Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Here is one sentence from a true account written in 1879: 'What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.' Is the writer telling you something that happened, explaining a fact, or giving his opinion? Write your answer and the word that told you."

   Take a show of hands for each choice, then ask for the words. Students who chose opinion usually point to "seems" or "choked"; students who chose fact point to the confident present tense. Both are noticing something real: literary nonfiction is true writing about real experience, and it slides between telling, explaining and judging, often without warning. Tell students that today they will learn four moves for reading hard nonfiction, watch them used on a travel essay, use them with a partner on an adventure account, and use them alone on a piece of journalism.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Why nonfiction gets hard. RI.9-10.10 asks students to read literary nonfiction in the grades 9-10 complexity band: essays, memoirs, travel writing, speeches and journalism about real people and events. Beyond long sentences and rare words, these texts are hard in four ways the Common Core's Appendix A describes for informational texts: the writer's purpose may be more than one thing or only implied; the structure may mix story, explanation and argument; the language may be old, figurative or ironic; and the knowledge demands may include places, people and books the writer assumes you know.

   The four moves (hand out the bookmark with prompts):

   • Situate. Who wrote this, when, about what real experience, and for which readers? Read the source line and any note before the first sentence.
   • Sort the modes. For each sentence or stretch, ask: is the writer narrating (what happened or what was there), explaining (how something works or what is generally true), or reflecting (what it means, or how the writer judges it)? Shifts in tense and from "I" to "we" or "people" are clues.
   • Weigh the reference. For a name, quotation, allusion or old term, ask whether the sentence still makes sense without it. If it does, note it and read on; if the point depends on it, use context first, then a note or a dictionary.
   • State the point and test it. Write a one-sentence gist for each paragraph, then test it against the paragraph's strongest sentence: does every part of that sentence fit your gist?

   Context note for the modeled text: in the autumn of 1878 the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, later the author of Treasure Island, walked through the Cevennes, a mountain region of southern France, with a donkey named Modestine, and published this account the next year. Glossary: drove-road, a track for driving cattle; dell, a small wooded valley; temporal, earthly; afield, out in the open. Read the passage aloud while students follow, and think aloud through the four moves.

   1From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill-marked stony drove-road guided me forward; and I met nearly half-a-dozen bullock-carts descending from the woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap. 'In a more sacred or sequestered bower . . . nor nymph nor faunus haunted.' The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round the glade: there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt secure and private like a room. By the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes and fell asleep.

   2Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.

   3At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne, 'that we may the better and more sensibly relish it.' We have a moment to look upon the stars. And there is a special pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilisation, and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a sheep of Nature's flock.

   • Situate: what kind of text is this?

     Before reading closely, what do the source line, the context note and paragraph 1 tell you about the kind of text and its purpose?

     Result: A first-person account of a real journey, written for readers at home. Paragraph 1 is a record of one evening, with times, places and tasks ("fed Modestine," "fell asleep"), so the first purpose is to share the experience. Expect a second purpose: travel writers often use a night or a view to make a point about how to live.

   • Sort the modes: where the writing shifts

     Compare the last sentence of paragraph 1 with the first sentence of paragraph 2: "Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly."

     Result: Paragraph 1 narrates in the past tense ("I pulled my cap over my eyes"). Paragraph 2 switches to the present tense and to people in general ("the man who sleeps afield"), and it compares houses unfavorably with the open air. The writing has moved from narrating to reflecting, and the rest of the passage argues for a view.

   • Weigh the reference: skip one, chase one

     Paragraph 3 names "the luxurious Montaigne" and "the Bastille of civilisation." Which one does the reader need?

     Result: The Montaigne clause can be skipped: its own words say we are woken "that we may the better and more sensibly relish" sleep. The Bastille carries the point: it was the Paris prison stormed in 1789, so calling civilization a Bastille makes houses a prison and a night outdoors an escape. Look up only that one.

   • State the point and test it

     Write a one-sentence gist of paragraph 3 and test it against its last sentence.

