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

   "Think of the hardest thing you have read for English class, in any year. Was it hard because of the sentences and words, or because you understood every sentence and still did not know what was going on? Write two sentences: the text, and the kind of difficulty."

   Sort the answers on the board into two columns, hard to follow and hard to interpret. Point out that by grade 11 the second column matters more: many of the hardest literary texts have easy sentences and difficult meanings. Tell students that RL.11-12.10 expects them to be able, by the end of grade 12, to read the hardest texts of the band with no support at all, and that today they will practice both the reading and the decision about what support they still need.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   The three readings. Complex literature rarely gives up its meaning on a first pass, so plan three passes with different questions:

   • Reading 1, the literal. What happens, who is speaking, to whom, where? Write a one-sentence gist. Use the sentence-level fixes from earlier grades as needed: find the core of a long sentence, try an unfamiliar word in context, restate and check.
   • Reading 2, the gaps. Mark every place where the text says more or less than it states: irony, a speaker who contradicts himself, a stage direction that tells a different story from the words, an allusion, a sudden jump. At each mark, write a question.
   • Reading 3, decide. Choose the reading of the passage that the most details support, and name one detail that resists it. A reading that no detail resists has usually ignored something.

   Read the opening of "Bartleby" aloud without any introduction; students hear it cold, as they would in a college course. Then think aloud through the worked examples below. Diagram 1 shows all three readings applied to one passage of paragraph 2.

   1I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations, for the last thirty years, has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom, as yet, nothing, that I know of, has ever been written—I mean, the law-copyists, or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and, if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners, for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, the strangest I ever saw, or heard of. While, of other law-copyists, I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist, for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and, in his case, those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel.

   2Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit I make some mention of myself, my employés, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but, in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat; for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor’s good opinion.

   3Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permitted to be rash here, and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a —— premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of the profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this is by the way.

   • Reading 1: who tells this, and from when?

     Paragraph 1: "What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel." What is the frame of the story?

     Result: An elderly lawyer looks back on events that are over and tells only what he saw. He warns that he cannot explain Bartleby ("nothing is ascertainable") and promises "one vague report" at the end. The frame limits the story to one witness's view.

   • Reading 2: a claim the same paragraph undercuts

     Paragraph 3: "I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permitted to be rash here." What gap opens in this sentence?

     Result: The calm man loses his temper at once, and the "outrage" is the loss of a well-paid office: he had "counted upon a life-lease of the profits." Melville even prints a blank dash before "premature act," where an oath would go. The wrong that stirs him is a loss of money, a detail to remember when he judges Bartleby.

   • Reading 2: a knowledge demand

     Paragraph 3: "The good old office, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred upon me," and it was abolished "by the new Constitution." What does a reader need to know here?

     Result: A Master in Chancery was an officer of a court of equity who took testimony and handled accounts, paid by fees. New York's constitution of 1846 abolished the office, along with the separate Court of Chancery, from July 1847. The narrator lost an easy source of income; a footnote or a quick search is a fair scaffold, and the point survives without it: an easy, profitable post was taken away.

   • Reading 3: decide, with a resisting detail

     Paragraph 2: "All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man." Taking paragraphs 1-3 together, how far should a reader trust this narrator?

     Result: Trust his facts and weigh his judgments. He values caution, method and money (Astor praised his "prudence" and "method"; he does "a snug business among rich men's bonds"), so his verdicts on other people may say as much about him as about them. Resisting detail: he admits his own vanity and rashness openly, which a deceptive narrator would hide. The italics on safe can be read both as his pride and as the author's irony.

   Teacher tip. Model the resisting detail every time; students at this level often choose a reading and then cite only what agrees with it. Ask the class which of the three readings they would have skipped on their own. Students who skip one often skip reading 2, the one that finds the story.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Pairs get one sentence of context and nothing else: the play opens on Christmas Eve in the Helmers' home in Norway; Torvald Helmer has just been made manager of a bank. Speeches are numbered. Pairs do reading 1 together, then split reading 2: one partner marks the dialogue, the other marks only the stage directions (in italics). They compare, then do reading 3 together.

   1Nora. Hide the Christmas Tree carefully, Helen. Be sure the children do not see it till this evening, when it is dressed. (To the PORTER, taking out her purse.) How much?

   2Porter. Sixpence.

