Team Members: Alexa Garvoille, Elaine Baker, Carla Brown, Daniel Miller
Weekly plan to move to Formative Assessment:
Week One:
Nadine Gordimer’s “The Train from Rhodesia”
 In reading this text students will focus on the ideas of separation and isolation
between characters, cultures, and values.
 First instructional strategy: INTERRUPTED READING
 Students and teacher read the story as a group pausing after every few
paragraphs. The students ask questions about vocabulary presented in the
story as the teacher asks directed interpretive questions such as:
o What does it mean that the white people are on the train and the
natives are outside?
o Locate a set of repeated images or repeated significant words in the
text.
o What parallel situations do you see in the text so far? How are two
dissimilar characters similar? Why is that important?
o What are the different kinds of separation at work in this story?
o How are the main characters represented? What actions stand out that
they do? What descriptions stand out?
o How are the minor characters represented?
o Are there important symbols in the text? What could they mean?
How do they connect to the message or idea of the story?
o How is the title significant? What is Rhodesia? Why is it the train
from Rhodesia and not to Rhodesia?
 Writing Workshop: DEVELOPING A THEME STATEMENT
o Students are divided into four groups. Each group is given a different
theme statement and each different theme statement represents either a
strongly supported theme, a moderately supported theme, a weakly
supported theme, or a non-supported theme. Students are asked to go
into the text and pull out four to six pieces of evidence:
 two sources must be direct quotation
 two sources must be paraphrase
 and two others may be of their choice
o Students then present their theme statements and supporting statements
to the class and arrange themselves based on which theme is most
supported and which one is least supported.
o The groups then revise their theme statements (retaining one or two
words from the weak statement) and present new statements to the
class.
o The students then organize themselves as pieces of data and discuss
what they would discuss first, second, third, and then fourth.
o Students then go through a lesson on paragraph structure organized
around the PEE model (Point, Evidence, Explanation).
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o For homework the students would complete a rough draft of the
paragraph on thematic development. Students will be given a CLOZE
paragraph guide to help complete the assignment
o The next day these will be peer edited and then final drafts will be
submitted.
VISUAL TEXT CONNECTIONS: Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert
o Students submit their final drafts for grading.
o Painting is divided into four segments and students are asked to create
an annotation guide for each of the four segments. Students are given
several minutes to investigate a particular segment of the painting and
then discuss what they see in each area. Students are directed to
discover elements that are repeated in the different segments.
o Students get back into their theme groups from the previous day and
develop a theme statement for the painting. Students then use a copy
of the painting and highlight elements in the painting that support the
theme. Students are required to find at least one element from each of
the four quadrants.
o To conclude, students are asked to compare and contrast the idea of
isolation between the Bellini painting and the Gordimer story.
Week Two:
Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert
 What are the values that have been presented in this painting? How are these
being represented?
 Does our culture have these same values or are they different for Americans?
 Let’s look at other images that deal with the same idea of isolation and its
significance.
o Writing Books Under Pine Trees - Wang Meng
o Person on Branch - Japanese Artist
 Students will begin with segmented analysis; however, each half of
the class will study a different painting.
 Students will discuss important elements of the work including but
not limited to: shading, light versus dark, composition and relative
size of elements, the human figure and its characterization, the use
of nature in the work, etc.
 Students will then compare and contrast the two pieces of art.
 The teacher will introduce the idea of a common theme: that two
pieces of art can share a similar idea. Teacher will then ask
students to determine with a partner from the other group what the
common theme about isolation is for the paintings and four ways
(two from each painting) that the theme is developed.
 Students are then asked to contrast the Asian art to the Bellini
painting and discuss how the cultural elements may lead to
different themes on isolation.
“Madly Singing in the Mountains” - Po Chu-i
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Students are a copy of the TPCASTT handout.
The title of the poem is displayed/written on the board. And students are asked to
create a brainstorming web around the title to develop their close reading skills as
well as their predictive skills. Some students may make connections to the
artwork seen earlier or the overall idea of isolation.
The copy of the poem is then distributed to the students
o The teacher reads the poem aloud and pauses to ask for paraphrases and
correct as needed. The corrections are then discussed.
o The following elements are given to pairs of students: imagery, diction,
form, point of view, details, allusions, symbolism, figurative language,
and repetition.