     Result: Gist: nobody knows why outdoor sleepers all wake around two in the morning, but the waking is a pleasure because it makes a person feel part of nature. Test: the last sentence speaks of sharing "the impulse with all outdoor creatures" and becoming "a sheep of Nature's flock," so the gist fits; a gist that said only "people wake up at night" would miss the pleasure and the point.

   Teacher tip. Say out loud where you slow down, and let students watch you skip a reference on purpose. Many students believe that good readers look up every name; showing that the Montaigne clause can wait, while the Bastille cannot, is the most useful part of the demonstration.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Give pairs this context note, then the bookmark with prompts: In 1880 the Scottish-born American naturalist John Muir crossed a glacier in southeastern Alaska during a storm, followed by a small dog named Stickeen; he published the account in 1909. Crevasses are deep cracks in a glacier. Just before this passage, Muir discovered that he and the dog were trapped on a long "island" of ice between two crevasses, with only one way forward: a thin bridge of ice. The paragraphs are numbered. There is no glossary this time: pairs work out words from context and ask you only after they have tried. Circulate and hear from each pair at least once.

   1After this nerve-trying discovery I ran back to the sliver-bridge and cautiously examined it. Crevasses, caused by strains from variations in the rate of motion of different parts of the glacier and convexities in the channel, are mere cracks when they first open, so narrow as hardly to admit the blade of a pocket-knife, and gradually widen according to the extent of the strain and the depth of the glacier. Now some of these cracks are interrupted, like the cracks in wood, and in opening, the strip of ice between overlapping ends is dragged out, and may maintain a continuous connection between the sides, just as the two sides of a slivered crack in wood that is being split are connected. Some crevasses remain open for months or even years, and by the melting of their sides continue to increase in width long after the opening strain has ceased; while the sliver-bridges, level on top at first and perfectly safe, are at length melted to thin, vertical, knife-edged blades, the upper portion being most exposed to the weather; and since the exposure is greatest in the middle, they at length curve downward like the cables of suspension bridges. This one was evidently very old, for it had been weathered and wasted until it was the most dangerous and inaccessible that ever lay in my way. The width of the crevasse was here about fifty feet, and the sliver crossing diagonally was about seventy feet long; its thin knife-edge near the middle was depressed twenty-five or thirty feet below the level of the glacier, and the upcurving ends were attached to the sides eight or ten feet below the brink. Getting down the nearly vertical wall to the end of the sliver and up the other side were the main difficulties, and they seemed all but insurmountable. Of the many perils encountered in my years of wandering on mountains and glaciers none seemed so plain and stern and merciless as this. And it was presented when we were wet to the skin and hungry, the sky dark with quick driving snow, and the night near. But we were forced to face it. It was a tremendous necessity.

   2Beginning, not immediately above the sunken end of the bridge, but a little to one side, I cut a deep hollow on the brink for my knees to rest in. Then, leaning over, with my short-handled axe I cut a step sixteen or eighteen inches below, which on account of the sheerness of the wall was necessarily shallow. That step, however, was well made; its floor sloped slightly inward and formed a good hold for my heels. Then, slipping cautiously upon it, and crouching as low as possible, with my left side toward the wall, I steadied myself against the wind with my left hand in a slight notch, while with the right I cut other similar steps and notches in succession, guarding against losing balance by glinting of the axe, or by wind-gusts, for life and death were in every stroke and in the niceness of finish of every foothold.

   1. Situate. Teacher note: pairs should notice that the account was published almost thirty years after the event, so it is a remembered adventure told by an expert, not a diary. Ask what that explains about the calm, exact voice.
   2. Sort the modes (paragraph 1). Teacher note: the first sentence narrates; the next three explain in the present tense how any sliver-bridge forms and wears away; the paragraph then returns to this bridge, this day, and ends in reflection ("It was a tremendous necessity"). Diagram 1 maps the whole paragraph.
   3. Weigh the reference. Teacher note: "convexities in the channel" can be skipped, since the sentence's point is that uneven motion cracks the ice. "Like the cables of suspension bridges" is worth a moment: it gives the shape of the sagging sliver, which the measurements later confirm.
   4. State the point and test it (paragraph 2). Teacher note: a good gist is that Muir cuts a hollow and then a line of shallow steps down the ice wall with great care, because any slip would kill him. Test it against the last clause, "life and death were in every stroke."

