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Lesson 5

We will give and receive peer feedback on our draft body paragraphs. We will reread the selected piece of literary criticism and examine its structure as a model for our own literary essay.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I identify the claims, reasoning, and evidence used to develop my partner’s claims?

  • Can I analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure in my selected piece of literary criticism, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • Excerpt from “Discovering Feminism through Gertrude and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,” Zamila Abdul Rani, Siti Hawa Muhamad, and Siti Masitah, 2nd International Conference on Economics and Banking, 2016
    • Excerpt from “The Real or Assumed Madness of Hamlet,” Simon Augustine Blackmore, Stratford Company, 1917
    • “The Claudian Globe,” excerpt from Hamlet and the Distracted Globe, Andrew Gurr, Sussex University Press, 1978

Materials

There are no materials for this Lesson.

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will engage in a peer review of our content, deconstructing our support paragraphs to help us strengthen and revise them.

Trade drafts with a partner. Deconstruct each of the support paragraphs, determining the function of each sentence. Then, jot down some notes for your partner regarding how well their controlling idea and support work and what could be improved on. Be ready to share your ideas with your partner.

Take turns reviewing and discussing the results of the deconstruction activity and your feedback notes. To ensure you understand the feedback, be sure to ask your partner clarifying questions.

Activity 2: Read

We will reflect on our peer feedback and make revisions to improve the clarity of our ideas.

Examine your peer’s comments. Make any necessary changes.

Reread your supporting paragraphs. Use the following question to guide your reading:

  1. Are my written ideas clear and focused?

Make any necessary revisions.

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will reread our selected piece of literary criticism to examine the writer’s choices in structure. We will select at least one of the writer’s choices to emulate in our own essay.

Reread the essay. Individually, use the following questions to guide your annotations regarding structure:

  1. How do the introduction and conclusion help with the overall organization?

  2. Where does the writer place their thesis statement? Is it explicit or implied?

  3. What words, phrases, or sentences help the reader make connections, move through the content, and know how the pieces all fit together? What would happen if those were removed?

  4. What do you notice about how the introduction begins? What do you notice about how the introduction ends?

  5. What do you notice about how the conclusion begins? About the purpose of each sentence? What do you notice about how the conclusion ends?

Discuss your takeaways with your group.

Select at least one of the writer’s choices to emulate in your own essay

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will reread our selected piece of literary criticism and examine the writer’s choices in language and rhetoric. We will select at least one of the writer’s choices in language and rhetoric to emulate in our own essay.

Reread the essay. Individually, use the following questions to guide your annotations:

  1. Which words and phrases stand out as powerful or important?

  2. How do the author’s word choices develop tone, mood, or meaning?

  3. What comparative devices (metaphors, similes, analogies) has the author used? Why?

  4. What other rhetorical devices (humor, understatement, hyperbole, antithesis, repetition, rhetorical questions, parallelism) has the author used? Why?

Discuss your takeaways with your group. Select at least one of the writer’s choices to emulate in your own essay.