Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a story whose ending you knew before it started: a film about the Titanic, a biography, a retold myth. Why was it still worth watching or reading? What did knowing the end change about how you paid attention?"

   Collect a few answers. Draw out the key idea for this standard: when an author decides where a story begins and how it ends, the reader's question shifts. Knowing the end moves attention from what happens to how and why it happens, and it can make a work feel inevitable, ironic or beautiful. Today students analyze those choices in three famous beginnings and endings.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Terms for this lesson.

   • Where to begin: at the start of events, in the middle of the action, or with the ending told first.
   • Where to end: a closed ending settles the main question; an open ending leaves it to the reader; a circular ending returns to an image or line from the opening.
   • Comedic resolution: obstacles are overcome and order is restored, often through recognition, reunion or marriage. Comedy here means the shape of the ending, not only jokes.
   • Tragic resolution: the story ends in loss that cannot be undone, even if some order returns afterward.
   • Aesthetic impact: the effect of the work's form on the reader or audience: the satisfaction of a pattern completed, the shock of an ending, the beauty of a fitting final image. Analyzing it means explaining how a structural choice produces that effect, not only saying the ending is powerful.

   The standard asks how a choice about one part (the opening, the resolution) contributes to three things: the overall structure, the meaning and the aesthetic impact. Read the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet aloud. In line 6, "take their life" means "are born": the lovers take their life from these families.

   1Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,
   In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
   From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
   Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
   5From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
   A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
   Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
   Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
   The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
   10And the continuance of their parents' rage,
   Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
   Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
   The which if you with patient ears attend,
   What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

   Then read the last lines of the play, after Romeo and Juliet are found dead in the Capulet tomb and the Friar has explained what happened.

   1Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,
   Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
   And here he writes that he did buy a poison
   Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
   5Came to this vault to die and lie with Juliet.
   Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
   See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
   That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
   And I, for winking at your discords too,
   10Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
   Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
   This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
   Can I demand.
   Mon. But I can give thee more:
   15For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
   That whiles Verona by that name is known,
   There shall no figure at such rate be set
   As that of true and faithful Juliet.
   Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
   20Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
   Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
   The sun for sorrow will not show his head:
   Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
   Some shall be pardon'd and some punished:
   25For never was a story of more woe
   Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

   • Beginning with the ending

     Prologue, line 9: "The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love." What is Shakespeare's choice here, and how does it shape the whole play's structure?

     Result: The Prologue tells the audience that the lovers are marked for death before either appears. The play's structure becomes a countdown rather than a question: every hopeful scene that follows is watched with knowledge the lovers lack, which turns suspense about whether into dread about how.

   • Form of the beginning and aesthetic impact

     The Prologue is a fourteen-line sonnet, ending in a rhymed couplet (lines 13-14). Why might it matter that a play about young love opens in this form?

     Result: The sonnet was the familiar form of the love poem in Shakespeare's time. Using it to announce a double death joins love and death from the first lines, and the neat, finished form gives the audience a sense of a design already complete, which is part of the play's aesthetic impact: the tragedy feels shaped, not accidental.

   • A tragic resolution

     Last lines, lines 21-24: "A glooming peace this morning with it brings; / The sun for sorrow will not show his head: / Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; / Some shall be pardon'd and some punished." What kind of resolution is this?

     Result: Order returns: the ruler of Verona speaks, and judgment will follow. But the morning is "glooming," even the sun hides "for sorrow," and the Prince promises only more "talk of these sad things." A tragic resolution can restore order; what makes it tragic is that the loss cannot be undone.

   • Choosing comedy or tragedy

     Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream also begins with young lovers defying a parent (Hermia's father demands that she marry Demetrius), but it ends with three weddings. What does the choice of resolution decide?

     Result: The same starting problem can lead to opposite meanings. In the comedy the obstacle is overcome and the ending celebrates renewal; in Romeo and Juliet the obstacle, the feud, is removed only by the lovers' deaths, so the ending weighs the cost of hatred. The resolution tells the audience what the whole story has been about.

   How to write about it. Model a three-part claim: the choice ("Shakespeare opens with a sonnet that reveals the ending"), what it does to the structure or meaning, and what it does to the audience's experience (aesthetic impact), each supported by a quotation.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Give the setup of Oscar Wilde's comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1895): Jack Worthing was found as a baby in a handbag at a London railway station. He calls himself "Ernest" in town, and Gwendolen has said she can love only a man named Ernest. In the last act, Miss Prism turns out to be the nurse who left a baby in that handbag, and Lady Bracknell reveals that Jack is her sister's son, and so Algernon's older brother. The last question left is his real first name. Read the ending in parts, then work through three moments together:

   1GWENDOLEN. [To Jack.] My own! But what own are you? What is your Christian name, now that you have become some one else?

