Lowis Lowry's The Giver is the story of Jonas in a utopian society. Jonas is just like any other member of the society who learns to use precise language (avoiding phrases like "I'm starving" because he is not and never will be--He is just hungry), manages his years as a One, Two, Three and so on, and works to complete his Community Service. When Jonas becomes a Twelve, he receives a special Assignment as The Receiver of memory. He is told that his job will be painful but he has no idea what the struggles are that are before him because he is not familiar with the concepts of color, choice, and individuality.
Students will struggle with several things in this novel. First of all, teaching this novel to a reading-level appropriate students will be difficult because students may not be able to maintain maturity at the concept of "Stirrings." Just before Jonas becomes a Twelve he has his first dream and is further assigned to take a pill each day to eliminate these "Stirrings." Secondly, students will struggle with understanding the setting at the beginning of the story. Since many students read books about and watch television shows where the characters are about them, many will struggle to understand the environment which Jonas lives. At first, they may not be able to identify with his struggles to understand the concepts of snow and color.
Two key literary features are imagery and the characteristics of a specific genre. Even if I were not able to teach the entire novel many of the descriptions provided through The Giver's memories are beautiful. As Jonas first encounters snow, the descriptions that Lowery provides are very interesting. Many of the images provided by The Giver's memories are unique because they are Jonas's first experiences with concepts that appear very different to us. The world of The Giver is a utopian society, a perfect world as envisioned by its creators. The members of the community do not experience fear, pain, hunger, illness, conflict, and hatred. But in order to maintain the peace and order, the citizens of the community in The Giver have to submit to strict rules governing their behavior, their relationships, and even their language. They have to give up individual freedom and human passions. They also lack the basic freedoms and pleasures that our own society values. The Giver is of a particular brand, called dystopian literature, where societies that might seem to be perfect because all the inhabitants are well fed or healthy or seemingly happy are revealed to be profoundly flawed because they limit the intellectual or emotional freedom of the individual. Jonas becomes angry when he realizes that no one ever has a choice or knows when they are doing something profoundly wrong. Jonas makes the decision to leave the community after seeing his father "Release" or kill an infant.
One teaching activities include having students act out or write one of their daily interactions as if they were members of the community. This application level exercise would help students to connect to the literature and realize the freedoms they have in their daily lives. Students would also learn from writing their own first memory of snow or their first visit to the ocean. After reading the passages describing some of the memories students would be able to develop stronger descriptive writing.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Great Gatsby
This content may be useful when studying for the English Praxis test (0043).
2 Literary Features / 2 Obstacles to Understanding / 2 Teaching Activities
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
I cannot take credit for many of these ideas as they come from a Jane Schaffer book I was given.
Refresher plot summary
The Great Gatsby is a book about American society during the years from WWI to the Depression. The story takes place during the 1920s in New York City and on nearby Long Island. The 20s were a decade of Prohibition, bootleggers, the advent of the automobile, popular fads, and the broth of materialism. The novel depicts the “American Dream,” the belief that anyone can accomplish his or her goal through hard work. The belif in the American Dream is called into question in the course of the novel. Fitzgerald once said “America’s great promise is that something’s going to happen, but it never does. America is the moon that never rose.”
The story opens with a retrospective from August 1923 from the narrator, Nick Caraway. Nick is a mid-Westerner and Yale graduate who, in the summer of 1922, has moved to Long Island to work as a bonds salesman in New York City. He rents a house in West Egg on Long Island next to that of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and near the East Egg house of Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom. Nick pays a visit to the Buchanans where he meets Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, and, beginning in June, attends parties at Gatsby’s mansion. Daisy and Tom are not happily married, and Tom has a violent temper. Tom also has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson (wife of George Wilson, an auto repair shop owner); Nick, Tom and Myrtle go to New York City where Tom keeps an apartment for him and Myrtle to use. Myrtle and George live in the “valley of ashes,” a dismal, dirty section of town between the communities of East and West Egg and New York City.
Nick begins dating Jordan Baker in July. Gatsby takes Nick with him to New York on a business trip I July, where Nick meets Gatsby’s business associate Meyer Wolfsheim and beings to sense that Gatsby’s wealth comes from illegal activities. In July, Jordan tells Nick the history of the romance between Daisy and Gatsby before Daisy and Tom were married; in mid-August, Tom and his friends come to Gatsby’s house; after that, also in August, Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties. Nick arranges a private meeting at his house for Daisy and Gatsby, at Gatsby’s request. Gatsby tells Nick the story of his past as “Jay Gatz,” an uneducated and unsophisticated Midwesterner. He met a wealthy man named Dan Cody and learned about the life of the rich. He joined the army during the war and earned several honors, which he shows Nick. When he returned to the States, Daisy had married Tom. Gatsby has taken advantage of living near Daisy to try and rekindle the relationship.
