Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-65 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a time you took care of something living: a pet, a plant, a younger brother or sister. How did you feel about it at the start, and how did you feel later? Write two or three sentences about how the caring changed you, if it did."

   Take a few answers and write the "start" and "later" feelings in two columns. Point out that the story of a change has stages, and that a sentence summing up the change ("Looking after someone can make you more patient") is a message about life. Tell students that this is what a theme is, and that today they will watch one grow across a whole novel instead of one short tale.

2. Direct Instruction15 minutes

   Teach five terms and leave them on the board:

   • Topic: what a story is about, in a word or two (loneliness, gardens).
   • Theme: a message about life that the story suggests, written as a complete sentence. In literature, central idea means the same kind of big idea; this lesson uses "theme."
   • Development: how a theme is built and changed over the course of a text. Look for a starting point, turning points (moments when a character or situation changes direction), changes in a character, and images (details that make a picture in the reader's mind) or words that come back.
   • Working theme: a first try at a theme, which a reader tests and revises as the story goes on.
   • Objective summary: a short retelling of the main events in order, in your own words, with no opinions or judgments.

   Introduce the novel: Mary Lennox was born in India, where her English parents gave her to servants and paid her little attention. When her parents die in an outbreak of cholera (a deadly disease), she stays for a few days with an English clergyman's family before she is sent to her uncle in England. Words to know: clergyman (a minister), bungalow (a one-story house), impudent (cheeky and rude), rockery (a garden made with rocks), contrary (stubbornly doing the opposite of what others want) and cockle shells (small seashells). Read the passage aloud while students follow the numbered paragraphs.

   1She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman’s house where she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English clergyman was poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play with her. By the second day they had given her a nickname which made her furious.

   2It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a little boy with impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose, and Mary hated him. She was playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing the day the cholera broke out. She was making heaps of earth and paths for a garden and Basil came and stood near to watch her. Presently he got rather interested and suddenly made a suggestion.

   3“Why don’t you put a heap of stones there and pretend it is a rockery?” he said. “There in the middle,” and he leaned over her to point.

   4“Go away!” cried Mary. “I don’t want boys. Go away!”

   5For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was always teasing his sisters. He danced round and round her and made faces and sang and laughed.

   6“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
   How does your garden grow?
   With silver bells, and cockle shells,
   And marigolds all in a row.”

   7He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too; and the crosser Mary got, the more they sang “Mistress Mary, quite contrary”; and after that as long as she stayed with them they called her “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary” when they spoke of her to each other, and often when they spoke to her.

   8“You are going to be sent home,” Basil said to her, “at the end of the week. And we’re glad of it.”

   9“I am glad of it, too,” answered Mary. “Where is home?”

   • Topic or theme?

     A student writes that the theme of The Secret Garden is "loneliness." What is missing?

     Result: "Loneliness" is a topic: it names a subject but says nothing about it. A theme is a full sentence about life, for example the working theme on the board: "Caring for living things can bring a lonely person back to life." It uses no character names, so it could apply to real people. After one passage it is only a working theme; the class will test it against later chapters.

   • Development: the starting point

     Where does the theme start in chapter II? Name the detail that shows it.

     Result: Mary starts out lonely and unkind. She "was so disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play with her" (paragraph 1), and when Basil tries to help she cries, "Go away!" and "I don't want boys. Go away!" (paragraph 4). A theme about change needs a clear starting point, and these details set it.

   • Development: an image that comes back

     Which detail in chapter II connects Mary to gardens, and why might a reader note it?

     Result: Mary "was making heaps of earth and paths for a garden" (paragraph 2), alone and only pretending, and the rhyme asks, "How does your garden grow?" (paragraph 6). The novel's title is about a garden, so a careful reader marks the image and watches for it to return. At this point Mary's garden is only heaps of dirt, and the more the children sing, the crosser she gets.

   • Objective summary

     Summarize chapter II's passage objectively in three sentences.