   2JACK. Good heavens! . . . I had quite forgotten that point. Your decision on the subject of my name is irrevocable, I suppose?

   3GWENDOLEN. I never change, except in my affections.

   4CECILY. What a noble nature you have, Gwendolen!

   5JACK. Then the question had better be cleared up at once. Aunt Augusta, a moment. At the time when Miss Prism left me in the hand-bag, had I been christened already?

   6LADY BRACKNELL. Every luxury that money could buy, including christening, had been lavished on you by your fond and doting parents.

   7JACK. Then I was christened! That is settled. Now, what name was I given? Let me know the worst.

   8LADY BRACKNELL. Being the eldest son you were naturally christened after your father.

   9JACK. [Irritably.] Yes, but what was my father’s Christian name?

   10LADY BRACKNELL. [Meditatively.] I cannot at the present moment recall what the General’s Christian name was. But I have no doubt he had one. He was eccentric, I admit. But only in later years. And that was the result of the Indian climate, and marriage, and indigestion, and other things of that kind.

   11JACK. Algy! Can’t you recollect what our father’s Christian name was?

   12ALGERNON. My dear boy, we were never even on speaking terms. He died before I was a year old.

   13JACK. His name would appear in the Army Lists of the period, I suppose, Aunt Augusta?

   14LADY BRACKNELL. The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life. But I have no doubt his name would appear in any military directory.

   15JACK. The Army Lists of the last forty years are here. These delightful records should have been my constant study. [Rushes to bookcase and tears the books out.] M. Generals . . . Mallam, Maxbohm, Magley, what ghastly names they have—Markby, Migsby, Mobbs, Moncrieff! Lieutenant 1840, Captain, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, General 1869, Christian names, Ernest John. [Puts book very quietly down and speaks quite calmly.] I always told you, Gwendolen, my name was Ernest, didn’t I? Well, it is Ernest after all. I mean it naturally is Ernest.

   16LADY BRACKNELL. Yes, I remember now that the General was called Ernest, I knew I had some particular reason for disliking the name.

   17GWENDOLEN. Ernest! My own Ernest! I felt from the first that you could have no other name!

   18JACK. Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?

   19GWENDOLEN. I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

   20JACK. My own one!

   21CHASUBLE. [To Miss Prism.] Lætitia! [Embraces her]

   22MISS PRISM. [Enthusiastically.] Frederick! At last!

   23ALGERNON. Cecily! [Embraces her.] At last!

   24JACK. Gwendolen! [Embraces her.] At last!

   25LADY BRACKNELL. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.

   26JACK. On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

   27TABLEAU

   1. "But what own are you? What is your Christian name, now that you have become some one else?" (paragraph 1). Teacher note: the play has built its plot on a false name, and the resolution cannot be complete until the name is settled. Wilde leaves this last question for the final minutes, so the ending resolves the play's central problem exactly where the audience expects it.
   2. "At last!" three times (paragraphs 22-24). Teacher note: three couples embrace in a row, and each line ends with the same words. The repetition turns the reunions into a pattern the audience can hear, like the refrain of a song, and it pairs off every major character before the curtain.
   3. The last line (paragraph 26). Teacher note: Jack speaks the play's title, with a pun on "earnest" (serious) and "Ernest" (his name). Ending on the title closes the play in a circle and turns the whole plot into a joke on the word.
4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read the ending of Frank R. Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger?" (1882) on their own. Summarize the setup: a "semi-barbaric" king tries accused men in an arena where they must open one of two doors. Behind one is a tiger; behind the other is a lady whom the accused must marry at once. When the king discovers that a young courtier loves his daughter, the princess, the young man is sent to the arena. The princess has learned which door hides which, and she knows the lady, a woman she hates and suspects of loving him.

   On the handout, students (1) mark the exact sentence where the story stops telling events; (2) sort the paragraphs after that point into "the case for the tiger" and "the case for the lady"; (3) write a paragraph on why Stockton ends where he does. Quiz questions 13-17 check this work.

   1Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must be answered in another.

   2Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena.

   3He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it.

   4Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?

   5The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?

   6How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!

   7But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and drowned!

   8Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?

   9And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!

   10Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.

   11The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door,--the lady, or the tiger?

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name one beginning or ending from today and say in one sentence what it contributes to the work's meaning. (2) In one sentence, explain what "aesthetic impact" means, using one of today's texts as the example.