Shortly after the meeting between Daisy and Gatsby in late August, Gatsby stops giving parties and replaces the servants in his house with newcomers, all of who seem to be connected with Wolfsheim. Nearly at the end of the summer (probably Labor Day), the Buchanans, Jordan Baker, Nick, and Gatsby go to New York and take a room at the Plaza Hotel. The party there is uncomfortable, and Tom accuses Gatsby of having an affair with his wife. The group returns in two cars; Tom, Jordan, and Nick in one; Daisy and Gatsby ride in the Gatsby’s yellow car. Myrtle Wilson is killed by a yellow car in an automobile accident that night. Daisy is driving the car but Gatsby covers for her. George Wilson tracks the car down, finds Gatsby, and kills him in Gatsby’s pool in Autumn, 1922. He kills himself as well. Nick handles the funeral arrangements and meets Gatsby’s father there, Henry Gatz. Almost no one attends the funeral, and Nick decides to return to the Midwest, disillusioned with the fast life that he has shared for several months.
2 Important Literary Features
Discuss with students symbolism as a driving force of the novel, where symbols appear in text and what they mean or represent. Examples of good symbols include:
The billboard eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg
The green light at the end of the dock (why is it green?)
Situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.
Owl Eyes, East Egg, West Egg, The valley of ashes, Gatsby’s yellow car, Gatsby’s shirts
Another important feature is theme. Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. A theme cannot just be “love.” As teachers we must encourage them to think further and develop full themes. Themes for The Great Gatsby include the penalty of materialism, appearance vs. reality, death and rebirth, the rigidity of the class system and disillusionment and disenchantment.
2 Obstacles to Understanding
In The Great Gatsby there are 100 characters introduced. Only about a dozen or so of these people are central to the plot. Students will no doubt have difficulty distinguishing between who is an important character and who is simply in the book as a partygoer. Oftentimes in classrooms, students get distracted and by attempting to keep people straight. With so many characters arriving at parties, it may be difficult for students to tell whose actions are important to the plot and who is merely there as a device.
Period pop-culture terminology and allusions to music and musicians may also be confusing to students who are not familiarly with American society in the 1920s. Students will need to spend time discussing or researching on their own The Jazz Age and The Roaring 20s to place the novel in a proper setting before they read. Some ideas of things to discuss with students that were common or important to the culture in the 20s include new fashions, the effects of WWI and the American people, and prohibition. Other students might need clarification when common customs of the upper class are discussed. Some examples of these confusing customs include silver service, the game polo, and the purpose of finger-bowls. With any discussion of terminology, it is also important to point out that the appropriate terminology for African Americans has changed considerably since this novel was written. It is no longer appropriate to call African Americans “bucks” or “negroes” or any root of that word
2 Teaching Activities
To introduce students to the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz age in America. Have students create a newspaper of the times. Students may work in pairs to generate a newspaper that would have been published near the summer of 1922. To begin the assignment, give students a list of newspaper topics. Break them into groups and ensure that each student writes at least one story for their groups’ newspaper. Topics for newspapers stories include
Art Deco, Freudian psychology, Model A and Model T cars, Jazz Music, a profile of a Jazz Musician, the dances and other entertainments of the 1920s, the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre, film stars such as Charlie Chaplin Rudolph Valentino and Laurel and Hardy, a warning of the Stock Market crash to come, one of the presidents from the time period, or another writer from the time period, the Russian Revolution, the Gilded Age, the beginnings of the movie industry, new fashions form women
Because many students, especially those in Arkansas, may have difficulty understand the travel time and distance between many of the settings of the novel, have students freehand a map of the places mentioned in the novel. A free-handed drawing of the places mentioned in the novel ensures that students will not just fill in the blanks of a worksheet. Locations to be sure students include are West and East Egg (both fictional places but models of Great Neck and Manhasset Neck, Long Island), Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Plaza, the 6 houses mentioned in the story (from Gatsby’s house, to George and Myrtle’s apartment, to Nick’s cottage), Staten Island, Fifth, Avenue, Lower East Side, Coney Island, Montauk Park ect. Having students create a map of a book is an opportunity to encourage interdisciplinary study.
2 Literary Features / 2 Obstacles to Understanding / 2 Teaching Activities
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
I cannot take credit for many of these ideas as they come from a Jane Schaffer book I was given.
Refresher plot summary
The Great Gatsby is a book about American society during the years from WWI to the Depression. The story takes place during the 1920s in New York City and on nearby Long Island. The 20s were a decade of Prohibition, bootleggers, the advent of the automobile, popular fads, and the broth of materialism. The novel depicts the “American Dream,” the belief that anyone can accomplish his or her goal through hard work. The belif in the American Dream is called into question in the course of the novel. Fitzgerald once said “America’s great promise is that something’s going to happen, but it never does. America is the moon that never rose.”
The story opens with a retrospective from August 1923 from the narrator, Nick Caraway. Nick is a mid-Westerner and Yale graduate who, in the summer of 1922, has moved to Long Island to work as a bonds salesman in New York City. He rents a house in West Egg on Long Island next to that of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and near the East Egg house of Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom. Nick pays a visit to the Buchanans where he meets Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, and, beginning in June, attends parties at Gatsby’s mansion. Daisy and Tom are not happily married, and Tom has a violent temper. Tom also has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson (wife of George Wilson, an auto repair shop owner); Nick, Tom and Myrtle go to New York City where Tom keeps an apartment for him and Myrtle to use. Myrtle and George live in the “valley of ashes,” a dismal, dirty section of town between the communities of East and West Egg and New York City.
