Module 10.1
Unit 10.1.3
Reading Closely and Writing to Analyze: How Do Authors Develop Complex Characters and Ideas?
In Module 10.1, students engage with literature and nonfiction texts and explore how complex characters develop through their interactions with each other. Students also analyze how these interactions develop central ideas - such as identity and expectations. Module 10.1 introduces foundational protocols and routines for reading, writing, and discussion that students will continue to build upon and strengthen throughout the year. The module consists of three units, referred to as 10.1.1, 10.1.2, and 10.1.3. Each unit focuses on complex texts that offer students opportunities to work with multiple central ideas while exploring a range of genres.
Module and units adapted from Engagy NY.
Unit 10.1.1: Connecting Themes through Poetry
In Module 10.1, students explore the intertextuality of three related poems that span several centuries: Christopher Marlowe’s pastoral poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Sir Walter Raleigh’s critical reply “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” and William Carlos Williams’s contemporary poem “Raleigh Was Right.”
Materials & resources:
Handout 1: Connecting Themes through Poetry
Unit 10.1.1 texts, comprehension questions, and vocabulary
(click the PDF icon to download the handout).
Evidence Collection Tool: Side 1 and Side 2
(click the PDF icons to download the handouts).
Tips for Integrating Quotations
(click the PDF icon to download the handout).
Short Response Rubric and Checklist
(click the PDF icon to download the handouts).
Mind Mapping Activity
(click the PDF icon to download).
Mind Map Presentation Rubric
(click the PDF icon to download).
Unit-at-a-Glance
(click the PDF icon to download the handout).
Module 10.1.1 PowerPoint
(click the PPT icon to download the PowerPoint).
unit 10.1.2: “For one does not alter history without conviction.”
In this unit, students continue to develop many of the foundational skills, practices, and routines that they explored in 10.1.1: Close reading, annotating text, vocabulary acquisition, and evidence-based discussion and writing. Students continue to consider how authors develop central ideas (this time through fiction rather than poetry) as they read and analyze Ethan Canin’s short story “The Palace Thief.” Students’ work with this text focuses on how the interactions among, and development of, complex characters work to develop some of the central ideas in this text, such as identity, expectations, and the importance of history. Students also negotiate rich figurative language to better understand the narrator as he interacts with those around him.
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For the Mid-Unit Assessment, students compose a written response, with relevant supporting evidence, as they consider the narrator’s development over the course of the text. Students are formally assessed on their analysis
of the text and their ability to effectively identify and use evidence to support that analysis.
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At the end of the unit, students craft a multi-paragraph response analyzing the development of a central idea
in “The Palace Thief,” including how the narrator’s interactions with other characters helps contribute to the
development of this central idea.
Materials & resources:
Handout 1: "The Palace Theif" by Ethan Canin
Unit 10.1.2 text
(click the PDF icon to download the handout).
Essay Prompt and Mind Map
Due Dates (click the PDF icon to
download the handout).
Central Ideas Tracking Tool
(click the PDF icon to download the handout).
Short Response Rubric
and Checklist (click the PDF
icon to download the handout).
Module 10.1.2 PowerPoint
(click the PPT icon to download the PowerPoint).
unit 10.1.3: “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.”
In this unit, students continue to closely to explore central ideas (themes), as well as track central ideas through different genres. Students also track character development, analyzing different types of characterization in order to evaluate how character development may influence plot structure. In this unit, students work with Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” and “Rules of the Game” - which are two chapter excerpts from her collection, “The Joy Luck Club.” Through these excerpts, students will analyze how Tan develops central ideas through the interactions among dynamic and static characters. Students will also track the different genre types through Tan's writing, including Drama, Coming-of-Age, and Historical Fiction.
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In the Mid-Unit Assessment, students choose one of the chapters from Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club” (chapter choices include “Two Kinds” and “Rules of the Game”) and analyze how the author shapes and refines the central idea of “expectations” through close study of the development and interactions of central characters. In response to the prompt, students craft a thesis statement, select supportive evidence (two quotations total), and develop relevant connection statements (EBC’s).
In the End-of-Unit Assessment, students are formally assessed on their cumulative understanding of the chapter excerpts from Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club” and Ovid’s famous tragedy, “The Myth of Daedalus & Icarus.” Students are assessed on their ability to identify and analyze the development of a central idea common to both Tan’s literary text (which is written in the form of a family drama) and Ovid’s tragedy, while considering how character development and interactions contribute to the central idea. In this final assessment, students also analyze the differences between the genres of drama and tragedy. In response to the prompt, students craft a thesis statement, select supportive evidence (four quotations total), and develop relevant connection statements (EBC’s).