GRADE LEVEL: 11th

UNIT/THEME: Literary Analysis: Genre

STANDARDS: California English-Language Arts Content Standards

1) Writing:

a. 2.2a Demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of the significant ideas of literary

works.

b. 2.2c Write responses to literature -Demonstrate awareness of the author's use

of stylistic devices and an appreciation of the effects created.

2) Reading:

a. 3.6 Analyze the way in which authors throughout the centuries have used

archetypes drawn from myth and tradition in literature.

b. 3.7 Analyze recognized works of world literature from a variety of

authors.

3) Listening and Speaking:

a. 1.11 Assess how language and delivery affect communication and make an

impact on the audience.

4) Literary Response and Analysis:

a.3.11 Evaluate the aesthetic qualities of style, including the impact of diction and

figurative language on tone, mood, and theme, using the terminology of literary

criticism.

b.3.12 Analyze the way in which a work of literature is related to the themes and

issues of its historical period.

OBJECTIVES:

1) Instructional Objectives:

Students will illustrate their understanding of cultural context, rhetorical devices,

and figurative language used in magic realism and cultural works through reading,

listening, speaking, and writing activities.

Language – Students will demonstrate an understanding of key vocabulary associated the

rhetorical and literary devices.

a. Language:

i. Students will listen to teacher lecture.

ii. Students will participate in collaborative learning in groups of fours and

fives.

b. Content:

i. Students will be able to understand how mood and repetition were used

in poetry of the era.

ii. Students will connect the content to their own lives.

2) Behavioral Objectives:

a. Language:

i. Students will listen to the students and teacher read excerpts and short

stories aloud.

b. Content:

i. Students will respond to short essay questions and writing prompts.

SATISFACTION OF FOUR DOMAINS FOR ELL STUDENTS:

1) Listening:

Students will hear a lecture literary analysis, text, and group presentations as they relate

to the excerpt and short story.

2) Speaking:

In groups of four or five, students will discuss the data retained in their notes demarking

distinct differences between The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World and Woman

Warrior.

Students will read and/or participate in an oral final presentation.

3) Reading:

In groups of two, students will read aloud The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

and Woman Warrior.

4) Writing:

Students will take notes with distinctions made between The Handsomest Drowned Man

in the World and Woman Warrior.

5) Technology integration: PowerPoint Presentation, websites for gifted students to

research additional background information on the authors.

6) Cross-Curricular Integration: Art, Journalism, Cultural Studies

7) Time Frame: 10 class periods, 50 minutes each

8) Key Vocabulary:

Genre Rhetorical device Characterization Archetype

Literary device Literary analysis Mood Foil

Theme Nonfiction Motivation Magic Realism

Fiction Figurative language Narrator Symbolism

Irony Creative license Point-of-view

Instructional Materials:

Computer Speakers

Construction Paper Internet

Paper Pencils

Glue Magazines

SIOP Features

Preparation Scaffolding Grouping Options

___ Adaptation of Content _X_ Modeling _X_ Whole Class

_X_ Links to Background _X_ Guided practice _X_ Small Groups

___ Links to Past Learning _X_ Independent Practice ___ Partners

__ Strategies Incorporated __ Comprehensible Input _X_ Independent

Integration of Processes Application Assessment

_X_ Reading _X_ Hands-On _X_ Individual

_X_ Writing _X_ Meaningful _X_ Group

_X_ Speaking _X_ Linked to objects _X_ Written

_X_ Listening _X_ Promotes engagement _X_ Oral

Motivation:

Students will share in understanding how other cultures experience life in through

story telling. They will be able to see how that experience was turned into a new genre in

literature based on old cultural traditions.

Students will have the opportunity to express their understanding of magic

realism in their own words.

Presentation:

The teacher will provide students with varied auditory opportunities. Students will

hear each other speak as well as the teacher.

Collaborative learning groups of four and five. The teacher will moderate during the

group assignments to ensure that all students participate in the discussions.

i) Individual writing assignment and assessment at the end of the lessons. The

teacher will provide assistance, as needed, to any student who is still

struggling with the concept prior to assigning the writing assignment.

LESSONS OUTLINED:

Lesson sequence:

Literary Analysis Vocabulary

1. Students will watch a PowerPoint presentation (Appendix A) introducing or re-

introducing vocabulary as is relates to literary analysis.

2. Students will receive a handout defining the necessary vocabulary (Appendix B).

2. The teacher will discuss the vocabulary and provide examples for each of the

vocabulary words prior to beginning the lesson. .

Activity 2:

Reading and Listening

1. Students will read aloud the first story, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.

(Appendix C). The teacher will also read and discuss the meaning of the vocabulary as it

relates to the assignment.

2. Individually-students will finish reading The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

and use the QAR (Appendix D) to complete the reading.

Activity 3:

Reading and Listening

1. Students will listen to and read an excerpt from Woman Warrior: A Girlhood among

Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston.

2. Individually-students will use read Woman Warrior: A Girlhood among Ghosts

(Appendix E) and complete the QAR. (Appendix F).

Activity 4: Writing

1. Individually, students will write a short persuasive essay based on either story

(Appendix G)

Activity 5: Cooperative Learning Group (Group Assignment)

Students will create an advertisement, skit, or presentation promoting their favorite story

(Appendix H).

ASSESSMENT:

During week one students will have:

A vocabulary quiz (Appendix I)

During week, two students will have:

One performance assessment (Appendix J)

One unit assessment (Appendix K)

MODIFICATIONS: (if needed)

Grouping

In preparation for the cooperative learning group, the teacher will speak with five

general education students who have displayed mastery and/or interest in the subject.

This is done in an effort to maximize the benefits of the cooperative learning group. The

students will understand that they are the group leader. They are to assist with keeping

the group on task as well as try to clear-up any confusion regarding the topic. The teacher

will provide the accommodations and/or modifications in accordance with the students’

IEP. It will be stressed that the group leader’s role does not include disciplinary

procedures. The teacher will also let them know what materials are needed for

assignment, how to ask for assistance while they are in the group, and where to turn in

the completed assignment. These instructions will be reiterated to the group prior to the

start of the activity as well as the requirement that all students are expected to participate

in the completion of the assignment.