     Result: At the clergyman's house, Mary is unfriendly to the five children, and soon nobody plays with her. When Basil offers an idea for the garden she is making in the dirt, she tells him to go away, so he teases her with the rhyme "Mistress Mary, quite contrary," and the others join in. Basil tells her she will be sent home at the end of the week, and Mary says she is glad but asks where home is. (Not objective: "Mary is a spoiled brat, and the teasing serves her right.")

   Show Diagram 1, the theme tracker. Fill in stage 1 together from the examples: what Mary does, and what it adds to the theme. Explain that a reader revisits the working theme at each stage and changes its wording if a later chapter points somewhere else.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Set up the second passage: Mary has now arrived at her uncle's huge house, Misselthwaite Manor, in Yorkshire, England. She has almost nothing to do and wanders in the gardens, where she meets a robin and Ben Weatherstaff, an old gardener. Ben speaks in Yorkshire dialect (the way people speak in one region): tha' (you), tha'rt (you are), tha'lt (you will), mysel' (myself), wench (girl), wove (woven) and I'll warrant (I'm sure). Also note brood (a family of young birds), blunt frankness (saying things directly, even if they sting), salaamed (bowed low) and surly (grumpy). Pairs read the passage together.

   1The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped and looked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out all about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased.

   2“Where did the rest of the brood fly to?” she asked.

   3“There’s no knowin’. The old ones turn ’em out o’ their nest an’ make ’em fly an’ they’re scattered before you know it. This one was a knowin’ one an’ he knew he was lonely.”

   4Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very hard.

   5“I’m lonely,” she said.

   6She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at her and she looked at the robin.

   7The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her a minute.

   8“Art tha’ th’ little wench from India?” he asked.

   9Mary nodded.

   10“Then no wonder tha’rt lonely. Tha’lt be lonlier before tha’s done,” he said.

   11He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

   12“What is your name?” Mary inquired.

   13He stood up to answer her.

   14“Ben Weatherstaff,” he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, “I’m lonely mysel’ except when he’s with me,” and he jerked his thumb toward the robin. “He’s th’ only friend I’ve got.”

   15“I have no friends at all,” said Mary. “I never had. My Ayah didn’t like me and I never played with anyone.”

   16It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.

   17“Tha’ an’ me are a good bit alike,” he said. “We was wove out of th’ same cloth. We’re neither of us good lookin’ an’ we’re both of us as sour as we look. We’ve got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I’ll warrant.”

   18This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked before the robin came. She actually began to wonder also if she was “nasty tempered.” She felt uncomfortable.

   1. "The queer feeling in her heart increased." (paragraph 1). Teacher note: "queer" here means strange or unusual. Something new is stirring in Mary as the robin watches her. Ask pairs: has Mary felt anything like this in chapter II?
   2. "I'm lonely," she said. / "She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feel sour and cross." (paragraphs 5-6). Teacher note: this is the turning point. Mary names her loneliness for the first time, and the narrator links it to her sour temper. For the theme, this shows that loneliness helped cause her unkindness, which the working theme should reflect.
   3. "I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had." (paragraph 15). Teacher note: in chapter II Mary sent the children away; here she admits she has no friends. Ask pairs how the difference between those two moments moves the theme forward.

   Pairs fill in stage 2 of the theme tracker and decide together whether the working theme still fits or needs new wording. Then each pair writes a three-sentence objective summary of the robin scene and checks it against Diagram 2, crossing out any word that judges Mary or Ben. Two pairs read their summaries aloud, and the class listens for opinions that slipped in.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read the third passage on their own. Mary has found the key and the hidden door to a garden that has been locked for ten years. Inside, everything looks dead, until she notices sharp green shoots pushing up through the grass. Words to know: points (here, the tips of new shoots), immensely (very much), estate (land that belongs to someone), skipping-rope (a jump rope), and Martha (the young maid who looks after Mary).

   1“It isn’t a quite dead garden,” she cried out softly to herself. “Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive.”