   3Nora. There is a shilling. No, keep the change. (The PORTER thanks her, and goes out. NORA shuts the door. She is laughing to herself, as she takes off her hat and coat. She takes a packet of macaroons from her pocket and eats one or two; then goes cautiously to her husband's door and listens.) Yes, he is in. (Still humming, she goes to the table on the right.)

   4Helmer (calls out from his room). Is that my little lark twittering out there?

   5Nora (busy opening some of the parcels). Yes, it is!

   6Helmer. Is it my little squirrel bustling about?

   7Nora. Yes!

   8Helmer. When did my squirrel come home?

   9Nora. Just now. (Puts the bag of macaroons into her pocket and wipes her mouth.) Come in here, Torvald, and see what I have bought.

   10Helmer. Don't disturb me. (A little later, he opens the door and looks into the room, pen in hand.) Bought, did you say? All these things? Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?

   11Nora. Yes, but, Torvald, this year we really can let ourselves go a little. This is the first Christmas that we have not needed to economize.

   12Helmer. Still, you know, we can't spend money recklessly.

   13Nora. Yes, Torvald, we may be a wee bit more reckless now, mayn't we? Just a tiny wee bit! You are going to have a big salary and earn lots and lots of money.

   14Helmer. Yes, after the New Year; but then it will be a whole quarter before the salary is due.

   15Nora. Pooh! we can borrow till then.

   16Helmer. Nora! (Goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear.) The same little featherhead! Suppose, now, that I borrowed fifty pounds today, and you spent it all in the Christmas week, and then on New Year's Eve a slate fell on my head and killed me, and--

   17Nora (putting her hands over his mouth). Oh! don't say such horrid things.

   18Helmer. Still, suppose that happened,--what then?

   19Nora. If that were to happen, I don't suppose I should care whether I owed money or not.

   20Helmer. Yes, but what about the people who had lent it?

   21Nora. They? Who would bother about them? I should not know who they were.

   22Helmer. That is like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt. We two have kept bravely on the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short time longer that there need be any struggle.

   1. Reading 1 (speeches 1-10). Teacher note: a wife comes home from Christmas shopping and her husband teases her about spending. Gist: a happy couple at Christmas, a little worried about money.
   2. Reading 2, the stage directions (speeches 3 and 9). Teacher note: Nora eats macaroons from her pocket, "goes cautiously to her husband's door and listens," and later "Puts the bag of macaroons into her pocket and wipes her mouth" before he looks in. The directions show her hiding something small from him, which the dialogue never mentions. Ask: why would a grown woman hide cookies from her husband?
   3. Reading 2, the dialogue (speeches 4-10). Teacher note: "my little lark," "my little squirrel," "my little spendthrift." Ask pairs what the three names have in common and what Helmer's questions ("When did my squirrel come home?") assume about who keeps track of whom.
   4. Reading 3 (speeches 13-22). Teacher note: pairs choose between "a loving, playful marriage" and "a marriage with a secret in it." Supporting details for the second: the hidden macaroons, and her ease with borrowing ("Pooh! we can borrow till then") against his rule "No debt, no borrowing." A detail that resists it: she stops his talk of death ("don't say such horrid things"), which reads as real affection.

   Tell pairs to keep their reading 3 and the detail that resists it: the homework asks them to test both against a scene from Act III. Point out that the pairs who read the stage directions and the pairs who read only the dialogue often reach different readings of the same page.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Each student reads the opening of Eliot's poem alone, with no context from the teacher, and does all three readings. The scaffold cards of Activity 3 are on the teacher's desk: a student may take one card, and only after a first full reading, and must write in the scaffold log which card, at which line, and why. Students who take no card write "none" and the line they found hardest. This is the move from grade 11 ("scaffolding as needed") toward grade 12 ("independently"): the student, not the teacher, decides whether support is needed. Questions 11-14 and 19 of the quiz use this passage.

   1Let us go then, you and I,
   When the evening is spread out against the sky
   Like a patient etherized upon a table;
   Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
   5The muttering retreats
   Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
   And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
   Streets that follow like a tedious argument
   Of insidious intent
   10To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
   Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
   Let us go and make our visit.

   In the room the women come and go
   Talking of Michelangelo.

   15The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
   The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
   Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
   Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
   Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
   20Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
   And seeing that it was a soft October night,
   Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

   And indeed there will be time
   For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
   25Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
   There will be time, there will be time
   To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
   There will be time to murder and create,
   And time for all the works and days of hands
   30That lift and drop a question on your plate;
   Time for you and time for me,
   And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
   And for a hundred visions and revisions,
   Before the taking of a toast and tea.