   Teacher note on content and language: Romeo and Juliet ends with the suicide of both lovers. Tell students before reading, keep the discussion on the play's structure, and know your school's procedures and where students can find support, such as the school counselor, in case a student is affected. Stockton's narrator calls the king and princess "semi-barbaric," a nineteenth-century way of ranking peoples as more or less "civilized"; treat it as the narrator's mock-grand style and discuss it as such. The Shakespeare passages keep the spellings of the 1865 Cambridge edition, and Wilde's spellings and punctuation are as printed.

   For homework: students read the original story below, which the homework uses.

   1The sign came down at 11:40 on a Sunday night, and by midnight it was lying on its back in the parking lot, twelve feet of red letters that said DELGADO'S, with the apostrophe cracked in half.

   2Forty-one years earlier, my grandfather had bought it used from a bowling alley that was closing, and he had the letters of BOWL-O-RAMA replaced one at a time, as he could afford them. For most of a year the diner's sign read DELGA-O-RAMA. My grandmother said it was the best advertising they ever had.

   3On the last night the regulars came in shifts. Mr. Pham ordered the same eggs he had ordered since 1991 and, for the first time, left a tip bigger than the check. Two nurses from the night shift at St. Luke's split a slice of pie and took pictures of the counter. My cousin Beto fed quarters into the jukebox until it jammed on a song nobody liked, and then everyone sang it anyway.

   4The new owners were going to build a pharmacy. They had been polite about it. They had even asked if we wanted to keep anything.

   5My grandmother wanted the sign.

   6"Where will you put it?" my mother asked. "Abuela, you live in a one-bedroom apartment."

   7"I'll find a place," my grandmother said, which was what she had said in 1983 about the bowling-alley sign, too.

   8It took four of us to lift it into Beto's truck and six to carry it up the stairs of her building. It would not fit on any wall, so we laid it flat on four cinder blocks in the middle of her living room and put a sheet of glass over it. That is where we eat Sunday dinner now: eleven of us around a table that says DELGADO'S, elbows on the cracked apostrophe, passing the rice.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The Prologue says the parents' rage could be removed by nothing "but their children's end" (line 11). What does this line contribute to the play's meaning?

   AIt promises that the parents will end the feud on their own before the play is over. BIt makes the feud the real target of the play: only the lovers' deaths can end it. CIt shows that the children will outlive their parents and inherit the family estates. DIt suggests that the Chorus cannot tell how the story is going to end.

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The Chorus calls the play "the two hours' traffic of our stage" (line 12). What is the effect of reminding the audience that this is a performance?

   AIt reveals that the actors will stop the play before the tragic ending is reached. BIt explains that the story took place over exactly two hours on one day in Verona. CIt shows that the Chorus is a character who takes part in the feud between the houses. DIt frames the play as a crafted story whose known design the audience watches.

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The Prologue begins with "Two households, both alike in dignity" (line 1) and does not mention the lovers until line 6. What does this order suggest about the play?

   AThat the families and their feud are the cause of everything that follows. BThat the lovers are minor characters who hardly appear in the rest of the play. CThat the two households are unequal, with one noble family and one poor one. DThat the play will open with a love scene between Romeo and Juliet.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In the last lines, the Prince says, "See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, / That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!" (lines 7-8). How does this line connect the ending to the play's structure?

   AIt announces a new conflict that a sequel to the play would have to resolve. BIt blames the Friar alone for the deaths of both young lovers in the Capulet tomb. CIt names the pattern of the play: the families' hate is punished through love. DIt shows that the Prince is glad the long feud has finally come to an end.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Montague promises to raise Juliet's "statue in pure gold," and Capulet promises one of Romeo (lines 15-19), then says, "Poor sacrifices of our enmity!" (line 20). What does this exchange add to the resolution?

   AA costly public reconciliation that comes too late, so the peace is real but hollow. BA comic touch that lightens the final scene and turns it toward a happy resolution. CA new rivalry between the two grieving fathers over whose golden statue will cost more. DA flashback to the distant day when the two families first became bitter enemies.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The play's last two lines, "For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo" (lines 25-26), rhyme as a couplet. What does ending this way contribute to the play's aesthetic impact?

   AIt leaves the audience unsure whether the two lovers have really died in the Capulet tomb. BIt adds a comic note at the last moment by rhyming the word "woe" with a name. CIt changes the resolution from a tragic one to an open one at the last moment. DIt closes on a finished rhyme and steps back to call the play a "story."

7. Question 7 of 20 · Short Answer

   The Prologue promises that the lovers "Do with their death bury their parents' strife" (T1, line 8). Do the last lines of the play keep that promise? Explain, citing both passages, how the match between the beginning and the end contributes to the play's structure and meaning.

   Show model answer

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   After the Army Lists confirm his name, Jack says, "it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth" (The Importance of Being Earnest, paragraph 18). How does this line contribute to the play's comedic resolution?