   2She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow. She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

   3“Now they look as if they could breathe,” she said, after she had finished with the first ones. “I am going to do ever so many more. I’ll do all I can see. If I haven’t time today I can come tomorrow.”

   4She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass and the pale green points all the time.

   5The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben’s size and yet had had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once.

   6Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday dinner. In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when she put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

   7“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they heard her.

   8Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door and slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

   On the handout, students (1) fill in stage 3 of the theme tracker, with one quotation for "What Mary does" and one sentence for "What it adds"; (2) revise the working theme in their own words if the passage points somewhere new; (3) write an objective summary of the passage in three or four sentences and check it against Diagram 2. The quiz uses all three passages.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Write your working theme for the novel so far as one complete sentence. (2) Name one detail from an early passage and one from a later passage, and explain in one sentence how the theme changed between them.

   Teacher note on language: Burnett wrote in 1911, when Britain ruled India, and the novel reflects the attitudes of English colonists. In the robin scene the narrator says "Native servants always salaamed and submitted to you, whatever you did," which describes Indian servants only as people who obeyed; elsewhere in the novel, English characters speak of India and Indian people with contempt. Keep the words as Burnett wrote them, name them as the prejudice of the time, and point out that the book blames Mary's parents, not the servants, for how she was raised. Ben's word "wench" is Yorkshire dialect for a girl and was not meant as an insult, although in today's English it can sound insulting; say so before pairs read. "Queer" means strange throughout the novel.

   For homework: students read a fourth passage from chapter XII, printed below. By now Mary has been working in the secret garden in secret for some time. Her uncle, Mr. Craven, who is often away and has barely noticed her, sends for her for the first time. Mrs. Sowerby is Martha's mother, and Mrs. Medlock is the housekeeper. Words to know: guardian (the adult responsible for a child), distracted (unable to pay attention), respectable (decent and honest), quavered (said in a shaky voice), faltered (spoke unsteadily) and startled (surprised).

   1“Don’t look so frightened,” he exclaimed. “Of course you may. I am your guardian, though I am a poor one for any child. I cannot give you time or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I wish you to be happy and comfortable. I don’t know anything about children, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need. I sent for you today because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked about you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and running about.”

   2“She knows all about children,” Mary said again in spite of herself.

   3“She ought to,” said Mr. Craven. “I thought her rather bold to stop me on the moor, but she said—Mrs. Craven had been kind to her.” It seemed hard for him to speak his dead wife’s name. “She is a respectable woman. Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things. Play out of doors as much as you like. It’s a big place and you may go where you like and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?” as if a sudden thought had struck him. “Do you want toys, books, dolls?”

   4“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”

   5In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

   6“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

   7“To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive,” Mary faltered.

   8He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

   9“Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.

   10“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”

   11Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

   12“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

   13“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of someone else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which of these is a theme statement rather than a topic?

   AFriendship and the outdoors in an old English house BPeople can change when someone tells them the truth CThe robin, the old gardener and the locked garden DLoneliness, anger and the power of growing things

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What makes a summary objective?

   AIt explains which characters the writer liked the most BIt retells every event and small detail in the passage, in the same order CIt ends with the lesson that readers should learn from it DIt reports the main events in order without the writer's opinions

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Ben says, "Tha' an' me are a good bit alike... We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look" (chapter IV, paragraph 17). How does this moment help develop the theme?

   AFor the first time, Mary begins to wonder what she is really like BIt shows that Ben wants Mary to leave his garden and not return CIt proves that Mary will always be as sour as the old gardener DIt shows that Mary is used to hearing honest words from people

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which theme does the "plain speaking" in chapter IV, paragraphs 16-18, support best?

   AOld people and young people can never be true friends BPeople from Yorkshire are rude to anyone they meet CHearing honest words can help a person see themselves DChildren should never be told that they look unattractive

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does Ben say Mary is lonely (chapter IV, paragraphs 8-10)?

