally we talked about Waiting for Godot. We focused on how Beckett's choices (his techniques) as a playwright helped create a sense of the absurdity of existence. We talked about how the play makes the reader/audience uneasy and that this unease is both funny and disturbing. The play, after all, is a tragicomedy, we observed. Finally, we discussed how unease, absurdity, alienation relate to issues of identity and the individual's relationship with others in all the work we've discussed so far this summer. Oh, and I also mentioned this passage from Six Degrees of Separation, a play-made-into-a-film, which deals with the imagination as a possible way out of alienation. (Will Smith!?!?) Notice the mention of the end of Godot. http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/08/summary-of-third-session-post-session-3.html

Here is the culminating performance as written for students: Choose a rich, interesting, beguiling passage from Translations. On the blog type up the passage, include the page number. Write a summary of the passage. What happens? Who is involved? Where are they? When? Etc. Then write an analytical commentary. How Brian Friel is using literary techniques (is making particular choices with language) in the passage. How does the passage relate to other passages and to the themes in the play as a whole? Peel back the layers. What do you find? Remember that I encourage you to speculate and take interpretive risks. (X appears to mean Y. X suggests or might mean Y.) 300+ words * Do the same for Waiting for Godot. Choose a passage. Type it out with the page number. Write a summary. Write an analytical commentary. 300+ words. Finally, if you didn't turn in your pre-session work post it. The passage analyses will be assessed using the attached rubric.

Rubric for Passage Summaries and Analyses

Translations and Waiting for Godot Passage Summaries and Analyses

9-8

These compositions offer a commanding summary and persuasive analysis of the scene, including insightful analysis of how the scene contributes to the major themes of the play. Students make a strong case for their interpretation of the passage and its relationship to the novel as a whole (especially with regard to themes). They explore the playwright’s meaningful use of elements such character, event, setting, motifs, symbols, cultural and historical allusions, tone, and style. These essays develop analysis through apt and specific references. The perceptive analysis is clear, precise and well organized. The analysis demonstrates sophistication and effective control of language.

7-6

These compositions show an understanding of the passage and its relation to the play as a whole through accurate summary, reasonable analysis and sustained, competent reading of the passage and its relation to the novel as a whole (especially themes) with attention to many of literary elements listed above. (The essays do not just name or list the themes found in the passage and in the novel as a whole, but also exhibit an understanding of how the passage develops the theme and how the theme is developed in the work as a whole.) The explication exhibits clarity and control; it includes supporting references from the text.

5

These summaries and analyses respond to the assigned task with accurate summary and plausible analysis of the passage but tend to be less than convincing. The explications may be underdeveloped in their analysis of the playwright’s use of literary techniques in the passage or in their analysis of the passage’s relation to the whole. (Techniques and themes might be identified but not analyzed and explained.) Support from the passage tends to be general and paraphrased, lacking attention to specific language and techniques employed by the playwright. Organization and command of language tends to be less effective (i.e. less clear) than in explications that score 7 or 6.

4-3

These summaries and analyses exhibit a less than adequate understanding of the task and often include significant misreading, omissions, and errors. The summaries may be incomplete or inaccurate. The analyses tend to rely on plot summary or paraphrase. They do not articulate plausible understanding of the passage itself or its relation to the whole novel. There may be little or no discussion of particulars, or the particulars that are discussed are misunderstood.

Lesson #3

Lesson Plan #3 (four hours)

Integrated Learning Scenario:

Wide Sargasso Sea Summer Seminar #4

The Blog Page for This Lesson:

http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/08/summary-of-fourth-session-post-session.html

Reading and Literature Strand: 8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood. 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time. 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme. 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme. 12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. Composition Strand: 19.30 Write coherent compositions with a clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation. 21.9 Revise writing to improve style, word choice, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning after rethinking how well questions of purpose, audience, and genre have been addressed.

Students read Wide Sargasso Sea and completed the following pre-session work: Finally, as previously sent in an email, your last pre-session work for the summer of '09: What should you bring to class on Monday? Bring Wide Sargasso Sea. Bring paper and something to write with. Write down the page number, first few words and last few words of one passage that you would like to discuss on Monday from each of the novel's three sections. (So you'll choose three passages total; one from each of the three sections.) Then write a brief (four sentence or so) summary of each passage and three open-ended discussion questions for each passage. The passages, brief summary, and questions will be your entry ticket. (This will be a common procedure in preparation for student-led discussions.) When choosing passages you might think about: happiness (the desireability of, the elusiveness of, the sources of); identity (racial identity, social class identity, national identity, family and self, name and self); safety and threat (the effect of living with threats); madness, sanity, reason, and passion (and complications of identity); sexuality and power; reality and dreams; and images of fire and destruction, images of animals and plants (and what these images suggest about the themes stated above); finally you might consider narrative point of view (what is the effect of the shifting narrator?) http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/08/summary-of-third-session-post-session-3.html Using the pre-session work I begin with a think-pair-share similar to the one in the previous lesson.

Here is a summary of the lesson as written for students: For each section I solicited passages from you -- the passages you marked as you read -- & to conceptualize the conflict in the novel I made two columns. One column linked that which made Antoinette feel "safe" and another column linked that which made Antoinette feel "bold" "free" and "happy" but not safe. (The quoted language is from the novel itself.) We tried to use the break between safety and happiness to help explain the difficulties Antoinette had trying to construct a healthy identity that worked within the environment she was given. (We also talked about her exclusion from various communities and her attempts to connect. & we situated her struggle to form a viable identity within the larger social context of the social, cultural, and economic issues in the Caribbean and England.) At the end of class we tried to make bold, insightful assertions (thesis statements) about the work as a whole that could be supported by the passages we examined closely. The thesis writing process entailed writing, followed by self-assessment and peer-assessment using the rubric (attached below) as a guide. http://apenglishghs2010.blogspot.com/2009/08/summary-of-fourth-session-post-session.html

Here is the culminating performance for students: So at the end of class I had you write some bold, insightful assertions about Wide Sargasso Sea. These assertions -- perhaps a single sentence, perhaps several -- are, as Nick, I think, noted, also known as thesis statements. You will hone one of these assertions and post the bold, insightful assertion in the comment box below. (The best assertions will be clear, will be bold*, will take on some element of the novel that you found significant (even essential), and will go beyond what we discussed in class. One way to think about generating a thesis is to isolate some aspect of the novel's style or technique -- shifting points of view, contrasting settings, symbolic imagery, significant motifs, etc. -- and to explain how Jean Rhys' use of that technique is meaningful in the novel as a whole.) Instead of writing a full essay to support the assertion write down five or more passages from the novel that you would use to develop the thesis if I did ask you to write an essay. Make sure that you cite at least one passage from each of the novel's three sections. Write the "first few words...last few words" of each of the five or more passages along with (the page number). If you feel its not immediately apparent how the passage relates to the assertion it would be wise to explain the connection. Evaluation: The bold assertions (thesis statements) will be assessed according to the thesis statement portion of the GHS essay rubric (attached). The evidence cited will be assessed as above expectations, meeting expectations, or incomplete.

Expository Essay Thesis Writing (Gloucester High Rubric)

THESIS
Level 1 D/F
Unclear thesis statement.
Level 2 C
Clear and supportable thesis statement. (Or perhaps the thesis is insightful or meaningful but not completely clear.)
Level 3 B
Clear, meaningful, insightful, supportable, and debatable thesis statement.
Level 4 A
Clear, meaningful, insightful, supportable, debatable, original, and essential thesis statement.