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Lesson 2

We will extend our understanding of communities by examining how the community described in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy has changed over time and how those changes continue to impact members of that community. We will begin by determining the central ideas and themes related to community that we can learn from this in-depth study of a community.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension of Hillbilly Elegy?

  • Can I express an accurate understanding of the central ideas and themes of Hillbilly Elegy?

  • Can I change or refine my ideas or perspectives based on credible new information and insights gained from class discussions?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • Chapter 4, excerpt from Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance, HarperCollins Publishers, 2016

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Discuss – Write

We will share our annotations from Chapter 4 of Hillbilly Elegy to help get a more complete picture of Vance’s community.

Step 1

Based on your reading, do a quick-write in which you list as many descriptive words or phrases as you can that characterize Vance’s community, considering the following question (all questions are also included in the Section 2 Question Set):

  1. What do you know about his community? Consider the culture and people in addition to the physical settings.

Step 2

Share your responses with a partner, considering the question below. Use this discussion to clarify any misconceptions and add to your notes.

  1. How are your lists similar? How do your lists differ?

Step 3

In your Learning Log, respond to the following question:

  1. Are there any features of the author’s community that he does not describe in this chapter? How do you account for the missing information?

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will analyze how Vance’s community changed over time and the impact of those changes.

Step 1

With your group, choose two of the following features of the text to focus on: political, economic, geographic, or social (PEGS). Reread Chapter 4 together. Highlight the places where you see evidence of change in Vance’s community. These changes could be explicitly stated by the writer, or they could be implied over the course of the chapter.

As a group, discuss the guiding questions from the Community Change in Hillbilly ElegyHandout.

Step 2

Share your most significant findings with the whole class, emphasizing the characteristics of his community and the changes or shifts that occurred from the 1880s to the 1980s in the areas your group focused on.

As you listen to other groups’ findings, take note of new insights and discuss them as a class in order to challenge or build on other groups’ responses.

Step 3

Reflect on your process during the reading today. How did reading the text while considering multiple lenses help you better understand it? What is an example of something that was said during the discussion that changed your mind or challenged your thinking?

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will study important concepts and challenging words from the text, paying attention to their use and meaning in the context in which the author presents them. We use the Vocabulary in Context Tool as needed and write down important words in our Vocabulary Journals so that we can refer back to them later in the unit and incorporate them into our own work.

For this activity, you will use a Vocabulary Journal. If directed, you might use a Vocabulary in Context Tool for words you can decipher from the text; for others, you might use morphology to decipher the meaning, or a reference resource to check if your meaning is accurate. For some words, your teacher might present you with definitions.

Working as a whole group, review the Vocabulary List for the words for this text. Locate the words as they are used in the text, using the provided page number, and consider these questions for each:

  1. What does the context suggest the author means when using the word? What is its connotation, and how does that compare with a dictionary definition, or denotation?

  2. Why is this word and its meaning important in the author’s ideas in this part of the text?

  3. How might I use this word in my own thinking, speaking, and writing?

Write down the words and definitions with your notes about their meaning and importance in your Vocabulary Journal. For each word, identify the vocabulary strategy (e.g., context, morphology, reference resource) you used to determine its meaning.

Share your responses with the whole group during discussion.

Activity 4: Read – Write

For homework, we will synthesize our insights from multiple readings of Hillbilly Elegy.

For homework, review your notes, annotations, and PEGS analysis of Chapter 4 of Hillbilly Elegy to explore what you have learned about J.D. Vance’s community.

Write a one to two paragraph response to the following questions:

  1. Evaluate the impact of the changes in Middletown on its community members. Have these political, economic, geographic, and social changes had a net positive or negative effect on the people in the community? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.

  2. How would you describe the impact of changes in the community on how community members approach engaging in their community and the larger world? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.

  3. Did these changes disproportionately impact some groups more than others? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.