5. Closure10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Which reading, 1, 2 or 3, took you longest on the poem, and why? (2) Look at your scaffold log. Would you need the same card on the next poem by Eliot? What would you do instead?

   Teacher note on content and language: the scene from A Doll's House ends a marriage, and Helmer's "That is like a woman!" (T2, speech 22) reflects attitudes of the 1870s that the play itself puts on trial; name it as Helmer's view. "Bartleby" ends, beyond these passages, with the scrivener's death in prison; students who read the full story should know that before they begin. The 1923 printing of Ibsen's play repeats one word by mistake ("in in the world") in a speech just before T5; the passages are quoted exactly as printed.

   For homework and the quiz: students read the three passages below. In "Bartleby" (T4), the narrator has hired Bartleby as a copyist. In A Doll's House, between Act I and Act III, the audience learns that years earlier, when Helmer was seriously ill, Nora secretly borrowed the money for the stay in Italy that saved his life, and forged her dying father's signature to get the loan. The lender, Krogstad, reveals the forgery in a letter; Helmer turns on Nora in fury, then forgives her the moment a second letter returns the forged bond. T5 follows. T6 is the end of Eliot's poem.

   1In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.

   [...]

   2Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had, in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was, to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that, immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.

   3In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when, without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”

   4I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume; but in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, “I would prefer not to.”

   5“Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards him.

   6“I would prefer not to,” said he.

   7I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined.

   1Nora (shaking her head). You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

   2Helmer. Nora, what do I hear you saying?

   3Nora. It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you--

   4Helmer. What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?

   5Nora (undisturbed). I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you--or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

   6Helmer. How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora! Have you not been happy here?

   7Nora. No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so.

   8Helmer. Not--not happy!

   9Nora. No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

   10Helmer. There is some truth in what you say--exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.

   11Nora. Whose lessons? Mine, or the children's?

   12Helmer. Both yours and the children's, my darling Nora.

   13Nora. Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.

   14Helmer. And you can say that!

   15Nora. And I--how am I fitted to bring up the children?

   16Helmer. Nora!

   17Nora. Didn't you say so yourself a little while ago--that you dare not trust me to bring them up?

   18Helmer. In a moment of anger! Why do you pay any heed to that?

   19Nora. Indeed, you were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself--you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now.

   20Helmer (springing up). What do you say?

   21Nora. I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer.

   1No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
   Am an attendant lord, one that will do
   To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
   Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
   5Deferential, glad to be of use,
   Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
   Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
   At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
   Almost, at times, the Fool.

   10I grow old ... I grow old ...
   I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

   Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
   I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
   I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

   15I do not think that they will sing to me.

   I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
   Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
   When the wind blows the water white and black.
   We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
   20By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
   Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In T4, paragraph 2, the narrator sits "In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance," his hand holding out the copy so that Bartleby "might snatch it." What does this detail reveal before Bartleby speaks?

   AThe narrator is nervous about asking Bartleby, because he already expects a refusal BThe narrator takes obedience for granted, so a refusal will catch him unprepared CThe narrator is testing Bartleby, as he tests all new clerks on their third day DThe narrator is too ill to cross the room, so he must wait for the clerk to come

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 3: "Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when, without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied." What does "nay" do in this sentence?

   AIt shows that the narrator was not surprised at all BIt is Bartleby's word of refusal, reported before his full answer CIt shows the narrator denying that the event took place DIt corrects "surprise" to a stronger word, "consternation"

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Bartleby answers, "I would prefer not to" (T4, paragraph 3), and he repeats it in paragraphs 4 and 6. Why is this answer so hard for the narrator to deal with?

   AIt refuses politely and gives no reason to argue with BIt is an open insult to the narrator in front of the other clerks CIt is a request for higher wages that the narrator cannot afford DIt is a question about the task, which the narrator fails to answer

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 7: "Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises." Which restatement is accurate?

   AThe narrator dismissed Bartleby at once, because his manner was rude and impatient BThe narrator would have kept Bartleby if he had shown ordinary emotion CAny ordinary emotion would have got him fired; his calm stops the narrator DThe narrator decides that Bartleby is not human and must be a ghost

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The narrator adds: "But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors." What does the comparison suggest?

   AThat the narrator values Bartleby as highly as a prized work of art in his office BThat Bartleby resembles Cicero in his gift for speeches CThat the narrator plans to move Bartleby's desk out of the office DThat Bartleby seems as lifeless as a statue, so firing him feels absurd

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Nora says, "You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me" (T5, speech 1). What distinction is she drawing?