The students are arranged in five groups of four students with focus on even

distribution of the students:

Group One: Group Leader, one ADHD student, three General Ed students

Group Two: Group Leader, one gifted student, three General Ed students

Group Three: Group Leader, one LD student, three General Ed students

Group Four: Group Leader, one ADHD student, three General Ed students

Group Five: Group Leader, one gifted student, three General Ed students

The teacher will move between the groups providing assistance by answering questions

and making sure all students are participating and active within the cooperative learning

group.

Modifications:

Visually Impaired- Audio, cooperative learning group re-reading the stories,

saying and verbally defining the words by both the teacher and fellow students

Hearing Impaired- Stories printed out, cooperative learning groups, writing the

words and definitions on the board prior to beginning the lesson, not speaking

while my back was turned to the class.

ELLs- Writing the words on the board while saying them, cooperative learning

group re-reading, leaving the words on the board for the duration of the unit.

Gifted-Gifted student will use the internet to research background information on

the authors. If further inspired, they can write their own short story that utilizes

aspects of magic realism.

Parental Participation:

A weekly newsletter will go out to parents starting at the beginning of the year (Appendix

L).

Annotated Bibliography (Appendix M)

Appendix A

Literary VocabularyLiterary VocabularyEnglish Language ArtsEnglish Language Arts

Lesson OneLesson OneLesson OneLesson OneLesson OneLesson OneLesson OneLesson One

Words to Words to Words to Words to Words to Words to Words to Words to KnowKnowKnowKnowKnowKnowKnowKnow

�� GenreGenre

�� Rhetorical DeviceRhetorical Device

�� Literary DeviceLiterary Device

�� Literary AnalysisLiterary Analysis

�� NarratorNarrator

�� ThemeTheme

Genre (Genre (jonjon--ruhruh) )

Categories for Books Categories for Books && WritingWriting

�� NonfictionNonfiction

Based on fact or truthBased on fact or truth

–– AutobiographyAutobiography

–– BiographyBiography

–– MemoirMemoir

–– ManualManual

–– HowHow--to/Informationalto/Informational

–– NewsNews

–– Essays (expository writing)Essays (expository writing)

�� FictionFiction

Creative storiesCreative stories

–– Historical fictionHistorical fiction

–– Myth/Fable/FairytaleMyth/Fable/Fairytale

–– Fantasy/MysteryFantasy/Mystery

–– Science fiction/HorrorScience fiction/Horror

–– MysteryMystery

–– PoetryPoetry

–– HumorHumor

Rhetorical DeviceRhetorical Devicea technique that an author or speaker uses toa technique that an author or speaker uses to

evoke an emotional response in his audienceevoke an emotional response in his audience

Some examples of Some examples of RhetoricalRhetorical Devices are:Devices are:

�� AnalogyAnalogy

�� ImageryImagery

�� MetaphorMetaphor

�� SimileSimile

�� SymbolismSymbolism

�� PersonificationPersonification

Literary DeviceLiterary Devicewriting components; the means by which authorswriting components; the means by which authors

create meaning through languagecreate meaning through language

Some examples of Some examples of LiteraryLiterary Devices are:Devices are:

�� Figurative language*Figurative language*�� Foreshadowing Foreshadowing �� IronyIrony�� MotifMotif�� RepetitionRepetition�� Creative and Poetic licenseCreative and Poetic license�� Characterization Characterization

Foresh

Literary AnalysisLiterary AnalysisTo go over a story in detail and understand its To go over a story in detail and understand its components or parts.components or parts.

Seek an understanding of:Seek an understanding of:

�� the author’s main purpose for writing the the author’s main purpose for writing the storystory

�� the themes, mood, settingthe themes, mood, setting

�� know the know the character(scharacter(s) and their ) and their motivation(smotivation(s))

�� if you agree or disagree with the narrator if you agree or disagree with the narrator or elements of the storyor elements of the story

NarratorNarratorSpeaker orSpeaker or the the voicevoice of a storyof a story

The author in fiction should not be confused The author in fiction should not be confused with the narrator. The author with the narrator. The author ≠ narrator.≠ narrator.

�� PointPoint--ofof--viewview

�� CharacterCharacter

�� ArchetypeArchetype

�� FoilFoil

Let’s BeginLet’s Begin

The Handsomest Drowned The Handsomest Drowned

Man in the WorldMan in the World

by by GabríelGabríel García MárquezGarcía Márquez

handouthandout

Appendix B

Literary Vocabulary Handout

Genre- categories for books & writing

Rhetorical device-a technique that an author or speaker uses to

evoke an emotional response in his audience

Literary device-writing components; the means by which authors

create meaning through language

Literary analysis-to go over a story in detail and understand its components or parts.

Theme- broad idea in a story, or a message or lesson conveyed

Nonfiction-expository writing, essays, and books based on fact, truth, or information

Fiction-creative stories

Figurative language-any use of language where the intended meaning differs from the actual literal

meaning of the words themselves. There are many techniques which can rightly be called figurative

language, including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, verbal irony, and

oxymoron.

Irony- a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood.

Creative license-exaggeration or alteration of objective facts or reality, for enhancing meaning in a

fictional context.

Characterization –The author’s means of conveying to the reader a character’s personality, life

history, values, physical attributes, etc. Also refers directly to a description thereof.

Mood-the atmosphere or emotional condition created by the piece, within the setting. Mood refers to

the general sense or feeling which the reader is supposed to get from the text; it does not, as a literary

element, refer to the author’s or characters’ state of mind.

Motivation- purpose or reason for action and/or behavior

Narrator-speaker or the voice of a story

Point-of-view-the identity of the narrative voice; the person or entity through whom the reader

experiences the story. May be third-person (no narrator; abstract narrative voice, omniscient or limited)

or first-person (narrated by a character in the story or a direct observer). Point-of-view is a commonly

misused term; it does not refer to the author’s or characters’ feelings, opinions, perspectives, biases,

etc.

Archetype-a very old imaginative pattern in literature across cultures and is repeated through the ages.

Foil-a character who is meant to represent characteristics, values, ideas, etc. which are directly and

diametrically opposed to those of another character, usually the protagonist.

Magic Realism-a literary style that combines incredible events with realistic details and relates them

in a matter-of-fact tone.

