Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Scaffolded Reading Model for THE GREAT GATSBY


Name:

Book: THE GREAT GATSBY

Pages: 98-112

Summary:

1.     James Gatz becomes Jay Gatsby. He meets and befriends Dan Cody, an older and very successful businessman who mentors Jay Gatsby.  Ella Kaye cheats Gatsby out of a 25,000 dollar inheritance from Dan Cody. 
2.     Gatsby meets Tom Buchanan for the first time when he and the Sloanes ride over to Gatsby’s mansion. The Sloanes are disdainful of Gatsby but Gatsby doesn’t see it. He thinks that the Sloanes really mean their dinner invitation to him, but they don’t. They think he is beneath them.
3.     Tom and Daisy go to Gatsby’s home for a party. Tom flirts with other women. Daisy is only happy talking and being with Gatsby. At the end of the party, Gatsby, unhappy, tells Nick that Daisy doesn’t understand that he wants her to tell Tom she never loved him.

Critical Thinking and Response:

1.     Why does Tom look down on Gatsby when he doesn’t know him? Tom is a very supercilious man who looks down on everybody! 
      
      He and the  Sloanes are very snobby and they think that people who work for a living and who are not born from a very long line of rich people are not their equals.

2.     Why does Ella Kaye steal $25,000 of Gatsby’s inheritance money when she already got millions from Cody?
     
       It's simple - she's greedy. 
 
3.     Why is Dan Cody so important to Gatsby and to Ella Kaye? 

He mentors Gatsby, teaching him the ropes, opening business, professional and social doors for him. Cody was important to Ella Kay because they had been lovers. It was implied that she had killed him for his money and had inherited many millions from his estate.




April 7, 2015 - April 10, 2015 Weekly Agenda for Contemporary Composition


Monday, April 6th:

No school today.

 

 

Tuesday, April 7th:


1st Period:
Passed out the Smarter Balanced Pre-Write and Essay.  Students must rewrite essay if scored under 180, and redo the Pre-Write if scored under 90.  The work must be typed and will be due no later than Monday, April 13th.
Very few students did the spring break homework.
New policy: 25 bonus points for turning work in on time.
Went over how to do the Scaffolded Reading Log.  Modeled Chapter 7 for them.
Tomorrow go over how to do the Figurative Language Handout.

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2nd Period:
Passed out the Smarter Balanced Pre-Write and Essay.  Students must rewrite essay if scored under 180, and redo the Pre-Write if scored under 90.  The work must be typed and will be due no later than Monday, April 13th.
Very few students did the spring break homework.
New policy: 25 bonus points for turning work in on time.
Students worked independently on their work – reading THE BLUEST EYE and doing the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Log and the Figurative Language Log.

Wednesday, April 8th:


Vocabulary Exercise: Vocabulary words from Chapters 6, 7, and 8 from THE GREAT GATSBY. Words, definitions and the excerpts from the book from which the vocabulary word were taken.
Fill in the blanks in the quotations with the correct vocabulary words.
Divide into tribes of three
Line up
The definitions of the vocabulary words will be read. One person from each team will mark the correct vocabulary word for the definition read.
Go over  figurative language and the figurative language graphic organizer

Read The Great Gatsby

 Do the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Log
The Figurative Language Log
“It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach……but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat…and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.”

James Gatz is being compared to Jay Gatsby

Analysis:
The younger, uneducated, unsophisticated, poor kid is being compared to what he intends to be in the future.  This shows the determination of the young man to be the captain of his fate and to shape who he is and who he will become.

Tone: Strong, Determined, Opportunistic, Clever, Approving

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Period 2:
Went over figurative language
Passed out hand-outs for figurative language and In-class Scaffolded Reading

Models for Quotations for Figurative Language:
Quotation: “You shut up, Bullet-head!”
Page 66
Frieda is comparing Woodrow Cain’s head to a bullet.
Claudia is narrating the incident in which Frieda screams at Woodrow Cain for bullying Pecola.  Frieda is insulting Woodrow, calling him “bullet-headed”, which implies that he is a pointy-headed idiot. (Think about the shape of a bullet with the tall pointy end.)
Tone: Contemptuous, agitated, harsh, bitter, childish, insulting.

Model for How to Do Figurative Language Work Sheet:
Quotation:
Page 111
“Restricted, as a child, as she was to the cocoon of her family’s spinning, she cultivated quiet and private pleasures.”

What is being compared to what?
Polly’s early life with her family is being compared to a cocoon.  A caterpillar spins its cocoon, which covers it in darkness and safety until it emerges later as a butterfly. (However, Polly Breedlove never emerges as a butterfly; she is forever a caterpillar.) What Morrison is saying about Polly is that during her childhood, she was protected by her family and lived a very quiet, restricted life. This is in contrast to her savage, chaotic married life with Cholly.

The tone is soothing, calm, compassionate.

Quotation:
Page 111
“During all her four years of going to school, she was enchanted by numbers and depressed by words.  She missed – without knowing what she missed – paints and crayon.”

What is being compared to what?
In this metaphor and example of imagery, Morrison is saying that Polly was obsessed with counting and keeping track of things, but missed the essence and beauty of the objects she itemized. She could count the brushes and the colors but could not appreciate the beauty of the colors Polly was restricted and limited in imagination.

The tone is ironic.

Students were assigned to do two examples of figurative language from THE BLUEST EYE from page 110 on.



Thursday, April 9th:

1st Period:
8:00 – 8:15:
Work on In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts

Read THE GREAT GATSBY
Pages 162 – 175
Discussion

Go over figurative language

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2nd Period:
Read The Bluest Eye; pages 110 – 114
Discussion and identification of figurative language
For each section have a minimum of four examples of figurative language.

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Friday, April 10th:

 8:00 – 8:15: Work on Figurative Language and In-Class Scaffolded Reading
Finish reading THE GREAT GATSBY

 “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning -------
  And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

What is being compared to what?
We are being compared to boats.
What else is being compared to what else?
The current is the past.
What is the connotation of the phrase “And so we beat on….”
Chelsy: We don’t learn our lessons.
Jaylon: We keep trying. We won’t give up.
Unceasing effort.
If we are fighting the current, then we are fighting the past.

Meaning: We continue, with ceaseless effort, fighting against the past yet borne forever back into our inescapable past.

Tone:

Can we escape our past?
Nick: “You can’t repeat the past.”
Gatsby: “Why, of course, you can!”
Did Gatsby, the master of disguises, the creator of his persona,  completely escape his past? 

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Period 2:

Read The Bluest Eye; pages 115 – 126
Discussion
Work on the Figurative Language Handout and the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Log