   Close with a quick check: which move did your pair need most? Pairs often choose sorting the modes, because Muir moves from story to science and back inside one paragraph. Tell students that for the next passage they will get a two-sentence context note and a bookmark with the move names only.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Each student reads alone, with the move-names bookmark and no prompts. Context note: In the summer of 1902 the American writer Jack London arrived in London, England, and set out to visit the East End, a very poor district of the city. This is the opening of the book that resulted. Students mark each place they got stuck and the move they used there, then write a one-sentence gist for every three paragraphs. Collect the gists; they show who is ready to read without support. Quiz questions 1-11 and 20 use this passage.

   1“But you can’t do it, you know,” friends said, to whom I applied for assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of London. “You had better see the police for a guide,” they added, on second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust themselves to the psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with better credentials than brains.

   2“But I don’t want to see the police,” I protested. “What I wish to do is to go down into the East End and see things for myself. I wish to know how those people are living there, and why they are living there, and what they are living for. In short, I am going to live there myself.”

   3“You don’t want to live down there!” everybody said, with disapprobation writ large upon their faces. “Why, it is said there are places where a man’s life isn’t worth tu’pence.”

   4“The very places I wish to see,” I broke in.

   5“But you can’t, you know,” was the unfailing rejoinder.

   6“Which is not what I came to see you about,” I answered brusquely, somewhat nettled by their incomprehension. “I am a stranger here, and I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order that I may have something to start on.”

   7“But we know nothing of the East End. It is over there, somewhere.” And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare occasions may be seen to rise.

   8“Then I shall go to Cook’s,” I announced.

   9“Oh yes,” they said, with relief. “Cook’s will be sure to know.”

   10But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, living sign-posts to all the world, and bestowers of first aid to bewildered travellers—unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and celerity, could you send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Thibet, but to the East End of London, barely a stone’s throw distant from Ludgate Circus, you know not the way!

   11“You can’t do it, you know,” said the human emporium of routes and fares at Cook’s Cheapside branch. “It is so—hem—so unusual.”

   12“Consult the police,” he concluded authoritatively, when I had persisted. “We are not accustomed to taking travellers to the East End; we receive no call to take them there, and we know nothing whatsoever about the place at all.”

   13“Never mind that,” I interposed, to save myself from being swept out of the office by his flood of negations. “Here’s something you can do for me. I wish you to understand in advance what I intend doing, so that in case of trouble you may be able to identify me.”

   14“Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify the corpse.”

   15He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and patiently identifying it as the body of the insane American who would see the East End.

5. Closure10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name the move you used most on London's passage and the paragraph where you used it. (2) Copy one reference you decided to skip and explain in one sentence why skipping it did not cost you the point.

   Teacher note on language: the passages are quoted exactly as published. In paragraph 10 of London's passage, "Darkest Africa" is a phrase of his era that pictured Africa as unknown and uncivilized; it reflects a colonial view of the continent. Point this out when students reach paragraph 10, and treat the phrase as London's words, not as a fair description. "Thibet" in the same sentence is an older spelling of Tibet. "Madman" and "insane" are used in their everyday sense of the time. Muir's passages discuss the possibility of death calmly, and Stevenson's British spellings (civilisation, neighbourhood) are kept.

   For homework: students read the passage below on their own, with no bookmark. Context: it is the same day as the sliver-bridge passage. Muir has decided to cross the bridge and has begun cutting the first steps; the paragraphs describe the dog's reaction. Afterward Muir crosses safely, and so, eventually, does Stickeen.

   1But poor Stickeen, the wee, hairy, sleekit beastie, think of him! When I had decided to dare the bridge, and while I was on my knees chipping a hollow on the rounded brow above it, he came behind me, pushed his head past my shoulder, looked down and across, scanned the sliver and its approaches with his mysterious eyes, then looked me in the face with a startled air of surprise and concern, and began to mutter and whine; saying as plainly as if speaking with words, “Surely, you are not going into that awful place.” This was the first time I had seen him gaze deliberately into a crevasse, or into my face with an eager, speaking, troubled look. That he should have recognized and appreciated the danger at the first glance showed wonderful sagacity. Never before had the daring midget seemed to know that ice was slippery or that there was any such thing as danger anywhere. His looks and tones of voice when he began to complain and speak his fears were so human that I unconsciously talked to him in sympathy as I would to a frightened boy, and in trying to calm his fears perhaps in some measure moderated my own. “Hush your fears, my boy,” I said, “we will get across safe, though it is not going to be easy. No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them. At the worst we can only slip, and then how grand a grave we will have, and by and by our nice bones will do good in the terminal moraine.”

