Lesson 7

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard, Harper Perennial, 1982
  • “Sojourns in the Parallel World,” Denise Levertov, New Directions Publishing, 1996

Materials

Tools

• What does it mean to live a life well-lived?: Culminating Task Checklist

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Responding to Questions Handout

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Seminar Texts Handout

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide

Editable Google Docs

• What does it mean to live a life well-lived?: Culminating Task Checklist

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

Activity 1: Discuss – Write

In expert teams, we will review our individual reading and claims from our homework, develop a team claim, and prepare to present our findings about a section of “Living Like Weasels” in a jigsaw discussion.

Step 1

As a team, review your section of the essay closely, noting annotations you have individually made in response to your question set. In the order of your questions, share responses you each developed, and compare how different team members may have answered the same question in different ways.

Think about how each response does (or does not) meet the expectations listed in the Responding to Questions Checklist from the Responding to Questions Handout.

From the various individual responses, develop a team response to each of your questions, and have each team member copy that response into their Learning Log.

Identify a sentence from your selection that you agree represents interesting thinking and artful writing.

Step 2

Following your discussion of the questions, use a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to develop a team conclusion or claim in response to this final question:

1. How does your section of the essay develop Dillard’s narrative about the encounter with the weasel? What is its perspective on the encounter and the setting in which it occurs? What central idea is conveyed or suggested by your section?

Be sure that every member of your team is prepared to present your team’s responses to your questions, your example of an interesting and artful sentence, and your team’s claim about how your section develops the narrative, perspective, and key ideas presented in the essay.

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will join a home discussion team to share and compare what we have learned in expert teams about our sections of the essay. As a home team, we will reread the last section of the essay and form a claim about its message and the human characteristic, virtue, or life compass that Annie Dillard seems to be suggesting.

Step 1

Join a new home discussion team, with a member of the new team from each of the previous five expert reading teams and sections of the essay. In the order of the sections, present your team’s findings, as follows:

• Summarize what is described or happens in your section of the essay.

• Share the text-specific questions you addressed and your team’s responses to them.

• Cite specific evidence from your section that has led to and supports your responses.

• Identify the sentence your team has picked as an example of an interesting idea and artful writing.

• Present your team’s summary claim about how your section has contributed to the overall narrative, its perspective, and its central ideas.

• Respond thoughtfully to clarifying questions from other members of your home discussion team.

Step 2

As a home discussion team, read through the five claims developed in expert teams about "Living Like Weasels." Discuss what they add up to and what you think the perspective and central ideas of the essay are so far.

With this discussion as a backdrop, reread the final section of the essay (beginning with "We could, you know"). Consider these text-specific questions as you read and then review them again as you discuss the essay’s concluding paragraphs with your home team:

1. What does Dillard ultimately say about how "We can live any way we want"?

2. How does Dillard return to her opening story about the weasel and the eagle as a metaphor to explain how we might live our lives "like weasels"?

3. What might it mean to you to "grasp your one necessity and not let it go"? What might that one necessity be?

Step 3

As a home discussion team, consider all members’ responses to the questions, then form a concluding claim about what Dillard is saying at the end of the essay and how she uses a metaphor to dramatize her ideas.

Share your claims with the rest of the class, then discuss what you think about "Living Like Weasels"—and the encounter with nature it presents—as a possible compass to guide one’s life in response to the Central Questions:

1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

2. What compass should I carry as I undertake my journey in the world?

Activity 3: Write

We will individually think about the connections between Denise Levertov’s poem and Annie Dillard’s essay and their meanings for us. we will then write a personal lyric, in which we either discuss what we have learned from the texts or emulate one of them to express our ideas about encounters with nature and their meaning in our lives.

Step 1

Individually, consider the two texts you have read about encounters with nature and their meaning for humans: Denise Levertov’s poem "Sojourns in a Parallel World" and Annie Dillard’s narrative essay "Living Like Weasels." Think about the connections—and contrasts—across these two texts. Specifically, think about these key claims made through simile or metaphor near the end of each:

Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions, our self-concerns… then something tethered in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free. ("Sojourns in a Parallel World")

A weasel lives as he's meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity. I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. ("Living Like Weasels")

Begin by considering previous discussions of these key claims from each author’s text. What simile, metaphor, or comparison is expressed in each, and how does it add meaning to the claim?

In your Learning Log, paraphrase each of these complex claims, trying to get at what you think the author is saying metaphorically. Then compare the ideas you have paraphrased. What is similar and different about them?

Step 2

Now consider which of the claims—and the way it is expressed—is most meaningful for you in relationship to the Central Question for the unit:

1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

Explain why you consider the quote to be an interesting idea and also artful writing. Explain what you think it is saying about living a life well-lived.

Step 3

Finally, consider the second Central Question for this unit:

2. What compass should I carry as I undertake my journey in the world?

Determine what compass—or guiding idea—you might find in the quotation you have chosen and the text it comes from. Write a short reflective narrative in which you explain the following:

• what that compass or guiding idea is and means for you

• why and how you might choose to carry it with you

• why it might help you live a life well-lived

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will review the Culminating Task for the unit, and discuss the seminar format. We will preview a list of possible texts to read for the first and second lessons of section 2.

Step 1

Review the task questions and description from the Culminating Task Checklist. Note the implication that you individually will have read a number of additional texts in Sections 2 and 3 that are related to your interests and the compasses you are finding meaningful as you undertake your journey in the world.

Task Questions

1. What have you discovered about living a life well-lived from the stories, metaphors, and potential compasses you have encountered in this unit?

2. How might you express your discoveries through personal writing?

Write a personal response to the reading, thinking, and discussion you have done in the unit. Use elements such as storytelling and metaphor to express discoveries you have made about living a life well-lived. Identify the human experiences, qualities, or virtues that might guide you as you undertake your journey in the world.

Step 2

In Sections 2 and 3, you will be doing additional reading and discussion with a team of other students in a seminar format.

As a class, discuss the academic concept of a seminar, defined by Merriam-Webster as follows:

a group of advanced students studying [together] with each doing original research and all exchanging results through reports and discussions

In Section 2 of this unit, you will shift from working as a class and examining a set of common texts to working in seminar groups and individually reading additional texts of interest to you as you seek answers to what it means to live a life well-lived and look for compasses you might carry with you on your journey through the world. You will use the seminar format to report and reflect on what you are reading and learning and to share insights with students who have common interests.

Step 3

Access the Seminar Texts Handout, which you will be using as you begin your seminar work. Note that this is an annotated list of texts you can choose from. It is divided into two sections: personal essays and lyrical poems.

Note also that each listed text includes information about its title, author, and source, which you will need so you can locate it online. Additionally, each text has a list of key words or themes that characterize the work, to help you match your chosen text with aspects of life and themes that are most interesting to you. There is also a short summary to give you a brief introduction to the text.

Step 4

For homework over the next few lessons, investigate possible texts for each of the lessons, check them out online (if you have access to a computer), and determine the two essays and two poems that you are most interested in reading and discussing with a seminar team.

You will be submitting your top choices to your teacher in the next lesson, and you will be assigned an essay to read before starting Section 2.