Symbolism- in which a (usually recurrent) object or character represents an idea

Appendix C

The Handsomest Drowned Man The Handsomest Drowned Man The Handsomest Drowned Man The Handsomest Drowned Man iiiin n n n tttthe Worldhe Worldhe Worldhe World

By Gabriel García Márquez

Gregory Rabassa, Translator

THE FIRST CHILDREN who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the

sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and

they thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they removed the

clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only

then did they see that it was a drowned man.

They had been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him

up again, when someone chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The

men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead

man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that

maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones. When they laid

him on the floor they said he'd been taller than all other men because there was barely

enough room for him in the house, but they thought that maybe the ability to keep on

growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of

the sea about him and only his shape gave one to suppose that it was the corpse of a

human being, because the skin was covered with a crust of mud and scales.

They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a stranger.

The village was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards

with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desertlike cape. There was

so little land that mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off

their children and the few dead that the years had caused among them had to be thrown

off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful and all the men fitted into seven boats.

So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at one another to see that

they were all there.

That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone

was missing in neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned

man. They took the mud off with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones

entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust off with tools used for scaling fish. As

they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came from faraway oceans

and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed through labyrinths

of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely

look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men

who drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become

aware of the kind of man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest,

strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were

looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination.

They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on nor was there a table

solid enough to use for his wake. The tallest men's holiday pants would not fit him, nor

the fattest ones' Sunday shirts, nor the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated

by his huge size and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants from a

large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal linen so that he could continue through his

death with dignity. As they sewed, sitting in a circle and gazing at the corpse between

stitches, it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless

as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead

man. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would

have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would

have been made from a midship frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would

have been the happiest woman. They thought that he would have had so much authority

that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names and that he

would have put so much work into his land that springs would have burst forth from

among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They

secretly compared hom to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were

incapable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them

deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth. They

were wandering through that maze of fantasy when the oldest woman, who as the oldest

had looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than passion, sighed:

'He has the face of someone called Esteban.'

It was true. Most of them had only to take another look at him to see that he could not

have any other name. The more stubborn among them, who were the youngest, still lived

for a few hours with the illusion that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the

flowers in patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illusion.

There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and worse sewn pants were too tight,

and the hidden strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt. After midnight the

whistling of the wind died down and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The

silence put an end to any last doubts: he was Esteban. The women who had dressed him,

who had combed his hair, had cut his nails and shaved him were unable to hold back a

shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves to his being dragged along the

ground. It was then that they understood how unhappy he must have been with that huge

body since it bothered him even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to

going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet

during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of

the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him, frightened to death, sit

here, Esteban, please, and he, leaning against the wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm

fine where I am, his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same thing so

many times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, just to

avoid the embarrassment of breaking up the chair, and never knowing perhaps that the

ones who said don't go, Esteban, at least wait till the coffee's ready, were the ones who

later on would whisper the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome fool has gone.

That was what the women were thinking beside the body a little before dawn. Later,

when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that the light would not bother him, he

looked so forever dead, so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of

tears opened in their hearts. It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The

others, coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt

like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming all the more Esteban for them,

and so they wept so much, for he was the more destitute, most peaceful, and most

obliging man on earth, poor Esteban. So when the men returned with the news that the

drowned man was not from the neighboring villages either, the women felt an opening of

jubilation in the midst of their tears.

'Praise the Lord,' they sighed, 'he's ours!'

The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity. Fatigued because of the difficult

nighttime inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the newcomer once

and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter

with the remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so that it would

bear the weight of the body until they reached the cliffs. They wanted to tie the anchor

from a cargo ship to him so that he would sink easily into the deepest waves, where fish

are blind and divers die of nostalgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore,

as had happened with other bodies. But the more they hurried, the more the women

thought of ways to waste time. They walked about like startled hens, pecking with the sea

charms on their breasts, some interfering on one side to put a scapular of the good wind

on the drowned man, some on the other side to put a wrist compass on him , and after a

great deal of get away from there, woman, stay out of the way, look, you almost made me

fall on top of the dead man, the men began to feel mistrust in their livers and started

grumbling about why so many main-altar decorations for a stranger, because no matter

how many nails and holy-water jars he had on him, the sharks would chew him all the

same, but the women kept piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling,

while they released in sighs what they did not in tears, so that the men finally exploded

with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned

nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat. One of the women, mortified by so much lack

of care, then removed the handkerchief from the dead man's face and the men were left

breathless too.

He was Esteban. It was not necessary to repeat it for them to recognize him. If they had

been told Sir Walter Raleigh, even they might have been impressed with his gringo

accent, the macaw on his shoulder, his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, but there could be

only one Esteban in the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperm whale,

shoeless, wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with those stony nails that had to

be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to see that he was

ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he

had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place

to drown in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a galleon around my nick

and staggered off a cliff like someone who doesn't like things in order not to be upsetting

people now with this Wednesday dead body, as you people say, in order not to be

bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with

me. There was so much truth in his manner taht even the most mistrustful men, the ones

who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea fearing that their women would tire of

dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men, even they and others who

were harder still shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Esteban's sincerity.

That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of

for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who had gone to get flowers in the

neighboring villages returned with other women who could not believe what they had

been told, and those women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead man,

and they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so many people

that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment it pained them to return him to the

waters as an orphan and they chose a father and mother from among the best people, and

aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the inhabitants of the village

became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went off course

and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient

fables about sirens. While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders

along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time

of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their

dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man. They let him go

without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished, and

they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss.

They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present,

that they would never be. But they also knew that everything would be different from

then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so

that Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no

one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome

fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to

make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for

springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn

the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the

high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform,

with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the

promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there,

where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there,

where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over

there, that's Esteban's village.

Appendix D

Guided Reading Activity: QAR

First, read the questions before you read the story. Next, read the following the

short story, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World. Then, use the text to

correctly answer the questions in complete sentences. Some of the answers are

Right There (RT), others will require you to Think and Search (TS) or make

inferences based on your analysis of the text and are In your Head (IH). In

parenthesis please write (RT), (TS), or (IH) next to your answers to indicate the

appropriate category into which each question falls.

