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.