Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-65 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 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a movie or show that opens with a scene from near the end and then jumps back ('Two weeks earlier...'). Why would a storyteller give away part of the ending first? What question did it make you ask?"

   Take three or four answers and sort what students describe into three effects that the standard names. Write them on the board, since students use them all period:

   • Mystery: the reader is missing information and wants it (What happened? Who is at the door?).
   • Tension (or suspense): the reader worries about what is about to happen and has to wait to find out.
   • Surprise: the outcome is not what the reader was led to expect, yet the text has quietly prepared for it.

   Tell students that today they will look at how writers produce these effects not only through what happens, but through when and how fast they tell it.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Two orders in every story. The order of events is the order in which things happen (1, 2, 3). The order of telling is the order in which the text presents them. When the two differ, the author has made a structural choice. Introduce four tools:

   • Structure: how the text is framed and divided, including where it opens, where it breaks into parts and where it ends.
   • Flashback: a scene from an earlier time placed inside the present action.
   • Parallel plots: two or more storylines told in alternating pieces (sometimes called cross-cutting), so that the reader knows things that each set of characters does not.
   • Pacing: how much story time passes per page. A summary covers years in a paragraph; a scene can spend a paragraph on a few seconds.

   Then introduce the anchor text. Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" (1889; this lesson uses Constance Garnett's 1920 translation, about 2,800 words) is told in two numbered parts. An old banker, nearly ruined, remembers the bet he made fifteen years earlier with a young lawyer: two million if the lawyer stays alone in a garden lodge for fifteen years. The bet ends at twelve o'clock the next day. Read the opening aloud.

   1It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment. The majority of the guests, among whom were many journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.

   2“I don’t agree with you,” said their host the banker. “I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge a priori, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years?”

   3“Both are equally immoral,” observed one of the guests, “for they both have the same object--to take away life. The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.”

   4Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:

   5“The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at all.”

   6A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:

   7“It’s not true! I’ll bet you two millions you wouldn’t stay in solitary confinement for five years.”

   8“If you mean that in earnest,” said the young man, “I’ll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years.”

   9“Fifteen? Done!” cried the banker. “Gentlemen, I stake two millions!”

   10“Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!” said the young man.

   11And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:

   12“Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two millions are a trifle, but you are losing three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you won’t stay longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I am sorry for you.”

   13And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and asked himself: “What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that man’s losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two millions? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple greed for money....”

   • Flashback inside a frame

     Paragraph 1: "The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening." What structural choice is this, and what effect does it create?

     Result: The story opens in the present (the last night) and moves at once into a flashback. The reader learns that fifteen years have passed but not what happened in them, so the opening creates mystery: what bet, and why is the banker remembering it tonight?

   • Returning to the frame

     Paragraph 13: "And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and asked himself: 'What was the object of that bet?'" Why does Chekhov bring the reader back to the present here?

     Result: The word "now" and the repeated walking close the flashback. The banker's question turns the party into a problem he is still living with, which gives the present scene a reason to exist: something about the bet has to be settled tonight.

   • Parallel plots (a model)

     A writer alternates two storylines: a girl waits at a train station for her brother, and forty miles away his train stops at a flooded bridge. The chapters switch back and forth. What does this order do for the reader?

     Result: The reader knows about the flood while the girl does not. Every scene of her waiting now carries information she lacks, so her hope and the reader's worry pull against each other, and that gap creates tension.

   • Dividing the text into parts

     Part II of "The Bet" begins: "The old banker remembered all this, and thought: 'To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom.'" What does the break between the two parts do?

     Result: Part I holds the remembered past (the party and fifteen years in the lodge); Part II is the present night. The break marks the end of the memories, and the first thing Part II gives the reader is a deadline, which starts the clock and the tension.

   How to write about structure. A strong answer names the choice ("Chekhov opens on the last night and then flashes back"), names the effect (mystery, tension or surprise), and explains how the choice produces the effect, with a quotation. Model the sentence frame: "By [choice], the author [controls what the reader knows or when], which creates [effect] because ___."

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Explain what happens between the two passages: the banker remembers the years of the prisoner's reading, then admits to himself that he is nearly ruined and that the prisoner's death is "the one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace." Read the next passage aloud and ask pairs to mark every detail that delays the moment the banker reaches the prisoner. Work through these three with the class:

   1It struck three o’clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep in the house and nothing could be heard outside but the rustling of the chilled trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.