1. Is this story told in first, second, or third person?

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

2. What is unusual about the man?

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

3. The drowned man was Sir Walter Raleigh?

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

4. Did the villagers kill the man by drowning him?

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

5. Were the village was better off after encountering the drowned man?

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix E

Woman Warrior: Woman Warrior: Woman Warrior: Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among GhostsMemoirs of a Girlhood Among GhostsMemoirs of a Girlhood Among GhostsMemoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Maxine Hong Kinston

Chapter One: No Name Woman

“You must not tell anyone," my mother said, "what I am about to tell you. In China your

father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your

father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born.”

"In 1924 just a few days after our village celebrated seventeen hurry-up weddings--to

make sure that every young man who went `out on the road' would responsibly come

home-your father and his brothers and your grandfather and his brothers and your aunt's

new husband sailed for America, the Gold Mountain. It was your grandfather's last trip.

Those lucky enough to get contracts waved goodbye from the decks. They fed and

guarded the stowaways and helped them off in Cuba, New York, Bali, Hawaii. `We'll

meet in California next year,' they said. All of them sent money home.

"I remember looking at your aunt one day when she and I were dressing; I had not

noticed before that she had such a protruding melon of a stomach. But I did not think,

`She's pregnant,' until she began to look like other pregnant women, her shirt pulling and

the white tops of her black pants showing. She could not have been pregnant, you see,

because her husband had been gone for years. No one said anything. We did not discuss

it. In early summer she was ready to have the child, long after the time when it could

have been possible.

"The village had also been counting. On the night the baby was to be born the villagers

raided our house. Some were crying. Like a great saw, teeth strung with lights, files of

people walked zigzag across our land, tearing the rice. Their lanterns doubled in the

disturbed black water, which drained away through the broken bunds. As the villagers

closed in, we could see that some of them, probably men and women we knew well, wore

white masks. The people with long hair hung it over their faces. Women with short hair

made it stand up on end. Some had tied white bands around their foreheads, arms, and

legs.

"At first they threw mud and rocks at the house. Then they threw eggs and began

slaughtering our stock. We could hear the animals scream their deaths--the roosters, the

pigs, a last great roar from the ox. Familiar wild heads flared in our night windows; the

villagers encircled us. Some of the faces stopped to peer at us, their eyes rushing like

searchlights. The hands flattened against the panes, framed heads, and left red prints.

"The villagers broke in the front and the back doors at the same time, even though we

had not locked the doors against them. Their knives dripped with the blood of our

animals. They smeared blood on the doors and walls. One woman swung a chicken,

whose throat she had slit, splattering blood in red arcs about her. We stood together in the

middle of our house, in the family hall with the pictures and tables of the ancestors

around us, and looked straight ahead.

"At that time the house had only two wings. When the men came back, we would

build two more to enclose our courtyard and a third one to begin a second courtyard. The

villagers pushed through both wings, even your grandparents' rooms, to find your aunt's,

which was also mine until the men returned. From this room a new wing for one of the

younger families would grow. They ripped up her clothes and shoes and broke her

combs, grinding them underfoot. They tore her work from the loom. They scattered the

cooking fire and rolled the new weaving in it. We could hear them in the kitchen

breaking our bowls and banging the pots. They overturned the great waist-high

earthenware jugs; duck eggs, pickled fruits, vegetables burst out and mixed in acrid

torrents. The old woman from the next field swept a broom through the air and loosed the

spirits-of-the-broom over our heads. `Pig.' `Ghost.' `Pig,' they sobbed and scolded while

they ruined our house.

"When they left, they took sugar and oranges to bless themselves. They cut pieces

from the dead animals. Some of them took bowls that were not broken and clothes that

were not torn. Afterward we swept up the rice and sewed it back up into sacks. But the

smells from the spilled preserves lasted. Your aunt gave birth in the pigsty that night. The

next morning when I went for the water, I found her and the baby plugging up the family

well.

"Don't let your father know that I told you. He denies her. Now that you have

started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You

wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful."

Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this

one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to establish realities. Those in the

emigrant generations who could not reassert brute survival died young and far from

home. Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the

invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America.

The emigrants confused the gods by diverting their curses, misleading them with

crooked streets and false names. They must try to confuse their offspring as well, who, I

suppose, threaten them in similar ways--always trying to get things straight, always trying

to name the unspeakable. The Chinese I know hide their names; sojourners take new

names when their lives change and guard their real names with silence.

Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese,

how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family,

your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is

Chinese tradition and what is the movies?

If I want to learn what clothes my aunt wore, whether flashy or ordinary, I would

have to begin, "Remember Father's drowned-in-the-well sister?" I cannot ask that. My

mother has told me once and for all the useful parts. She will add nothing unless powered

by Necessity, a riverbank that guides her life. She plants vegetable gardens rather than

lawns; she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the fields and eats food left for the

gods.

Whenever we did frivolous things, we used up energy; we flew high kites. We

children came up off the ground over the melting cones our parents brought home from

work and the American movie on New Year's Day-- Oh, You Beautiful Doll with Betty

Grable one year, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon with John Wayne another year. After

the one carnival ride each, we paid in guilt; our tired father counted his change on the

dark walk home.

Adultery is extravagance. Could people who hatch their own chicks and eat the

embryos and the heads for delicacies and boil the feet in vinegar for party food, leaving

only the gravel, eating even the gizzard lining--could such people engender a prodigal

aunt? To be a woman, to have a daughter in starvation time was a waste enough. My aunt

could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex. Women in the old

China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret

evil. I wonder whether he masked himself when he joined the raid on her family.

Perhaps she had encountered him in the fields or on the mountain where the

daughters-in-law collected fuel. Or perhaps he first noticed her in the marketplace. He

was not a stranger because the village housed no strangers. She had to have dealings with

him other than sex. Perhaps he worked an adjoining field, or he sold her the cloth for the

dress she sewed and wore. His demand must have surprised, then terrified her. She

obeyed him; she always did as she was told.

When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband, she

had stood tractably beside the best rooster, his proxy, and promised before they met that

she would be his forever. She was lucky that he was her age and she would be the first

wife, an advantage secure now. The night she first saw him, he had sex with her. Then he

left for America. She had almost forgotten what he looked like. When she tried to

envision him, she only saw the black and white face in the group photograph the men had

had taken before leaving.

