English 8 students worked on their new novel Nightjohn. We’re using an “It Says/I Say”-type engagement as we read as we scaffold our critical reading skills to incorporate more critical thinking into our reading:

English I students continued moving to the summative assessment for our first unit: a major analytical paragraph. This time around, we’re looking at “The Necklace” and “Gift of the Magi” to determine the role symbolism and irony play in the story. Today we focused on “The Necklace.”

We did a number of quick-writes about the following topics:

1. What are the steps the author used to set up the irony at the end?
2. To what degree is the symbol in the story (the eponymous necklace) symbolic of the same thing in real life? The American flag, for instance, is always a symbol of the country, whether in a story or in reality. To what degree does the necklace play a similar, mirror role?
3. Why did the protagonist borrow the necklace? (I told students “Because she wanted to wear it to the party” was not an adequate response: why did she want to wear it to the party?).
4. Why did the protagonist make the assumptions she made about Madame Forrester? What exactly were those assumptions?

Students wrote and talked about these questions as they searched for a topic for their analytic paper. Finally, they discussed with their partners how the following image might be a good summary for the story:

We’ll finish up with “Gift of the Magi” tomorrow.

Homework

• English 8: 
  • work on the book for the one-pager as necessary;
  • work on the AOW summary as needed (due tomorrow).
• English I Honors: 
  • work on the book for the one-pager as necessary;
  • work on the AOW as needed.