   2It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting wind was racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees no rest. The banker strained his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called the watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.

   3“If I had the pluck to carry out my intention,” thought the old man, “Suspicion would fall first upon the watchman.”

   4He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door, and went into the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead with no bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark cast-iron stove. The seals on the door leading to the prisoner’s rooms were intact.

   5When the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion, peeped through the little window. A candle was burning dimly in the prisoner’s room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could be seen but his back, the hair on his head, and his hands. Open books were lying on the table, on the two easy-chairs, and on the carpet near the table.

   6Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir. Fifteen years’ imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker tapped at the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement whatever in response. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the door creaked. The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment, but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room. He made up his mind to go in.

   1. "It struck three o'clock" (paragraph 1). Teacher note: until now the story has moved in years ("In the second year," "after the tenth year"). Suddenly it moves by the clock. The change from summary to scene tells the reader that something important is about to happen in a short space of time.
   2. The weather and the dark (paragraph 2). Teacher note: the rain, the wind and a garden where the banker "could see neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees" slow him down and slow the reader down. Neither of them can see what is ahead.
   3. "If I had the pluck to carry out my intention" (paragraph 3). Teacher note: the reader knows what the intention is, and the prisoner does not. That gap in knowledge, together with the banker's plan to blame the watchman, turns every step toward the lodge into tension.

   Then summarize what the banker finds (the prisoner asleep at his table, thin and aged, with a letter in front of him) and read the ending together. Ask pairs: Is the ending a surprise? Which sentence from the opening passage made you expect something else? Take answers but do not settle the question yet; students return to it in the quiz.

   1“You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don’t want to understand you.

   2“To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the compact....”

   3When the banker had read this he laid the page on the table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.

   4Next morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and told him they had seen the man who lived in the lodge climb out of the window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker went at once with the servants to the lodge and made sure of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid arousing unnecessary talk, he took from the table the writing in which the millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the fireproof safe.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read the last scene of W. W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw" (1902) on their own. Give this summary of what comes before: a soldier back from India gives Mr. and Mrs. White a dried monkey's paw that is said to grant three wishes. Mr. White wishes for two hundred pounds. The next day their son Herbert is killed at work, caught in the machinery, and the company pays the family two hundred pounds. Ten days after the death, Mrs. White makes her husband use the second wish to wish their son alive again. Nothing seems to happen, and the couple go back to bed.

   On the handout, students (1) make a tension tracker: every sound in the passage, its paragraph number, and what the characters do between sounds; (2) mark one place where the author slows time and one place where he speeds it up; (3) write two sentences on what the author never shows and why. Quiz questions 11-15 check this work.

   1Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs for a candle.

   2At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.

   3The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A third knock sounded through the house.

   4“What’s that?” cried the old woman, starting up.

   5“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the stairs.”

   6His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the house.

   7“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”

   8She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.

   9“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.

   10“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must open the door.”

   11“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.

   12“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”

   13There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting.

   14“The bolt,” she cried, loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”

   15But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.

   16The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Complete the frame with one example from today: "By ___, the author ___, which creates ___ because ___." (2) In one sentence, explain the difference between mystery and surprise.

   Teacher note on content and language: "The Bet" opens with a debate about the death penalty, and in Part II the banker plans to kill the prisoner. "The Monkey's Paw" deals with the death of a son and a mother's grief. Tell students before reading and keep the discussion on the authors' craft. Garnett's 1920 translation keeps some older phrasing ("two millions," meaning two million rubles; "five-and-twenty"), and the double hyphens and em dashes are as printed.

   For homework: students read the original story below, which the homework uses. It tells two storylines in alternating paragraphs.

   1At 7:02, Nora Castillo sat in the second row of the Lincoln High auditorium with her sheet music rolled into a tube. She was fourth on the program. Beside her, on the aisle seat, lay her jacket. Her father had promised, twice, that he would finish his route early and sit there.