The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both

gave orders: she followed. "If you tell your family, I'll beat you. I'll kill you. Be here

again next week." No one talked sex, ever. And she might have separated the rapes from

the rest of living if only she did not have to buy her oil from him or gather wood in the

same forest. I want her fear to have lasted just as long as rape lasted so that the fear could

have been contained. No drawn-out fear. But women at sex hazarded birth and hence

lifetimes. The fear did not stop but permeated everywhere. She told the man, "I think I'm

pregnant." He organized the raid against her.

On nights when my mother and father talked about their life back home,

sometimes they mentioned an "outcast table" whose business they still seemed to be

settling, their voices tight. In a commensal tradition, where food is precious, the powerful

older people made wrongdoers eat alone. Instead of letting them start separate new lives

like the Japanese, who could become samurais and geishas, the Chinese family, faces

averted but eyes glowering sideways, hung on to the offenders and fed them leftovers.

My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at an outcast table.

My mother spoke about the raid as if she had seen it, when she and my aunt, a daughter-

in-law to a different household, should not have been living together at all. Daughters-in-

law lived with their husbands' parents, not their own; a synonym for marriage in Chinese

is "taking a daughter-in-law." Her husband's parents could have sold her, mortgaged her,

stoned her. But they had sent her back to her own mother and father, a mysterious act

hinting at disgraces not told me. Perhaps they had thrown her out to deflect the avengers.

She was the only daughter; her four brothers went with her father, husband, and

uncles "out on the road" and for some years became western men. When the goods were

divided among the family, three of the brothers took land, and the youngest, my father,

chose an education. After my grandparents gave their daughter away to her husband's

family, they had dispensed all the adventure and all the property. They expected her alone

to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble

without detection. The heavy, deep-rooted women were to maintain the past against the

flood, safe for returning. But the rare urge west had fixed upon our family, and so my

aunt crossed boundaries not delineated in space.

The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts

not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms. But perhaps my

aunt, my forerunner, caught in a slow life, let dreams grow and fade and after some

months or years went toward what persisted. Fear at the enormities of the forbidden kept

her desires delicate, wire and bone. She looked at a man because she liked the way the

hair was tucked behind his ears, or she liked the question-mark line of a long torso

curving at the shoulder and straight at the hip. For warm eyes or a soft voice or a slow

walk--that's all--a few hairs, a line, a brightness, a sound, a pace, she gave up family. She

offered us up for a charm that vanished with tiredness, a pigtail that didn't toss when the

wind died. Why, the wrong lighting could erase the dearest thing about him.

It could very well have been, however, that my aunt did not take subtle enjoyment

of her friend, but, a wild woman, kept rollicking company. Imagining her free with sex

doesn't fit, though. I don't know any women like that, or men either. Unless I see her life

branching into mine, she gives me no ancestral help.

To sustain her being in love, she often worked at herself in the mirror, guessing at

the colors and shapes that would interest him, changing them frequently in order to hit on

the right combination. She wanted him to look back.

On a farm near the sea, a woman who tended her appearance reaped a reputation

for eccentricity. All the married women blunt-cut their hair in flaps about their ears or

pulled it back in tight buns. No nonsense. Neither style blew easily into heart-catching

tangles. And at their weddings they displayed themselves in their long hair for the last

time. "It brushed the backs of my knees," my mother tells me. "It was braided, and even

so, it brushed the backs of my knees."

At the mirror my aunt combed individuality into her bob. A bun could have been

contrived to escape into black streamers blowing in the wind or in quiet wisps about her

face, but only the older women in our picture album wear buns. She brushed her hair

back from her forehead, tucking the flaps behind her ears. She looped a piece of thread,

knotted into a circle between her index fingers and thumbs, and ran the double strand

across her forehead. When she closed her fingers as if she were making a pair of shadow

geese bite, the string twisted together catching the little hairs. Then she pulled the thread

away from her skin, ripping the hairs out neatly, her eyes watering from the needles of

pain. Opening her fingers, she cleaned the thread, then rolled it along her hairline and the

tops of her eyebrows. My mother did the same to me and my sisters and herself. I used to

believe that the expression "caught by the short hairs" meant a captive held with a

depilatory string. It especially hurt at the temples, but my mother said we were lucky we

didn't have to have our feet bound when we were seven. Sisters used to sit on their beds

and cry together, she said, as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few

minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins. I hope that the man my

aunt loved appreciated a smooth brow, that he wasn't just a tits-and-ass man.

Once my aunt found a freckle on her chin, at a spot that the almanac said

predestined her for unhappiness. She dug it out with a hot needle and washed the wound

with peroxide.

More attention to her looks than these pullings of hairs and pickings at spots

would have caused gossip among the villagers. They owned work clothes and good

clothes, and they wore good clothes for feasting the new seasons. But since a woman

combing her hair hexes beginnings, my aunt rarely found an occasion to look her best.

Women looked like great sea snails--the corded wood, babies, and laundry they carried

were the whorls on their backs. The Chinese did not admire a bent back; goddesses and

warriors stood straight. Still there must have been a marvelous freeing of beauty when a

worker laid down her burden and stretched and arched.

Such commonplace loveliness, however, was not enough for my aunt. She

dreamed of a lover for the fifteen days of New Year's, the time for families to exchange

visits, money, and food. She plied her secret comb. And sure enough she cursed the year,

the family, the village, and herself.

Even as her hair lured her imminent lover, many other men looked at her.

Uncles, cousins, nephews, brothers would have looked, too, had they been home between

journeys. Perhaps they had already been restraining their curiosity, and they left, fearful

that their glances, like a field of nesting birds, might be startled and caught. Poverty hurt,

and that was their first reason for leaving. But another, final reason for leaving the

crowded house was the never-said.

She may have been unusually beloved, the precious only daughter, spoiled and

mirror gazing because of the affection the family lavished on her. When her husband left,

they welcomed the chance to take her back from the in-laws; she could live like the little

daughter for just a while longer. There are stories that my grandfather was different from

other people, "crazy ever since the little Jap bayoneted him in the head." He used to put

his naked penis on the dinner table, laughing. And one day he brought home a baby girl,

wrapped up inside his brown western-style greatcoat. He had traded one of his sons,

probably my father, the youngest, for her. My grandmother made him trade back. When

he finally got a daughter of his own, he doted on her. They must have all loved her,

except perhaps my father, the only brother who never went back to China, having once

been traded for a girl.

