Lesson 4

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner, Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1930
  • “The Far and the Near,” Thomas Wolfe, Scribner, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1935

Optional

• • “Nobel Banquet Speech,” William Faulkner, The Nobel Foundation, 1950

Materials

Tools

• Discussion Tool

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Mentor Sentence Journal

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Claims Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Telling Stories: Section 2 Lesson 4 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Discussion Tool

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Mentor Sentence Journal

• Telling Stories: Section 2 Lesson 4 Question Set

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Present – Discuss

In a jigsaw discussion, we will each present what we have learned about a section of the story and continue to study elements related to characterization and description in “A Rose For Emily.”

Step 1

With your teacher, review and discuss the norms, roles, and responsibilities for participating in a jigsaw. You might want to reference sections of the Discussion Tool as you consider how to participate productively.

Return to the team that you worked with in the previous lesson about "A Rose for Emily." This will be your expert group.

Assign each person in your expert group a number from 1-5. This number will be your home group, in which you will present what your expert group has learned about in your section of the story and its key sentences.

Step 2

In your expert group, review your analysis of your section of the story from the previous lesson. Share and compare the analyses of mentor excerpts from the story, which you completed as homework.

Use the following guiding questions to organize your discussion.

1. What happens in this section of the story? What are the notable events?

2. When does the section of the story take place, relative to the story’s overall timeline and other parts of the story?

3. What do we learn about Emily Grierson in this section of the story? What do we learn through the narrator’s description, the actions, and the dialogue?

4. What other characters play a role in this section of the story? What are Miss Emily’s interactions with them?

5. How does the voice of the narrator play a role in this section of the story?

You can also use the question from the homework on analyzing and paraphrasing mentor sentences to guide the discussion.

Take notes from your discussion in your Learning Log to prepare to share in your home group.

Step 3

Move into your home group to share your expert group’s analysis of your section of the story and your analysis of at least one mentor excerpt. The jigsaw discussion should proceed from Section 1 to Section 5, as the story does. In addition to the questions you used in your expert group discussion, consider the questions below to guide your presentation and discussion. Be sure to cite evidence from the text as you summarize what your expert group discovered.

1. In your mentor excerpt,what descriptive words, phrases, and images does Faulkner use to characterize Miss Emily and her relationship with the town?

2. How would you paraphrase what Faulkner is describing?

Listen attentively and take notes while the other members share their understanding of their sections of the story. Offer comments related to the presenters’ summaries of their sections, and probe their observations by asking them what evidence from the text they have found that supports what they are saying.

Step 4

Return to your expert groups to share and compare what you learned in the home group about the other sections and mentor sentences.

Activity 2: Listen – Discuss – Write

We will learn how to form claims using a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool and will practice forming claims about “A Rose For Emily” on our own.

Step 1

Listen, follow along, and take notes as your teacher models how to form an evidence-based claim about a story’s character and that character’s role in the story, using the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool.

Step 2

Use the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to practice writing your own claim in response to the following question:

1. How does William Faulkner present and develop the character of Emily Grierson and her relationship to the town, people, and history of Jefferson?

Use the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to help you think through the following process:

• Identify three to four key details from the text that are related to the question about Emily Grierson, and cite where in the story you found the details.

• Explain how the details you identified are each connected to the question.

• Explain something you observe or understand from thinking about each of the details you have cited.

• Explain the connections you see among the details you have cited.

• Use what you have come to understand from your analysis of the details to form a claim about the character and her relationship to the town.

Step 3

Use the following evaluative questions to help you think about, form, and improve your claim:

1. Is the claim clearly stated?

2. Does the claim communicate your opinion or conclusion about Emily and her relationship with the town?

3. Is the claim based on evidence that you gathered from the text?

4. Is the claim specific, and can it be supported by evidence?

If you answer "No" to any of the questions, think about how to revise your claim.

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will use what we wrote down on our Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tools to plan claim-based expository paragraphs about Faulkner’s characterization of Emily Grierson and her relationship with the town, its people, and the history of Jefferson.

Compare the claim you have developed and the details you have analyzed to what a writing partner has wrote down on their Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool. Discuss the similarities and differences.

Follow along as your teacher explains how to use the tool to develop and explain a claim in a written paragraph.

Prepare to write an expository paragraph in which you use the information on your Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool in the reverse order in which you developed it.

1. State the claim you have developed about Emily Grierson and her relationship with the town, its people, and the history of Jefferson. This will be your topic sentence.

2. Explain how making and analyzing connections among evidence in the text has led you to this claim.

3. Identify or quote, and then explain, specific details from the text and how they illustrate the ways Faulkner has presented and developed the character of Miss Emily.

4. Explain how these specific textual details provide evidence that supports your claim.

As you develop and explain your claim, ask yourself the following questions to evaluate your expository paragraph:

1. Is the claim clearly stated?

2. Does the claim communicate an opinion or conclusion about the character and her relationship with the town?

3. Is the claim based on evidence gathered from the text?

4. Is the claim specific, and can it be supported by evidence?

If you answered "No" to any of the questions, think about how you might revise your expository paragraph.

Activity 4: Listen – Read – Discuss

We will discuss William Faulkner’s nobel prize banquet speech to gain insight into his perspective as an author.

As a class, read Faulkner’s Nobel Prize banquet speech.

Discuss what Faulkner might mean at the end of his speech when he says:

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will still endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

Make connections among his thoughts about the world, why he writes, and "A Rose for Emily," using specific examples from the text.

Activity 5: Write – Read

For homework, we will revise the claim-based paragraphs about Emily Grierson that we drafted in activity 3. we will also read and annotate Thomas Wolfe’s short story, “The Far And The Near,” noting key descriptive passages that offer clues to the central character and the themes of the story.

For homework, revise your claim-based paragraph from Activity 3, so that it is ready to submit to your teacher.

In preparation for the next lesson, read and annotate Thomas Wolfe’s short story, "The Far and the Near," noting descriptive passages that stand out to you.

Write new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal. In your Mentor Sentence Journal, write down any mentor sentences that stand out to you as interesting or that represent a strong example of a particular concept you have learned.