Nick begins dating Jordan Baker in July. Gatsby takes Nick with him to New York on a business trip I July, where Nick meets Gatsby’s business associate Meyer Wolfsheim and beings to sense that Gatsby’s wealth comes from illegal activities. In July, Jordan tells Nick the history of the romance between Daisy and Gatsby before Daisy and Tom were married; in mid-August, Tom and his friends come to Gatsby’s house; after that, also in August, Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties. Nick arranges a private meeting at his house for Daisy and Gatsby, at Gatsby’s request. Gatsby tells Nick the story of his past as “Jay Gatz,” an uneducated and unsophisticated Midwesterner. He met a wealthy man named Dan Cody and learned about the life of the rich. He joined the army during the war and earned several honors, which he shows Nick. When he returned to the States, Daisy had married Tom. Gatsby has taken advantage of living near Daisy to try and rekindle the relationship.
Shortly after the meeting between Daisy and Gatsby in late August, Gatsby stops giving parties and replaces the servants in his house with newcomers, all of who seem to be connected with Wolfsheim. Nearly at the end of the summer (probably Labor Day), the Buchanans, Jordan Baker, Nick, and Gatsby go to New York and take a room at the Plaza Hotel. The party there is uncomfortable, and Tom accuses Gatsby of having an affair with his wife. The group returns in two cars; Tom, Jordan, and Nick in one; Daisy and Gatsby ride in the Gatsby’s yellow car. Myrtle Wilson is killed by a yellow car in an automobile accident that night. Daisy is driving the car but Gatsby covers for her. George Wilson tracks the car down, finds Gatsby, and kills him in Gatsby’s pool in Autumn, 1922. He kills himself as well. Nick handles the funeral arrangements and meets Gatsby’s father there, Henry Gatz. Almost no one attends the funeral, and Nick decides to return to the Midwest, disillusioned with the fast life that he has shared for several months.
2 Important Literary Features
Discuss with students symbolism as a driving force of the novel, where symbols appear in text and what they mean or represent. Examples of good symbols include:
The billboard eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg
The green light at the end of the dock (why is it green?)
Situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.
Owl Eyes, East Egg, West Egg, The valley of ashes, Gatsby’s yellow car, Gatsby’s shirts
Another important feature is theme. Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. A theme cannot just be “love.” As teachers we must encourage them to think further and develop full themes. Themes for The Great Gatsby include the penalty of materialism, appearance vs. reality, death and rebirth, the rigidity of the class system and disillusionment and disenchantment.
2 Obstacles to Understanding
In The Great Gatsby there are 100 characters introduced. Only about a dozen or so of these people are central to the plot. Students will no doubt have difficulty distinguishing between who is an important character and who is simply in the book as a partygoer. Oftentimes in classrooms, students get distracted and by attempting to keep people straight. With so many characters arriving at parties, it may be difficult for students to tell whose actions are important to the plot and who is merely there as a device.
Period pop-culture terminology and allusions to music and musicians may also be confusing to students who are not familiarly with American society in the 1920s. Students will need to spend time discussing or researching on their own The Jazz Age and The Roaring 20s to place the novel in a proper setting before they read. Some ideas of things to discuss with students that were common or important to the culture in the 20s include new fashions, the effects of WWI and the American people, and prohibition. Other students might need clarification when common customs of the upper class are discussed. Some examples of these confusing customs include silver service, the game polo, and the purpose of finger-bowls. With any discussion of terminology, it is also important to point out that the appropriate terminology for African Americans has changed considerably since this novel was written. It is no longer appropriate to call African Americans “bucks” or “negroes” or any root of that word
2 Teaching Activities
To introduce students to the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz age in America. Have students create a newspaper of the times. Students may work in pairs to generate a newspaper that would have been published near the summer of 1922. To begin the assignment, give students a list of newspaper topics. Break them into groups and ensure that each student writes at least one story for their groups’ newspaper. Topics for newspapers stories include
Art Deco, Freudian psychology, Model A and Model T cars, Jazz Music, a profile of a Jazz Musician, the dances and other entertainments of the 1920s, the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre, film stars such as Charlie Chaplin Rudolph Valentino and Laurel and Hardy, a warning of the Stock Market crash to come, one of the presidents from the time period, or another writer from the time period, the Russian Revolution, the Gilded Age, the beginnings of the movie industry, new fashions form women
Because many students, especially those in Arkansas, may have difficulty understand the travel time and distance between many of the settings of the novel, have students freehand a map of the places mentioned in the novel. A free-handed drawing of the places mentioned in the novel ensures that students will not just fill in the blanks of a worksheet. Locations to be sure students include are West and East Egg (both fictional places but models of Great Neck and Manhasset Neck, Long Island), Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Plaza, the 6 houses mentioned in the story (from Gatsby’s house, to George and Myrtle’s apartment, to Nick’s cottage), Staten Island, Fifth, Avenue, Lower East Side, Coney Island, Montauk Park ect. Having students create a map of a book is an opportunity to encourage interdisciplinary study.
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