Brothers and sisters, newly men and women, had to efface their sexual color and

present plain miens. Disturbing hair and eyes, a smile like no other, threatened the ideal

of five generations living under one roof. To focus blurs, people shouted face to face and

yelled from room to room. The immigrants I know have loud voices, unmodulated to

American tones even after years away from the village where they called their friendships

out across the fields. I have not been able to stop my mother's screams in public libraries

or over telephones. Walking erect (knees straight, toes pointed forward, not pigeon-toed,

which is Chinese-feminine) and speaking in an inaudible voice, I have tried to turn

myself American-feminine. Chinese communication was loud, public. Only sick people

had to whisper. But at the dinner table, where the family members came nearest one

another, no one could talk, not the outcasts nor any eaters. Every word that falls from the

mouth is a coin lost. Silently they gave and accepted food with both hands. A

preoccupied child who took his bowl with one hand got a sideways glare. A complete

moment of total attention is due everyone alike. Children and lovers have no singularity

here, but my aunt used a secret voice, a separate attentiveness.

She kept the man's name to herself throughout her labor and dying; she did not

accuse him that he be punished with her. To save her inseminator's name she gave silent

birth.

He may have been somebody in her own household, but intercourse with a man

outside the family would have been no less abhorrent. All the village were kinsmen, and

the titles shouted in loud country voices never let kinship be forgotten. Any man within

visiting distance would have been neutralized as a lover--"brother," "younger brother,"

"older brother"--one hundred and fifteen relationship titles. Parents researched birth

charts probably not so much to assure good fortune as to circumvent incest in a

population that has but one hundred surnames. Everybody has eight million relatives.

How useless then sexual mannerisms, how dangerous.

As if it came from an atavism deeper than fear, I used to add "brother" silently to

boys' names. It hexed the boys, who would or would not ask me to dance, and made them

less scary and as familiar and deserving of benevolence as girls.

But, of course, I hexed myself also--no dates. I should have stood up, both arms

waving, and shouted out across libraries, "Hey, you! Love me back." I had no idea,

though, how to make attraction selective, how to control its direction and magnitude. If I

made myself American-pretty so that the five or six Chinese boys in the class fell in love

with me, everyone else--the Caucasian, Negro, and Japanese boys--would too.

Sisterliness, dignified and honorable, made much more sense.

Attraction eludes control so stubbornly that whole societies designed to organize

relationships among people cannot keep order, not even when they bind people to one

another from childhood and raise them together. Among the very poor and the wealthy,

brothers married their adopted sisters, like doves. Our family allowed some romance,

paying adult brides' prices and providing dowries so that their sons and daughters could

marry strangers. Marriage promises to turn strangers into friendly relatives--a nation of

siblings.

In the village structure, spirits shimmered among the live creatures, balanced and

held in equilibrium by time and land. But one human being flaring up into violence could

open up a black hole, a maelstrom that pulled in the sky. The frightened villagers, who

depended on one another to maintain the real, went to my aunt to show her a personal,

physical representation of the break she had made in the "roundness." Misallying couples

snapped off the future, which was to be embodied in true offspring. The villagers

punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them.

If my aunt had betrayed the family at a time of large grain yields and peace, when

many boys were born, and wings were being built on many houses, perhaps she might

have escaped such severe punishment. But the men--hungry, greedy, tired of planting in

dry soil--had been forced to leave the village in order to send food-money home. There

were ghost plagues, bandit plagues, wars with the Japanese, floods. My Chinese brother

and sister had died of an unknown sickness. Adultery, perhaps only a mistake during

good times, became a crime when the village needed food.

The round moon cakes and round doorways, the round tables of graduated sizes

that fit one roundness inside another, round windows and rice bowls--these talismans had

lost their power to warn this family of the law: a family must be whole, faithfully keeping

the descent line by having sons to feed the old and the dead, who in turn look after the

family. The villagers came to show my aunt and her lover-in-hiding a broken house. The

villagers were speeding up the circling of events because she was too shortsighted to see

that her infidelity had already harmed the village, that waves of consequences would

return unpredictably, sometimes in disguise, as now, to hurt her. This roundness had to be

made coin-sized so that she would see its circumference: punish her at the birth of her

baby. Awaken her to the inexorable. People who refused fatalism because they could

invent small resources insisted on culpability. Deny accidents and wrest fault from the

stars.

After the villagers left, their lanterns now scattering in various directions toward

home, the family broke their silence and cursed her. "Aiaa, we're going to die. Death is

coming. Death is coming. Look what you've done. You've killed us. Ghost! Dead ghost!

Ghost! You've never been born." She ran out into the fields, far enough from the house so

that she could no longer hear their voices, and pressed herself against the earth, her own

land no more. When she felt the birth coming, she thought that she had been hurt. Her

body seized together. "They've hurt me too much," she thought. "This is gall, and it will

kill me." With forehead and knees against the earth, her body convulsed and then relaxed.

She turned on her back, lay on the ground. The black well of sky and stars went out and

out and out forever; her body and her complexity seemed to disappear. She was one of

the stars, a bright dot in blackness, without home, without a companion, in eternal cold

and silence. An agoraphobia rose in her, speeding higher and higher, bigger and bigger;

she would not be able to contain it; there would no end to fear.

Flayed, unprotected against space, she felt pain return, focusing her body. This

pain chilled her--a cold, steady kind of surface pain. Inside, spasmodically, the other pain,

the pain of the child, heated her. For hours she lay on the ground, alternately body and

space. Sometimes a vision of normal comfort obliterated reality: she saw the family in the

evening gambling at the dinner table, the young people massaging their elders' backs. She

saw them congratulating one another, high joy on the mornings the rice shoots came up.

When these pictures burst, the stars drew yet further apart. Black space opened.

She got to her feet to fight better and remembered that old-fashioned women gave

birth in their pigsties to fool the jealous, pain-dealing gods, who do not snatch piglets.

Before the next spasms could stop her, she ran to the pigsty, each step a rushing out into

emptiness. She climbed over the fence and knelt in the dirt. It was good to have a fence

enclosing her, a tribal person alone.