   AIt shows that Jack is ashamed and now plans to confess all his lies to everyone. BIt turns the play toward tragedy at the last moment by making Jack lose Gwendolen. CIt turns the moral upside down: the lie is rewarded by turning out to be true. DIt is a flashback to the day when Jack first invented the name Ernest in town.

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Gwendolen forgives Jack: "I can. For I feel that you are sure to change" (paragraph 19). What does her reply add to the ending?

   AIt shows that she no longer loves Jack and has quietly decided not to marry him after all. BIt keeps the play's wit going inside the happy ending, so it never turns sentimental. CIt hints that the play will end with Jack and Gwendolen apart, each still unmarried. DIt explains how Gwendolen herself learned Jack's real name from the old Army Lists.

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Jack "tears the books out" as he searches the Army Lists, then "[Puts book very quietly down and speaks quite calmly]" (paragraph 15). How does this contrast in pace shape the moment of recognition?

    AThe calm after the frantic search turns the reveal into a comic anticlimax. BThe calm shows that Jack is bitterly disappointed by what he has just read in the lists. CThe pause signals that the comedy is about to turn into a tragedy in its final minutes. DThe contrast shows that Jack has secretly known his real name from the very beginning.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Just before the final line, Lady Bracknell says, "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality" (paragraph 25). Why does Wilde place this line here?

    AIt shows that Lady Bracknell has changed her mind and now forbids the marriages. BIt reveals that Algernon, not Jack, is Lady Bracknell's only real nephew by blood. CIt interrupts the ending with a new problem that the play leaves unsolved at the close. DIt restores the voice of social order and sets up Jack's closing pun on the title.

12. Question 12 of 20 · Short Answer

    The resolution of The Importance of Being Earnest depends on an unlikely coincidence: the lost baby, the handbag and the name all turn out to fit. Explain why such a coincidence can strengthen a comedic resolution when it would weaken a tragic one. Refer to the passage.

    Show model answer

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    "Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?" ("The Lady, or the Tiger?" paragraph 4). What structural choice does Stockton make here?

    AHe jumps forward to the princess's old age and tells how her life turned out. BHe reveals that the princess pointed to the wrong door by mistake in her haste. CHe stops at the climax and turns the ending into a question for the reader. DHe returns to the king's arena as it looked on an earlier trial day, years before.

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraphs 6-7 imagine the tiger's "cruel fangs" and then, at much greater length, the wedding and "the glad shouts from the multitude." How does this section work in the story's ending?

    AIt proves that the lady came out of the door, since the wedding is described in such detail. BIt gives both possible resolutions as the princess imagined them, for the reader to weigh. CIt is a flashback to the young man's wedding to the princess before the trial began. DIt shows that the narrator has privately decided that the tiger came out of the door.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    After two long paragraphs, the next ones are much shorter: "Would it not be better for him to die at once..." and then "And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!" (paragraphs 8-9). What is the effect of these short paragraphs?

    AThey swing the argument back and forth, so the prose moves like her indecision. BThey slow the story down in order to describe the arena and the crowd in more detail. CThey reveal the princess's final answer to the question in a single short sentence. DThey shift the story from the princess to the young man's point of view in the arena.

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Stockton ends: "And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door,--the lady, or the tiger?" (paragraph 11). What does this choice of ending contribute to the story's meaning?

    AIt shows that the narrator has simply forgotten how the story he is telling really ended. BIt tells the reader that the young man survived and married the lady after all. CIt turns the story into a tragedy by strongly implying that the tiger came out. DIt makes the princess's divided heart the true subject, and each reader must decide.

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Would "The Lady, or the Tiger?" be a better story if Stockton had ended by telling what came out of the door? Argue your answer with reference to the story's structure, its meaning and its aesthetic impact.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In the traditional sense of the terms, which ending is a comedic resolution?

    AThe hero dies saving the city, and afterward the people build a monument in his memory. BA family split by a quarrel is reunited, and two couples marry in the last scene. CThe story stops just before the main character learns the result of her trial. DThe hero loses everything he loved and ends the story alone in exile.

19. Question 19 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which statement analyzes the aesthetic impact of an ending rather than its meaning or its plot?

    A"The Lady, or the Tiger?" is about how jealousy can destroy even the strongest love. B"At the end of the story, the young man walks across the arena and opens the door on the right." C"The last words repeat the title, so the story ends inside the question it began with." D"I did not like the ending, because I wanted to know what happened behind the door."

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Choose Romeo and Juliet or The Importance of Being Earnest. Explain how the author's choice of a tragic or comedic resolution contributes to the whole work's meaning and to its aesthetic impact. Quote the passage.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RL.11-12.5: 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.