Lesson 9

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “Kindness,” Naomi Shihab Nye, Far Corner Books, 1995
  • “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard, Harper Perennial, 1982
  • “Sojourns in the Parallel World,” Denise Levertov, New Directions Publishing, 1996
  • “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost, Poetry Foundation
  • “To Be of Use,” Marge Piercy, Penguin Random House, 1982

• • Quotations Handout, Odell Education

Optional

• • “Emma Thompson Reads Naomi Shihab Nye’s Poem ‘Kindness’,” S Bettina Brand, YouTube
  • “‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye, a Poetry Film by Ana Pérez López,” Naomi Shihab Nye and Ana Pérez López, On Being Project

Materials

Tools

• What does it mean to live a life well-lived?: Section 1 Diagnostic Checklist

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

• Summarizing Text Tool

Reference Guides

• Literacy Toolbox Reference Guide

Editable Google Docs

• What does it mean to live a life well-lived?: Section 1 Diagnostic Checklist

• Summarizing Text Tool

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will review the Section Diagnostic checklist to understand the expectations of the task.

Step 1

Before beginning this lesson, submit to your teacher your top two choices from the Seminar Texts Handout for what you will read for the seminar discussion of a personal essay and the discussion of a lyrical poem in Section 2.

Ask any questions about the texts and what you will be doing with them so you are prepared to be successful in those lessons. Your teacher will assign you one of your choices at the end of the next lesson.

Step 2

Review the prompt and expectations for the Section 1 Diagnostic, beginning with the overall task and questions:

In two parts, write an interpretation of and personal response to one of the texts you have read in this section of the unit.

Part 1 - Interpretation of the text

Write a brief summary of the text you selected. In your interpretive summary, address these questions:

1. What meaning have you found in the text, and how does it address the first Central Question: What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

2. How has the author of the selected text communicated that meaning through a story, other textual details, or figurative language (imagery, metaphors, symbols)?

Part 2 - Personal response

Develop a short personal reflection, essay, or narrative. In your personal response, consider the second Central Question: What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Your personal response might take one of the following forms:

• Option 1: A reflective narrative, in which you tell the story of how you came to understand the text and find meaning in it.

• Option 2: A personal essay, in which you discuss the central stories and ideas of the selected text and how they might be significant as a compass for you.

• Option 3: A personal narrative, based on a meaningful story from your own life that is somehow connected to the stories and ideas in your selected text.

Discuss how you might go about addressing these expectations and questions in a piece of personal writing.

Briefly review the three writing options for Part 2 of the task. You will return to these later in this lesson.

Activity 2: Read

We will select a text from those we have previously examined; review our annotations, discussion notes and tools; and determine why the text has meaning for us as a potential compass.

Step 1

You will determine the text you will respond to for the Section Diagnostic.

Review the list of texts you have now examined in the first section of this unit. Identify three that you found to be the most interesting or meaningful for you.

Narrow your list of three to one text to focus on, considering the work you have done to examine and understand the text, how well you have understood its meaning, and why you found it meaningful.

Step 2

Review your text annotations, discussion notes, and any tools you developed for the text you have selected.

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will learn how to write a focused summary and explication of the text we selected, using the Summarizing Text Tool to organize our thinking.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher introduces and models the Summarizing Text Tool, which guides a process for reviewing and summarizing the key details from any type of text. Review the purpose and process for using this tool, as described in the Literacy Toolbox Reference Guide.

Step 2

You will be using the Summarizing Text Tool to summarize the central ideas presented in one of the essays or poems you have read and then to write a brief, detail-based explication of how the text presents that idea, for Part 1 of the Section Diagnostic task.

Briefly discuss what writing an explication of a literary text, which is organized by the structure of the text itself, involves. Consider this definition of a poetry explication from the University of North Carolina Writing Center (which can also apply to an explication of a speech or essay):

A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem’s subject matter with its structural features. (Poetry Explications, writingcenter.unc.edu)

Then work with your teacher to review a text from this first section of the unit, noting key details in each section of the text and summarizing what they add up to, as organized by the Summarizing Text Tool.

Step 3

Join with a reading partner who has selected the same text to focus on in the Section Diagnostic task. Using the organization of the Summarizing Text Tool, review your text, noting key details in each section that you might reference in a summary and explication of its ideas.

Step 4

On your own, complete a Summarizing Text Tool for the text you have selected to write about. At the top of the tool, write a sentence that presents what your initial understanding of the text was.

Then record key details, ideas, quotations, or examples of figurative language in the order they occur in the text, with a brief note about how you have interpreted them.

At the bottom of the tool, make a claim about the central idea, or meaning, you have found in the text and how that meaning might suggest something about how to live a life well-lived or become a compass for you.

Activity 4: Write – Discuss

Using our Summarizing Text Tools, we will write a short explication of the text we have selected, discussing the meaning we have found in the text and how its details communicate that meaning.

Step 1

Using your Summarizing Text Tool as an outline, write a paragraph that presents a brief explication of the text, as follows:

• Begin with a topic sentence that presents your claim about the meaning of the text (its central ideas).

• For each key detail and section of the text you have identified, cite language from the text and explain how the detail is connected to the overall meaning of the text.

• Write a concluding claim that explains how and why you think the text, and the meaning you have identified, represents an interesting commentary on what it means to live a life well-lived and how it might be a compass for you as you undertake your journey in the world around you.

Step 2

With your partner from the previous activity, read and discuss the summary explications you have each written for your common text. Discuss how your interpretations are similar and why they might also be very different.

Activity 5: Read – Write

We will plan the personal response we will write for the second part of the Section Diagnostic.

Step 1

Review the second expectation of the Section Diagnostic task, which you will write during the next lesson:

Develop a short personal reflection, essay, or narrative. In your personal response, consider the second Central Question: What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Your personal response might take one of the following forms:

• Option 1: A reflective narrative, in which you tell the story of how you came to understand the text and find meaning in it.

• Option 2: A personal essay, in which you discuss the central stories and ideas of the selected text and how they might be significant as a compass for you.

• Option 3: A personal narrative, based on a meaningful story from your own life that is somehow connected to the stories and ideas in your selected text.

Determine which of the three options you want to pursue in responding personally to the text you read and have now explicated. Then, think about how you might approach the option you choose. For example, you could do the following:

• If you choose to write a reflective narrative, you might talk about how a poem like "The Road Not Taken" or "Kindness" opened up into deeper layers of meaning when you learned more about how and why it was written.

• If you choose to write a personal essay, you might talk about what kindness means to you or about the kind of "people you love the best" (as in Marge Piercy’s "To Be of Use").

• If you choose to write a personal narrative, you might tell the story of a regret you have (as George Saunders does in his speech), a turning point in your life (like Steve Jobs), or a memorable and important encounter (like Annie Dillard with the weasel).

Step 2

For homework, review and revise the text summary you drafted in class for Part 1 of the Section Diagnostic.

Then develop an outline, cluster diagram, storyboard, or other organizing plan for the personal narrative you will write for Part 2 of the Section Diagnostic, developed from and in relation to the text explication you have already written.