Laboring, this woman who had carried her child as a foreign growth that

sickened her every day, expelled it at last. She reached down to touch the hot, wet,

moving mass, surely smaller than anything human, and could feel that it was human after

all--fingers, toes, nails, nose. She pulled it up on to her belly, and it lay curled there, butt

in the air, feet precisely tucked one under the other. She opened her loose shirt and

buttoned the child inside. After resting, it squirmed and thrashed and she pushed it up to

her breast. It turned its head this way and that until it found her nipple. There, it made

little snuffling noises. She clenched her teeth at its preciousness, lovely as a young calf, a

piglet, a little dog.

She may have gone to the pigsty as a last act of responsibility: she would protect

this child as she had protected its father. It would look after her soul, leaving supplies on

her grave. But how would this tiny child without family find her grave when there would

be no marker for her anywhere, neither in the earth nor the family hall? No one would

give her a family hall name. She had taken the child with her into the wastes. At its birth

the two of them had felt the same raw pain of separation, a wound that only the family

pressing tight could close. A child with no descent line would not soften her life but only

trail after her, ghostlike, begging her to give it purpose. At dawn the villagers on their

way to the fields would stand around the fence and look.

Full of milk, the little ghost slept. When it awoke, she hardened her breasts

against the milk that crying loosens. Toward morning she picked up the baby and walked

to the well.

Carrying the baby to the well shows loving. Otherwise abandon it. Turn its face

into the mud. Mothers who love their children take them along. It was probably a girl;

there is some hope of forgiveness for boys.

"Don't tell anyone you had an aunt. Your father does not want to hear her name.

She has never been born." I have believed that sex was unspeakable and words so strong

and fathers so frail that "aunt" would do my father mysterious harm. I have thought that

my family, having settled among immigrants who had also been their neighbors in the

ancestral land, needed to clean their name, and a wrong word would incite the kinspeople

even here. But there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in her

punishment. And I have.

In the twenty years since I heard this story I have not asked for details nor said my

aunt's name; I do not know it. People who can comfort the dead can also chase after them

to hurt them further--a reverse ancestor worship. The real punishment was not the raid

swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. Her betrayal

so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death. Always

hungry, always needing, she would have to beg food from other ghosts, snatch and steal it

from those whose living descendants give them gifts. She would have to fight the ghosts

massed at crossroads for the buns a few thoughtful citizens leave to decoy her away from

village and home so that the ancestral spirits could feast unharassed. At peace, they could

act like gods, not ghosts, their descent lines providing them with paper suits and dresses,

spirit money, paper houses, paper automobiles, chicken, meat, and rice into eternity--

essences delivered up in smoke and flames, steam and incense rising from each rice bowl.

In an attempt to make the Chinese care for people outside the family, Chairman Mao

encourages us now to give our paper replicas to the spirits of outstanding soldiers and

workers, no matter whose ancestors they may be. My aunt remains forever hungry.

Goods are not distributed evenly among the dead.

My aunt haunts me--her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of

neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, though not origamied into houses and

clothes. I do not think she always means me well. I am telling on her, and she was a spite

suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water. The Chinese are always very frightened

of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits

silently by the water to pull down a substitute.

Appendix F

Guided Reading Activity: QAR

First, read the questions before you read the excerpt. Next, read the following

excerpt from chapter one of Woman Warrior. Then, use the excerpt to answer the

questions that follow. Some of the answers are Right There (RT), others will

require you to Think and Search (TS) or make inferences based on your analysis

of the text and are In your Head (IH). In parenthesis please write (RT), (TS), or

(IH) next to your answers to indicate the appropriate category into which each

question falls.

Chapter One: No Name Woman "You must not tell anyone," my mother said, "what I am about to tell you. In China your

father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father

has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born.

"In 1924 just a few days after our village celebrated seventeen hurry-up weddings--to make

sure that every young man who went `out on the road' would responsibly come home-your father

and his brothers and your grandfather and his brothers and your aunt's new husband sailed for

America, the Gold Mountain. It was your grandfather's last trip. Those lucky enough to get

contracts waved goodbye from the decks. They fed and guarded the stowaways and helped them

off in Cuba, New York, Bali, Hawaii. `We'll meet in California next year,' they said. All of them

sent money home.

1. Is the narrator in China or in America?

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2. What does “responsibly come home” mean?

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3. Who is the no name woman?

______________________________________________________________________________

4. Who is speaking during the first two paragraphs?

______________________________________________________________________________

5. Why did the men leave the women in China?

______________________________________________________________________________

Name:_________________________

Date:__________________________

Appendix G

DO NOW

Writing Prompt: Write an essay stating why a quote,

scene, or character from The Handsomest Drowned

Man in the World or Woman Warrior is your

favorite. Cite examples from the text to support your

argument.

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Appendix H Group name:_________________________

Date: _______________________________

Group Assignment

The group must decide how they will present the ad by this Friday.

The assignment is due next Thursday.

Instructions: As a group, you are to choose either Woman

Warrior or The Handsomest Man to create an

advertisement for the story. You should convince the class

of why the story is a must read. All members of the group

must participate equally.

The following elements must be in your ad:

1. Title of the story

2. A character from the story

3. Two vocabulary words from week one’s handout

4. Three positive words about the story

5. Three convincing words

6. Acknowledge opponents that may not agree that the

story is a must read.

7. Your ad must be at least 4 minutes and no longer than

5 minutes

Advertisement options:

1. PowerPoint Presentation

2. Poster board Ad

3. Skit

Appendix I Name:____________________________

Date:_____________________________

Quiz

Place the following vocabulary words in the appropriate box.

Nonfiction Symbolism Biography

Simile Magic Realism Historical fiction

Irony Imagery Metaphor

Fiction Memoir Analogy

Figurative Language Genre

Please choose whether the following sentences are true or false. Circle “T” for true or “F”

for false.

The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

1. According to the story, the children killed the man. T F

2. This story is based on factual events. T F

3. The villagers found a piece of paper with the man’s name on it. T F

4. This story is an epic novel. T F

5. The women found the man to be virile. T F

Woman Warrior

1. Woman Warrior belongs to the genre of Historical fiction. T F

2. One major theme in the story is silence. T F

3. The woman warrior is really a man. T F

4. This story is also known as a memoir. T F

5. The entire story takes place in China. T F

Appendix J Name:_________________________

Date:__________________________

Performance Assessment

Understanding literary terms. Directions: Both Gabriel

García Márquez and Maxine Hong Kingston use creative

license, symbolism, and magic realism through out their

stories. Please define each literary term listed below.