   2But my sermon was far from reassuring him: he began to cry, and after taking another piercing look at the tremendous gulf, ran away in desperate excitement, seeking some other crossing. By the time he got back, baffled of course, I had made a step or two. I dared not look back, but he made himself heard; and when he saw that I was certainly bent on crossing he cried aloud in despair. The danger was enough to daunt anybody, but it seems wonderful that he should have been able to weigh and appreciate it so justly. No mountaineer could have seen it more quickly or judged it more wisely, discriminating between real and apparent peril.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 2 of London's passage, what does he say he wants to do?

   ALearn how and why the people of the East End live as they do, by living there himself BWrite a guidebook to the East End for travelers who book their trips through Cook's CJoin the police so that he can patrol the dangerous streets of the East End DProve to his friends that the East End is far safer than they believe it to be, and that their warnings are wrong

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 1 says his friends were trying to understand "a madman who had come to them with better credentials than brains." What is London doing in this phrase?

   AReporting that a doctor in London had found him mentally ill shortly before the trip began BExplaining that his friends are the ones who have lost their minds CDescribing how his friends see him, and laughing at himself as he does it DComplaining that his letters of introduction were forged by someone else

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 3 the friends speak "with disapprobation writ large upon their faces." Using context, what does this mean?

   AWith delight they were trying hard to hide from their guest BWith confusion, because they had never before heard of a place called the East End CWith fear that London would ask them to go along with him DWith disapproval that anyone could see plainly on their faces

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The same refusal, "you can't do it, you know," appears in paragraph 1, again in shorter form in paragraph 5 ("But you can't, you know"), and a third time in paragraph 11 from the clerk at Cook's. What does the repetition show?

   AThat London misremembered the conversation and wrote the same line three times by mistake BThat respectable people, friends and clerk alike, give the same automatic refusal, which London turns into a running joke CThat the clerk is one of London's friends who followed him to the Cook's office DThat London has been persuaded to give up his plan by the end of the passage, since everyone he asks tells him it cannot be done

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 7 the friends wave "vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare occasions may be seen to rise." What does this detail tell the reader?

   AThey can only point east, toward the East End, and London adds a joke about how seldom the sun appears in London BThey are giving London exact directions, with the sunrise as a landmark for him to follow CThey are pointing at the sky because they think the East End is a kind of heaven DThey are showing London that the East End is only reached by sailing toward the sunrise

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 10 addresses the travel firm directly: "But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son." What contrast does London build in this paragraph?

   ACook's is cheaper than other firms but much slower at arranging a journey BCook's is honest with travelers, while London's friends have lied to him CCook's refuses to send travelers to Africa or Tibet, just as it refuses to send anyone to the East End DCook's can send a traveler to the most remote places on earth, yet cannot find a district nearby

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 11, London calls the clerk at Cook's "the human emporium of routes and fares." What does this metaphor suggest?

   AThat the clerk owns the Cook's company and runs every branch of it himself BThat the clerk is like a store stocked with travel facts, which makes his ignorance of the East End funnier CThat the clerk sells goods of all kinds in addition to tickets and routes DThat London admires the clerk more than anyone else he has met so far on his visit to the great city of London

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 13 London interrupts "to save myself from being swept out of the office by his flood of negations." What is the "flood of negations"?

   AThe rain that was pouring into the office through the open door BThe clerk's long list of the dangers London would face if he went into the East End alone CThe clerk's stream of refusals and "no" statements in the paragraph before DThe crowd of other customers pushing London toward the door of the office

9. Question 9 of 20 · Short Answer

   Paragraphs 14-15: the clerk says that should London be murdered, "we would be in position to identify the corpse," and London pictures his own "stark and mutilated cadaver." Explain how the humor works here and what it reveals about how respectable Londoners picture the East End.