   2At 7:02, on the other side of town, the Number 14 bus stopped at Elm and Fifth, and nobody got on. Ray Castillo checked the clock on the dashboard. If the lights were kind to him, he could park at the depot by 7:25 and be at the school by 7:40.

   3The first student played a march too fast. The second forgot a repeat and covered it with a smile. Nora unrolled her music, rolled it up again, and looked at the jacket.

   4At Hollis Street an old man with a cane stood in the rain, waving. He was not at a stop. Ray pulled over anyway, lowered the ramp, and waited while the man counted out his fare one coin at a time. "Thank you," the man said. "My granddaughter plays the piano tonight, and I am already late."

   5"So does mine," said Ray.

   6The third student was halfway through her piece when the side door of the auditorium opened and let in a gust of cold air. Nora turned so fast that her music slid off her lap. It was the custodian, carrying a mop.

   7The light at Carver Avenue was red, then green for three cars, then red again. Ray did the math and did not like it. Behind him the old man hummed under his breath and tapped his cane on the floor, slightly off the beat.

   8"Nora Castillo," said Ms. Obi. Nora climbed the steps, set her music on the stand, and did not look at the aisle seat, because she already knew what she would see.

   9Ray did not go to the depot. He drove the Number 14, with its one passenger, straight up Lincoln Hill and parked it in the fire lane, which he had not done once in nineteen years.

   10Nora was on the second page when the back doors opened. She did not turn around this time. She played to the end, and when she stood to bow she saw them in the last row: her father, still in his driver's jacket, and beside him the old man with the cane. The old man was waving at the girl who had played third, and she was waving back at her grandfather.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In the middle of the flashback, the narrator says the banker "was younger and more nervous in those days" ("The Bet," opening passage, paragraph 6). What does this phrase do?

   AIt shows that the party takes place on the same night that the story opens with. BIt reveals that the banker has already lost the bet and knows he must pay. CIt reminds the reader that the party is remembered from fifteen years later. DIt shows that the lawyer was older and calmer than the banker at the party.

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The bet itself is agreed in four short speeches (paragraphs 7-10 of the opening passage), ending with "Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" How does this quick exchange affect the pacing?

   AThe quick exchange makes the decision feel sudden and rash, a "wild, senseless bet." BIt slows the story down so the reader can weigh both sides of the death-penalty debate. CIt shows that the two men had planned the bet carefully in the weeks before the party. DIt is a second flashback, set years earlier than the party and the dinner.

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   At supper the banker tells the lawyer, "I say three or four, because you won't stay longer" (opening passage, paragraph 12). How does this prediction work in the structure of the story?

   AIt tells the reader that the lawyer will certainly give up after three years. BIt is a flashback to an earlier bet that the banker once made and lost. CIt shows that the banker is kind and wants to protect the young lawyer. DIt raises a question the reader carries through the years: will he last?

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Part II, the banker takes "from a fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years" ("The Bet," Part II passage, paragraph 1). How does this detail connect the story's handling of time?

   AIt is a flashback to the day the lodge was built and the door first locked. BIt gathers fifteen summarized years into one object, the key to a long-closed door. CIt speeds the story up by skipping over the banker's walk out to the lodge. DIt shows that the watchman has been opening the door every day for years.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Through the window the banker sees the prisoner, but "Nothing could be seen but his back, the hair on his head, and his hands" (Part II passage, paragraph 5). What effect does this limited view create?

   AIt creates mystery by hiding the prisoner's face, and what the years did to him. BIt shows that the prisoner is hiding from the banker on purpose behind his books. CIt shows that the banker has forgotten what the prisoner looks like after so long. DIt creates humor by making the prisoner seem lazy and careless about the bet.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which sentence from paragraph 6 of the Part II passage most clearly shows Chekhov slowing time down to build tension?

   A"Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and put the key in the keyhole." B"Fifteen years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still." C"but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room." D"The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the door creaked."

7. Question 7 of 20 · Short Answer

   When the banker opens the door, he "expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment" (Part II passage, paragraph 6), and he hears neither. Explain how this unmet expectation builds both tension and mystery just before the banker goes in.

   Show model answer

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In his letter the prisoner writes, "I renounce the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise" and says he will leave "five hours before the time fixed" ("The Bet," ending, paragraph 2). Why is this a surprise?

