Gender on the Great Plains: O Pioneers! Project

Name:

Ms. Hoffmann

English 10

Date:

Gender on the Great Plains Project

Goals:

• To practice understanding and discussing information from informational texts
• To discuss literary works in light of informational text
• To create multimedia presentations to share information with peers

Overview:

Now that you have read your assigned encyclopedia article, it is time for you to share your findings with others in your group. You will be using these findings to analyze ideas in O Pioneers!, which you will share with the rest of the class through Google Slides or Prezi.

Due Date:  Final presentations will be due the Friday following our return from midterms: February 5th.  You may need to work on this outside of class during TEA or you may need to divide tasks and collaborate digitally.

Directions:

Step 1: Compare reading notes with others in your group.  It is essential that you make sure you all are on the same page now before you begin your analysis or presentation.  Take the time to help each other and ask questions.

Step 2: Consider the questions below.  You should have someone record notes as you discuss for your presentation.

Note: If you have the journal article by Dyck, you will be focusing on whether or not you agree with his interpretation of the novel, why, and what that means for the deeper message of the novel.

• How does Alexandra compare to the woman pioneers discussed in your text?

• What makes them similar or different?  Please refer to specific details from the text and your article.

• Why does Cather make Alexandra so like or unlike the depictions in the articles?  Hint: Think about how it helps her get across her message or theme to have Alexandra so alike or unlike these New Women pioneers.

Step 3: Create your presentation in Google Slides or Prezi.  Make sure all members of your group can access it.  Your presentation needs to contain the following information.  It also should be completed keeping in mind the presentation rubric (http://bie.org/object/document/9_12_presentation_rubric_ccss_aligned).

• Title Slide
• Summary of information from the article.  (This should happen over a few slides. If you have one slide you either do not have enough information, or you are putting too much on single slides. Please do not let any of your slides get too wordy.)
• Slides comparing Alexandra to the women pioneers of the article
• Explanation of what the similarity or difference means for the theme of the text
• Concluding slide (if the previous explanation did not tie your ideas together)

Step 4: Edit! Proofread!  Yes, even for a presentation.

 

Gendered Relationships to the Land

Agenda:

• Tips for reading informational text
• WIN strategy
• Reading passages: honors and regular section

Homework:

• Study for midterm
• Finish WIN charts (min. of 5) for reading
• No matter if you run out of charts or not, you must finished your assigned reading

POL: Shades of Tone

Agenda:

• Paint Strips: Shades of "happy"
• Are all synonyms created equal?
• Tone map of "Jenny Kissed Me"
• Compare with POL tone map

Homework:

• Create a tone map for your own POL poem
• Continue to work on memorizing the poem
• Begin review for midterms

POL: Tone Day 1

Agenda:

• Review tone vs. mood
• Intro to tone (POL track 30)
• "Miniver Cheevy" reading and discussion questions
• "Jenny Kissed Me" 
• Mark the tone shifts

Homework:

• Continue to practice your POL poem

Discussion Cont.

Agenda:

• Finish discussion of the ending of O Pioneers!
• Tone words handout

Homework:

• Write a paragraph response to one of the questions from class.  Be sure to consider what we discussed in relationship to that question.
• Choose five tone words from the list.  On the back of the sheet, define the words.  Be sure that they are words that you do not already know or that you at least do not know well.

Speaking and Listening: O Pioneers!

Agenda:

• Speaking and Listening Preview Questions
• Speaking and Listening in the Common Core
• Class discussion

Homework:

• For Thursday, answer one of the questions based on our class discussion.  Your answer should be a paragraph in length.
• Work on memorizing your POL poem.  In-class presentations will be the week following midterms.

Relationships to the Land Continued

Agenda:

• Complete worksheet from Friday
• Look over grade reports

Homework:

• Make sure that your missing work is in

SPOTTTS on POL

Agenda:

• SPOTTTS analysis of POL poem
• Sharing borrowed lines poem from yesterday

Homework:

• Finish SPOTTTS for Monday

Inspired by Poetry

Objective:

• To find a use for those lines that you have to memorize for POL

Directions:

• Choose a prompt:
1. A heart-wrenching, break-up letter
2. A love letter--or maybe that invitation to prom
3. Want something a little more serious?  Maybe you can write the eulogy that could have been read at Emil's funeral (O Pioneers!)

• Find some content for your letter:
• You need at least 3 lines from 3 different poems listed on the Poetry Out Loud website.
• Include some song lyrics.  Find at least 2 lines of song lyrics from 2 different songs that work for your subject.  I know you all have songs that you know by heart and refer to--there's actually not that much of a difference between poetry and music, so take the leap!
• Whenever you use lyrics or poem lines, please put quotation marks around the lines.  MLA is not needed for this activity, but I need to see where you took quotes.
• Whatever you choose your letter should not be made up all of one poem or one song.
• Your letter does not have to rhyme.  It can if you want it to, but it is a letter--or a eulogy if you go with #3.
• You probably should have some of your own writing in there to help your writing flow.  If you went from one line of poetry to another, it likely would not make much sense.
• By the time that you include all of your lines and transitions, you should have written no less than half a page.  (It probably will look like more than that with a heading at the top.)

• You have the period to complete this task!  By the end of the period, the student with the most ridiculous letter or the most serious and moving eulogy will be named the winner.

POL: Why Recite Poems?

Agenda:

• Intro Clip--http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-performance/listen-to-poetry
• Churchill on McKay's "If We Must Die"
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqy7uUdNwK0
• Tracks 7 & 17
• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173360
• Writing our own pieces using poem snippets 

Homework:

• None

Symbolic Motifs: Birds in O Pioneers!

Agenda:

• Review motif and symbol
• Worksheet on Birds--make sure that your last step is a paragraph

Homework:

• Finish the bird symbol worksheet
• Complete the last section of reading questions, which will be collected tomorrow