 The students are asked to pull out one or two examples of each and
comment on how they reveal the idea of isolation in the poem.
o Common threads are pulled out from the discussion on the board by the
teacher and then used to determine the attitude of the speaker to the
subject. (There may be multiple subjects, thus multiple tones.)
o Students are asked to identify all of the ways that the poem changes (topic,
mood, setting, character, etc.) The students are directed to line 11 and
shown that most of the changes in the poem converge at this point in the
poem. The students are then asked to prove all of the ways that the shift
occurs at line 11.
o The original web is brought back, and students are asked to edit and revise
their original brainstorming on the meaning of the title.
o In their partner groups they determine the theme of the poem and support
their theme with three examples from the poem. One example needs to be
paraphrase, one needs to be a direct quote, and one can be of their choice.
All examples must be cited with line numbers.
WRITING WORKSHOP: CREATIVE NON-FICTION
o Students begin by reading and excerpt form “On Seeing England for the
First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid
 Students are asked to focus on the elements of point of view and
selection of detail.
 Students are asked to journal before reading: Tell me about a time
that you saw something for the first time that was important to you.
How did it make you feel? In reflection, why was that an
important moment in your life? How did seeing it make you feel
either connected to or isolated from others?
 Students go through an interrupted reading of Kincaid and annotate
their copies.
 Students are asked how this is different from the other pieces that
have been read and as a class they complete a chart/graphic
organizer charting similarities and differences.
For homework students are given “Fred’s Ashes” by Janet Alexander and asked to
annotate the text looking for how point of view and selection of detail enhance the
selection of detail.
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Students come to class and complete a brief reading check quiz on “Fred’s Ashes”
and “On Seeing England for the First Time” - there are a few compare/contrast
questions which require the students to answer in a few sentences.
Students and teacher then begin a writing workshop on their own version of
“Seeing _____________ for the First Time” - Students are writing in order to
communicate a theme on isolation. Students must have a clear point of view and
thorough selection of detail to support and develop their theme.
o The class develops four themes about isolation and then they write down
then experiences of their own that pair with the themes. Students spend
five minutes writing on four experiences of their own and then choose one
that works the best to begin drafting.
o These are then peer edited and brought to the teacher for a writing
conference while students work on a vocabulary assignment using words
from the texts already studied this week.
Week Three:
ARTISTIC APPLICATION: Students begin the week by bringing in two images/pieces
of art/advertisements/graphics which display and mirror the theme they wrote in their
creative non-fiction piece.
 Students present one of their images to the class and explain how the elements
presented in the image relate to their personal narrative/non-fiction using one
specific detail from the image and from their writing.
 Classmates grade the presentation based on clarity, cohesiveness, coherence,
and level of detail specificity.
TEXTUAL COMPARISONS: Comparing/Contrasting/Writing
 “Writing as an Act of Hope” - Isabel Allende
 “First Cell, First Love” - Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
 “Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1970” - Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
o Throughout the week students work in literature circles on each of the
three pieces. Students are asked to draw thematic connections
between each of the pieces. Students should be working
independently to analyze the texts, develop vocabulary from each text,
and develop questions for deeper understanding which they will then
use to lead a Socratic Seminar for their classmates. For example, one
group is the “Expert Group” on Allende and they lead the seminar at
the end of the week after all students have read all pieces. They ask
questions to their classmates and guide their classmates in
understanding the piece focusing on the theme and the way that the
theme is developed.
 WRITING ASSIGNMENT: COMPARING and CONTRASTING
o After the Socratic Seminars, students are asked to select two pieces
from the week or one piece from this week and one piece from earlier
study and write a paragraph in which they prove the existence of a
common theme across both pieces and then explain how the theme is
developed in each piece by the artist/author.
o Students submit drafts for conference with teacher and final drafts
proceed from the conference. Drafts are graded and returned and
students reflect on their feedback in order to prepare for the formative
assessment next week.
Week Four:
Formative Assessment - Open ended question on thematic development across two
passages of different genres at the beginning of the week. Feedback and explanation at
the end of the week.
To accomplish the formative assessment students need to:
 be able to identify theme
 be able to identify significant quotations
 know how to integrate quotations in their writing
 explain the quotations and their development of the theme
 be able to compare and contrast between two types of literature
 write a clear topic sentence and develop that idea through discussion
 write a conclusion statement for a paragraph
 be able to edit their own work for spelling and usage errors