   ABetween loving her as a person and enjoying the feeling of being in love BBetween Helmer's love for her and her father's love for her CBetween loving her when they married and loving her now DBetween a love that is spoken aloud and a love that is kept a secret from others

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In speech 5 Nora says, "I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours." What does the word "transferred" suggest?

   AThat she moved to a new town when she married BThat she was handed from one owner to another, like property CThat she chose to leave her father's house for Helmer's DThat her father gave Helmer a large sum of money when they married

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Helmer asks, "Have you not been happy here?" Nora answers, "No, I have never been happy," and then, "No, only merry" (speeches 6-9). What is the difference?

   AHappy means cheerful for a moment; merry means content for a lifetime BHappy is what Helmer felt; merry is what the children felt CMerry is surface cheer; happy is deep, lasting contentment DThere is no difference; Nora corrects herself because she exaggerated

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Helmer promises, "Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin," and Nora asks, "Whose lessons? Mine, or the children's?" (speeches 10-11). What does her question expose?

   AThat she wants Helmer to hire a new teacher for the children at once BThat she has misunderstood him and thinks he means school CThat she refuses to let the children be educated at all DThat his new plan still puts her with the children, as a pupil

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Why, according to speeches 19 and 21, is Nora leaving?

    ATo educate herself, which she can do only alone BTo punish Helmer for the angry words he spoke about her and the children CTo return to her father's house, where she says she was happier as a girl DTo escape the danger of prosecution for forging her father's signature

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lines 1-12 of "Prufrock" (T3) are addressed to a "you": "Let us go then, you and I." Who is "you"?

    AThe women in the room who come and go, talking of Michelangelo BThe poem never says; it could be the reader, a companion, or the speaker himself CThe patient etherized upon a table in line 3, whom the speaker is on his way to visit DMichelangelo, whom the speaker is going to meet

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lines 2-3: "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table." What mood does the simile set for the poem?

    AExcitement, because an operation is about to begin in the next lines BRomance, because the evening sky is at its most beautiful CNumbness and helplessness, because the evening lies sedated and still DAnger, because a patient has been left alone on a table

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lines 13-14, "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," arrive with no transition from line 12. What does the abrupt couplet do?

    AIt jumps to an imagined room, and its rhyme makes it sound like a refrain BIt continues the description of the streets of lines 4-10 CIt tells the reader who the "you" of line 1 is DIt ends the first section with the speaker's decision to turn back and go home

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lines 15-22 describe "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes." Which details make the fog behave like a cat, although no cat is named?

    AIt "Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains" and let soot fall from chimneys BIt "rubs its back," "Licked its tongue" and "fell asleep" CIt is "yellow," and it appears on "a soft October night" DIt is also called "The yellow smoke," a second name for the same thing

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A grade 11 student reading "Prufrock" takes the allusion card and the glossary card. By the end of grade 12, what does RL.11-12.10 expect of the same student on a new poem of similar difficulty?

    ATo use the same two cards, since the poem is at the high end of the band BTo read it on their own, working out what the cards supplied CTo choose an easier poem, since independence matters more than difficulty DTo read only stories and dramas, since poems are optional in grade 12

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Appendix A of the Common Core describes three measures of text complexity. Which of these is a reader and task consideration?

    AThe average length of the sentences in "Bartleby" BThe irony in the way the narrator of Bartleby describes himself and his work CThe allusions to Hamlet and Michelangelo that Prufrock expects readers to know DWhether this student has the background and purpose for this task

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    T4, paragraph 7, ends: "This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure." Do readings 2 and 3 on these sentences: what do they show about the narrator, and how does it connect to what he says about himself in T1?

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Helmer responds to Nora in T5, speech 10: "There is some truth in what you say--exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different." Explain how this response proves Nora's point even as Helmer tries to answer it.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    In lines 23-34 of "Prufrock," the word "time" appears again and again: "There will be time, there will be time." Do reading 2 and reading 3: what does the repetition suggest about the speaker, and what detail in the lines supports your reading?

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Look at your scaffold log from Independent Practice and your work on the quiz. Which passage of this lesson would you still need support to read, and what kind? Name the line or paragraph, the qualitative dimension (levels of meaning, structure, language or knowledge demands), and one thing you could do yourself instead of taking the support.

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These standards connect to RL.11-12.10: 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.