Lesson 2

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

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

• • “The Trouble with Nick: Reading Gatsby Closely,” excerpt from Fitzgerald and Hemingway: Works and Days, Scott Donaldson, Columbia University Press, 2009

Materials

Tools

• Analyzing Relationships Tool

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• The Great Gatsby: Donaldson Claims Handout

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• The Great Gatsby: Setting Note-Taking Tool

Reference Guides

• Claims Reference Guide

Question Sets

• The Great Gatsby: Question Set 5.2

Editable Google Docs

• Analyzing Relationships Tool

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• The Great Gatsby: Question Set 5.2

• The Great Gatsby: Setting Note-Taking Tool

Activity 1: Read

We will review what we have learned about forming claims, specifically claims of an analytical or interpretive nature (the kind found in literary analysis essays). we will identify claims we have previously written in the unit that may be relevant to our Culminating Task question and the position we plan to take.

Follow along as your teacher reviews the Claims Reference Guide, focusing on analytical and interpretive claims, which you will be forming to develop and support your position thesis in your literary analysis. Note the example claim starters and the chart of active verbs that can help you express strong claim statements that represent your analysis.

Thinking about the question and task you have chosen to pursue and your preliminary summary of your position, review all of the claims you have formed during the unit, looking for analytical statements that may be related to your position.

Review the claims you have written, noting where they might be more powerfully or clearly expressed.

As models of good, direct claim statements, look at the list of claims made in “The Trouble with Nick: Reading Gatsby Closely” Donaldson Claims Handout. Also, reread claims you have highlighted in the other three essays, particularly those from the one that you have identified as most closely related to your own thinking.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will practice analyzing textual evidence about a character to form a claim, then use the character Note-Taking Tools we have developed to form claims about gatsby, Nick, or other characters that may be related to our question and position.

With a partner, reread the passage on pages 109-111 of Chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby that follows Daisy’s appearance at one of Gatsby’s parties (beginning with “I stayed late that night” and ending with “what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.” Look for and annotate key details about Gatsby or Nick while considering these questions:

1. How does Nick’s statement to Gatsby that “You can’t repeat the past” (p. 110)—coupled with Gatsby’s reply—relate to the other details of this passage and scene?

2. What thematic commentary on perceptions, illusions, or dreams is suggested by this scene and the exchange between Nick and Gatsby?

After analyzing the relationships among key details you have noted, form an analytical claim in response to the second question. (Note: You might want to use an Analyzing Relationships Tool or a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool if either will help you focus your analysis.) Try to make your claim as direct, clear, and powerful as you can, thinking about what you have seen literary critics do in their essays.

Compare your claim with claims formed by other student pairs.

Individually, return to a page or section from one of your Character Note-Taking Tools or Setting Note-Taking Tools from the unit (find a section closely related to your question and position). Based on the evidence (key details, quotations, examples) that you have noted and analyzed, form an analytical claim about a character, scene, or theme.

Compare the claim you have formed with one formed by your partner.

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will study a claim made by Scott Donaldson in his essay “The Trouble With Nick: Reading Gatsby Closely,” noting how he has used evidence from the text to develop and support his claim.

Step 1

Find Paragraph 16 in Donaldson’s essay “The Trouble with Nick: Reading Gatsby Closely,” which begins with these two claim statements:

The fact is that Nick, like Gatsby, has romantic inclinations. But while Gatsby guides his life by his dream, Nick carefully separates romance from reality.

Discuss the following with a reading partner:

1. Break the first two claim statements down to the parts that relate to Nick. What perspective on and analysis of Nick’s character is stated or implied by these claims?

2. Break the sentences down to the parts that relate to Gatsby. What perspective on and analysis of Gatsby’s character is stated or implied by these claims?

Step 2

Individually, read the paragraph that follows and develops these opening claims (P 16), annotating key sentences and evidence from the text used by Donaldson to develop his opening claims about Nick.

As a class, discuss what you have noticed in the paragraph, including the following questions:

3. What kind of evidence does Donaldson use to explain and support his claims and analysis?

4. What do you notice about how Donaldson integrates and cites quotations within his discussion of Nick’s “romantic inclinations”?

5. What do you notice about the verbs Donaldson uses? What tense does he use in discussing Nick’s character?

Activity 4: Read – Write

For homework, we will analyze another claim-based paragraph that is relevant to our question and position from Donaldson’s essay or another of the three essays.

Find another claim-based paragraph from Donaldson’s essay or from one of the other three literary analyses that is relevant to your Culminating Task question and your position. In your Learning Log, identify the claim statement(s) in the paragraph and the evidence presented to develop the claim(s).