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Lesson 4

We will read and analyze Chapter 4 and examine the development of Gatsby’s character. We will study the shift in narrative point of view as Jordan recounts details from Daisy’s and Gatsby’s past.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I recognize and interpret important developments and relationships among the characters presented in Chapter 4?

  • Can I evaluate the effects and meaning of the shifting narrative point of view in Chapter 4?

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scribner, 1925

Optional

  • Digital Access
    • “The Man Who Rigged The World Series: The Making of the Mob: New York,” AMC+, YouTube, 2015

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Discuss

We will discuss our homework reading and our notes and questions.

With a partner, discuss your reading of pages 61-74 of The Great Gatsby, your notes from your Character Note-Taking Tools, and your responses to the reading questions. Pose questions to your partner about what has happened and its significance.

Use a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to form a claim about the way Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby in this section. Consider how Gatsby’s character is developed in the Wolfsheim scene.

As a class, compare claims.

Activity 2: View

We will watch a short video to learn additional background and cultural context related to the scene and characters we have just studied.

Watch the clip, “The Man Who Rigged the World Series.” Discuss the ways in which you feel this video is connected to the novel and specifically to Wolfsheim’s character.

Activity 3: Read

We will analyze the narrative shift that occurs when jordan begins to tell daisy’s story, and consider what new information we learn about daisy, gatsby, and their pasts.

Read and annotate pages 74-80 of Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby, beginning with “One October Day” and continuing until the end of the chapter. Use the the following questions to guide your annotations:

  1. Who is narrating pages 74-77? What might be the significance of this shift in narrative point of view?

  2. What do we learn about Jordan in this section?

  3. What do we learn about Daisy in this section?

  4. What do we learn about Gatsby and his relationship with Daisy in this section?

  5. On page 77, in the paragraph that begins, “The next April,” what is significant of the fact that Daisy avoids drinking? How does this give her “a great advantage” over other people?

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will analyze Nick’s reactions to what he learns from jordan and to his developing relationship with her.

Independently, reread the end of Chapter 4, beginning with the asterisked section change and the sentence, “When Jordan Baker had finished telling this,” while considering the following questions:

  1. What do we learn from Jordan about Gatsby and what Gatsby wants Nick to do? What are the specifics of and reasons for his request? What details from the text support your answer?

  2. What are the meaning and significance of this statement from Nick?

    “Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.”

  3. What are the meaning and significance of this final statement from Nick?

    “Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs.”

As a class, discuss your responses to these questions, what you have learned, and your thoughts about this final passage of Chapter 4. Pay particular attention to the meaning and significance of the key sentences from this passage quoted in Questions 2 and 3. Think about how they connect to earlier scenes, moments, and descriptions in the novel.

Activity 5: Read

For homework, we will think about the meaning of the American dream for us and for other people.

For homework, think about the following quotation from James Truslow Adams’s book, The Epic of America:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.

Do you agree or disagree? Talk about this with a friend or family member.

Select an era or decade from American history, and do some online research into how the American Dream was characterized during that historical period. Find an article about the American Dream written in that era or decade, read it, and summarize its key ideas to share with other students in the next lesson.