   Show model answer

10. Question 10 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a one-sentence gist of paragraphs 1-9 of London's passage. Then test it against paragraph 7 and revise it if it does not fit.

    Show model answer

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Most of London's passage is conversation that narrates what happened. In which paragraph does London step out of the scene to comment in his own voice?

    AParagraph 10, where he addresses Cook's directly and exclaims at what it can and cannot do BParagraph 4, where he breaks in on his friends with "The very places I wish to see" CParagraph 12, where the clerk sends him to the police and says the firm knows nothing about the place DParagraph 14, where the clerk speaks of identifying the corpse after a murder

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Stevenson writes in paragraph 3 that "shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess" why the sleepers wake. Using context, what are "arcana"?

    AFarm tools and animals that shepherds use every day BMysteries or secret knowledge, here the hidden ways of nature at night COld books that country people keep beside the fire DPaths through the woods and hills that only local people know how to follow at night

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 2 says the cock crows "not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of night." What does the comparison mean?

    AThe rooster crows at dawn to wake the farmer, as it does every morning BThe rooster is a real guard that the farmers keep awake at night to protect their cattle and sheep CThe crow comes in the middle of the night, like a night watchman calling out the hours DThe rooster is frightened by the stars and crows to warn the other animals

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In paragraph 1 of the first Muir passage, he writes, "This one was evidently very old." How can he tell?

    AA guide who knew the glacier had told him the age of the bridge that morning BIt was level on top and perfectly safe, as all new sliver-bridges are CIt was the only bridge across the crevasse, so it must have formed long before the others DHis explanation says bridges melt into thin, sagging blades over time, and this one was worn thin and sunk far below the brink

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which of these is literary nonfiction?

    AA novel about a sailor's voyage, told by a narrator whom the author invented for the book BA sonnet in which a speaker mourns the end of summer CA memoir in which a climber recounts a real crossing of a glacier DA one-act play about two neighbors who argue over a fence

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Four grade 10 students near the end of the year read a passage of literary nonfiction. Which performance shows that a student meets the grade 10 benchmark?

    AMaya reads a new, hard essay from the grades 9-10 band with a glossary and guiding questions from the teacher, and answers the questions correctly BLeo reads a new memoir from the high end of the grades 9-10 band with no notes or prompts, then states its purpose, follows its structure and explains its hardest sentences CAna reads an easy magazine article from the low end of the grades 9-10 band on her own and summarizes it accurately for the class DSam reads a speech from the grades 11-12 band after the teacher summarizes it, then answers questions about the speaker's main claims

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 1 of Stevenson's passage quotes lines from an older poem: "In a more sacred or sequestered bower . . . nor nymph nor faunus haunted." A student does not recognize the poem. What is the best move?

    AStop reading and find the poem before going on, since every quotation in a text must be traced to its source before the sentence around it can be understood BSkip the whole paragraph, because it depends on a poem the reader does not know CAssume the quotation means the glade is haunted, and read the rest of the essay as a ghost story DUse the context: it follows his finding of a hidden green dell, so it praises the spot as secluded and almost sacred; note the source to check later

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A passage mentions Thomas Cook & Son, Ludgate Circus and "the bobbies," and a reader has never heard of any of them. Which dimension of text complexity is causing the difficulty?

    AKnowledge demands: the writer assumes the reader knows places, firms and slang of his time BStructure: the passage tells its events out of order CPurpose: the writer states two aims in the first sentence DLanguage conventionality: the sentences are too short to follow

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    In the first Muir passage, paragraph 1 gives the crevasse's width ("about fifty feet"), the sliver's length ("about seventy feet") and how far its middle sagged ("twenty-five or thirty feet"). What do these numbers add that the sentence "It was a tremendous necessity" does not?

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Restate London's paragraph 6 in plain words, keeping every part: "Which is not what I came to see you about," I answered brusquely, somewhat nettled by their incomprehension. "I am a stranger here, and I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order that I may have something to start on." Then name the move that helped you most.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RI.9-10.10: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.