   AShe has been sitting in the garden for many hours alone BThe robin has flown away from her and will not come back CShe has told him that she does not like the servants DShe is the girl from India who has just come to the house

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   How does the robin's story, as Ben tells it in chapter IV, paragraph 3, connect to Mary?

   AThe robin was raised by people, just like Mary BLike Mary, the robin was left alone by its family CThe robin sings only for people who are kind to it DLike Mary, the robin is afraid of the old gardener

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which sentence would NOT belong in an objective summary of the robin scene in chapter IV?

   ABen is mean to tell a young girl that she is sour and not good-looking. BMary tells the robin she is lonely and learns this is part of why she is cross. CBen says the robin is his only friend, and Mary says she has no friends at all. DBen tells Mary that the two of them are alike, and Mary begins to wonder about herself.

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In chapter IX, what does Mary do for the green points she finds?

   AShe picks some of them to take back to the house BShe waters them from a bucket she brings from outside CShe weeds out the grass around them so they have room DShe covers them with leaves to protect them from cold

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "She could not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time" (chapter IX, paragraph 6). How does this develop the theme?

   AIt shows that Mary still wants to be left alone by everyone BIt shows that gardening is too much work for a child her age CIt shows that Mary has forgotten to go home for her dinner DIt shows that caring for growing things has made Mary happy

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which detail from chapter IX, paragraph 8, suggests that the garden is changing Mary's health as well as her mood?

    A"such red cheeks and such bright eyes" B"Then she ran lightly across the grass" C"pushed open the slow old door" D"slipped through it under the ivy"

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In chapter II Mary made "heaps of earth and paths for a garden" (paragraph 2). How is her garden work in chapter IX different?

    AShe is still pretending, but now Basil helps her BShe is caring for real plants that are alive CShe is building paths with stones, as Basil said DShe is making the garden to show to her uncle

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which is the best objective summary of the robin scene in chapter IV?

    AMary is lucky to meet a robin, and Ben is rude to her. She learns her lesson that it is wrong to be sour. BA robin with black dewdrop eyes hops about pecking the soil. Ben pushes his cap back on his bald head and digs with his spade. CMary tells a robin she is lonely and sees that this makes her cross. Ben, a gardener, says they are both sour, and Mary wonders about herself. DMary meets a robin and Ben Weatherstaff, the old gardener. Ben tells her to leave his garden at once, and Mary cries and runs back inside.

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    The robin appears in chapters IV and IX. What role does he play in the development of the theme?

    AHe warns Mary to stay away from the locked garden BHe shows that animals are more important than people CHe takes the place of Ben as Mary's only friend DHe is there as Mary moves from loneliness to caring

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    What does it mean to analyze how a theme develops over the course of a text?

    ATrace how details from the beginning, middle and end build or change it BFind the one sentence near the end where the author states the theme directly CCount how many times the word that names the theme appears in the text DDecide whether you agree with the theme and explain your own opinion

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    In chapter IV, Ben tells Mary, "Tha'lt be lonlier before tha's done" (paragraph 10). Does the chapter IX passage support or challenge his prediction? Explain with two pieces of evidence from chapter IX.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write an objective summary of the chapter IX passage in three or four sentences.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    In chapter IX Mary says, "Now they look as if they could breathe... I am going to do ever so many more" (paragraph 3). In chapter II she shouted "Go away!" at Basil (paragraph 4). Explain how the difference between these two moments develops the theme.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a theme statement for the three passages that is different from the working theme used in class. Support it with one detail from each passage, with chapter and paragraph numbers.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    In chapter II the children sing "Mistress Mary, quite contrary, / How does your garden grow?" (paragraph 6). Explain how the chapter IX passage answers the rhyme's question, and what that suggests about the theme.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a paragraph of 5-7 sentences that states a theme of the three passages, traces its development with one quoted detail from each passage, and ends with a two-sentence objective summary of what has happened to Mary so far.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RL.7.2: 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.