   ABecause the banker had already decided to pay him the full two million. BBecause the reader knew all along that the prisoner cared nothing for money. CBecause the prisoner has escaped from the lodge many times in the past. DBecause the reader expects a fight over the money, and he gives it up himself.

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   At the end of the flashback, the banker judges the lawyer's side of the bet as "simple greed for money" (opening passage, paragraph 13). How does this judgment make the ending more surprising?

   AIt proves that the lawyer really was greedy, so the ending is no surprise. BThe reader tends to share the banker's view, and the ending reverses it. CIt shows that the banker and the lawyer have always agreed about money. DIt is the prisoner's own description of himself, taken from his letter.

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    The story ends as the banker takes the letter "in which the millions were renounced" and locks it "up in the fireproof safe" (ending, paragraph 4). Why is this a strong place to end?

    AIt explains exactly where the prisoner went after he left the garden. BIt shows that the banker has decided to pay the two million after all. CIt echoes the safe that held the key, closing on the banker's self-interest. DIt returns the reader to the party fifteen years earlier, as a last flashback.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In "The Monkey's Paw," the first knock comes "at the same moment" the match goes out, and it is "so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible" (paragraph 2). How does Jacobs use timing here?

    AIt joins the knock to sudden darkness, so the sound comes when no one can see. BIt uses a flashback to explain who is knocking and why they have come back. CIt makes the knock loud, so the reader knows at once who is at the door. DIt speeds up the scene by skipping from the stairs straight to the front door.

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    How does Jacobs build tension through the knocks across paragraphs 2-15 of "The Monkey's Paw"?

    AThe knocks stay the same, so the tension comes only from the characters' words. BThe knocks stop halfway through the scene and never come back again. CThere is only one knock, and the characters spend the scene discussing it. DThe knocks repeat and grow louder, from "scarcely audible" to a "fusillade."

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    When his wife asks what the noise is, Mr. White says, "A rat... It passed me on the stairs" (paragraph 5). Why does this lie add tension?

    AIt shows that there really is a rat in the house, which explains the noise. BIt reveals his fear of what is outside and sets him against his wife. CIt shows that Mrs. White is more afraid of rats than of anything else. DIt is a flashback to an earlier night when a rat got into the house.

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In paragraph 15, Mr. White searches the floor upstairs while downstairs his wife draws the bolt, and "at the same moment he found the monkey's paw." What structural effect does this timing create?

    AIt slows the scene to a stop so that the reader has a moment to rest. BIt reveals what is behind the door just before the last wish is made. CTwo actions in two places race each other, like a small parallel plot. DIt moves the story forward by several days to the morning after the wish.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    "The Monkey's Paw" ends with "a quiet and deserted road" (paragraph 16). The author never shows what was knocking. What effect does this choice create, and why might it be stronger than showing the visitor?

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which is an example of foreshadowing rather than a flashback?

    AA character jokes that the old bridge will fall; at the end, it collapses. BA chapter set in 2024 is interrupted by a scene from the character's childhood. CA story opens on a character's last day at a job, then goes back to her first. DAn old woman tells her granddaughter what the town looked like fifty years ago.

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A novel alternates chapters between a detective searching a city for a missing girl and the girl herself, locked in a basement, working at a loose brick. Chapter 9 ends just as the detective knocks on a door; chapter 10 switches to the girl. Why does the author switch plots at exactly this point?

    ATo show in a flashback how the girl was taken, before the search began. BTo leave the reader waiting at the door, so the answer is delayed. CTo show the reader that the detective has given up on the search. DTo summarize quickly the whole week the girl has spent in the basement.

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A writer wants to slow down the moment before a character reads her test score. Which revision does that best?

    A"Three weeks later, she had forgotten all about the test and the envelope it came in." B"She opened the envelope, saw an A at the top of the page, and smiled at her friend." C"She got her score back in the envelope, and then she went to lunch with her friends." D"She slid a finger under the flap. The paper tore. A locker slammed. She read the date first."

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Using one example from "The Bet" and one from "The Monkey's Paw," explain the difference between mystery and tension. Quote each passage.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Suppose "The Bet" were told in strict chronological order, starting with the party. Explain one effect that would be lost and one that might be gained. Refer to specific parts of the story.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RL.9-10.5: 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.