“Miss Brill”
by Katherine Mansfield
(1888-1923; raised in colonial New Zealand, then moved to Great Britain)
Objectives: Students will study elements of plot, characterization,
point of view, setting, and theme in a short story.
Fun facts about Fish
• Brill
• A flat fish related to the turbot and whiting, with
inferior taste to the turbot (according the Oxford English
Dictionary)
• Notoriously poor vision
• Naming implications?
Popcorn Read &
Plot Summaries
• Full paragraph, then popcorn someone quickly.
• With expression, but not silliness. 
• Share plot summaries.
Continue your WTJ #17
• Write down your answer to this question without
mentioning anything about the plot:
• What is the story “Miss Brill” about?
• Share in pods.
• Share with class.
Pod Work
• In each pod, write down ideas for your assigned method
of characterization. Be sure to support your claims with
evidence from the text.
• Here’s the prompt: How does Mansfield use
_________(method)___ to characterize Miss Brill?
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•
•
•
•
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Group 1 – setting
Group 2 – parallel characters
Group 3 – narrative point of view
Group 4 – symbolism
Group 5 – dramatic irony
Group 6 – plot/structure
For Friday
•
WTJ #17, Part II , "Miss Brill" - due tomorrow. No late work as we
will use these in class.
• Write a smokin' good thematic statement for the story. (theme topic + story's
message about that topic = theme statement)
• Write at least two hearty paragraphs analyzing how Mansfield characterizes Miss
Brill.
• Remember - Expose, Excerpt, Explain.
•
•
Use your topic sentence as a mini-thesis to set up your analysis of how the author
characterizes Miss Brill.
Then show how you know by using textual references and explaining them to support
your topic sentence.
•
FEEL FREE TO TYPE RESPONSES AND TAPE/GLUE/STAPLE
THEM IN YOUR WTJs. It may make work in class tomorrow easier if
you type and double space your entry.
•
Reminders for Friday: Vocab 2 quiz. WTJ Checkpoint #3. Includes
WTJ entries 12-17. Check out the WTJ page for entries. Not all are
listed on "plans" page as we did some in class.
“Miss Brill”
by Katherine Mansfield
Objectives: Students will study elements of plot, characterization,
point of view, setting, and theme in a short story.
Day 2
• Share “smokin’ good” thematic statements
• Share student samples (see word doc.)
Coding for Analysis
• Key for coding for Miss Brill
• Samples
• Already coded
• Let’s do together
• Now you do one of your own paragraphs.
Share & Improve
• Discuss.
• Everyone: Deepen your analysis.
• For each of the your paragraphs, insert or add at least
one sentence of analytical commentary to deep the
analysis. So what? So what? So what?
• Share.
• Turn in WTJs before you leave
today!
For Monday
•
Reread and heavily annotate ("beautifully ugly") excerpt from The Toughest Indian
in the World by Sherman Alexie.
•
TYPE hearty, specific answers to the questions "Using Skills to Understand the
Passage." Annotation check on Monday. Bring to class for Monday's lesson -NO
LATE WORK. Bring your vocab books, too.
•
ALL STUDENTS: You must get on line and register/enroll in
www.turnitin.com.
• You will write an in-class essay Tuesday using the computer and submit it to
www.turnitin.com before the class ends.
• If you have to do register/enroll during class, you will have rob yourself of
time to write the essay as time to write will not be extended nor will passes be
issued because of this.
• Class id = 5217128
• pwd = bull
For Monday