1. Creative License

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2. Symbolism

_________________________________________________________

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3. Magic realism

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Part II: short answer. Both authors use archetypes in their

stories. Use complete sentences to answer the question

that follows.

Why are archetypes an important element in these stories?

Your response should be at least 5 sentences with proper

use of grammar and punctuation.

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Part III: extended response. Silence is one of the central

themes in both stories. Please write an essay relating why

silence is important in both stories. Explain why the

authors would choose silence to convey their messages. The

essay should be at least 25 sentences with proper use of

grammar and punctuation.

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Literary Analysis and Vocabulary Performance Assessment Rubric

Descriptor 1 2 3 4 Score

Understanding of Material

Apparent

misunderstanding

of material

Limited

understanding of

material

displayed by

vague, unclear

language

Developing

understanding of

material

Clear understanding of

material displayed by

clear, concrete

language and complex

ideas

Written Skills Has difficulty with

paragraph

structure and

simple sentences;

limited

vocabulary;

difficulty with

grammatical

skills

Able to write

simple

sentences;

understands

basic

grammatical

concepts,

vocabulary is

developing; has

difficulty with

paragraph

structure

Able to write

complex

sentences,

understands

intermediate

grammatical

concepts,

enhanced

vocabulary, ability

to compose

paragraphs,

difficulty with

standard essay

form

Advanced vocabulary

and grammatical skills

enhance the

composition of clear,

focused, creative

compositions

Structural Organization Essay lacks

logical

progression of

ideas

Essay includes

brief skeleton

(introduction,

body,

conclusion) but

lacks transitions

Essay includes

logical progression

of ideas aided by

clear transitions

Essay is powerfully

organized and fully

developed

Sentence Fluency (Flow) Repetitive

sentence

patterns. There

are no connecting

words between

sentences. Many

sentences run

into each other.

Sentence

patterns are

generally

repetitive, with

occasional

variance. There

are usually

connecting words

between

sentences, where

appropriate.

Some sentences

should be

merged; others

should be made

into two or more

sentences.

Sentence patterns

are generally

varied, but

sometimes

variations seem

forced and

inappropriate.

There are

connecting words

between

sentences, where

appropriate. Each

sentence contains

a complete

thought; there are

no run-on

sentences.

Varied and interesting

sentence patterns.

There are connecting

words between

sentences, where

appropriate. Sentences

are complete thoughts,

with no run-ons.

Support Few to no solid

supporting ideas

or evidence for

the essay

content

Some supporting

ideas and/or

evidence for the

essay content

Support lacks

specificity and is

loosely developed

Specific, developed

details and superior

support and evidence in

the essay content

Appendix K Name:_______________________

Date:________________________

Magic Realism Unit Test

Part I Multiple Choice. Please write the appropriate answer in the blank space next to the

question.

1. ____Metaphor

a.. categories for books & writing

b. expository writing, essays, and books based on fact, truth, or information

c. directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects

d. broad idea in a story, or a message or lesson conveyed

2. ____Simile

a. uses the words “like” or “as,” but not always to compare one thing or idea is

described as being similar to another

b. two people who are smiling

c. things that are the same

d. creative stories

3. ____Imagery

a. a forest with

b. using words to substitute for and create sensory stimulation

c. signs

d. too many words

4. ____Symbolism

a. letters that you cannot understand

b. words that do not mean anything

c. a recurrent object or character represents an idea

d. an emotional conflict

5. ____Character

a. an absurdity of mocking opposition

b. the people who inhabit and take part in a story

c. the author of a story

d. Someone who is really funny

6. ____Biography

a. histories of a person’s life written by someone else

b. a story written about biology

c. a story written for a movie

d. a biography that is written by a person about his/her own life.

7. ____Autobiography

a. stories of a person’s life or parts of his or her life, written by another person.

b. a biography that is written by a person about his/her own life.

c. a creative article in the newspaper

d. a musical comedy

8. ____Irony

a. a relationship where one thing or idea substitutes for another

b. a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is

generally understood.

c. a woman who irons

d. another version of the story

9. ____Characterization

a. a cartoon character

b. an idea about the story

c. the theme of a story

d. a character’s personality, life history, values, physical attributes

10.____ Motivation

a. the author’s or a characters purpose or reason for action and/or behavior

b. just do it

c. the end of a story

d. the beginning of a story

Part II Matching. Directions: please match the character to their descriptions. In the

blank space in column A, place the correct letter from column B.

A B

1. ___ Kingston A. Kingston’s mother

2. ___ The Old Couple B. Author and narrator

3. ___ Moon Orchid’s husband C. A Chinese laundry man

4. ___ Moon Orchid D. A Chinese poetess

5. ___ No-Name Woman E. A female warrior

6. ___ Fa Mu Lan F. Moon Orchid’s husband

7. ___ The Silent Girl G. The unnamed aunt

8. ___ Brave Orchid H. Martial Arts teachers

9. ___ Shaman I. Brave Orchid’s sister

10. ___ Kingston’s father J. Kingston’s classmate

Part III. Short Answer. Please use complete sentences to answer the following questions.

What do the villagers in The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World do with the

body of the drowned man?

_____________________________________________________________________

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How does the drowned man change the people and their village?

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________

Part IV. Essay. Describe the setting of The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.

Does the story take place in 2008, 30 years ago, or centuries ago? Why do you

believe that the story takes place during this time? Where do the villagers live? Please

provide evidence from the story to explain your answers. Your essay must contain the

necessary structural components.

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

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Appendix L

Grade English Language Arts

2008-2009

Teacher: Ms. West

Classroom: Room B253

Classroom #: 510.555.1212

Available hours: 9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m. or by appointment

E-mail: mswest@ousdd.edu (best way to reach me)

Webpage:www.mswests.yolasite.com

Greetings:

My name is Ms. West. I am your child’s eleventh-grade English Language Arts

teacher. I am pleased to begin another year. I have provided you with my contact

information above. I want you to know that you have many ways to contact me should you

have a question or concern about your child’s English Language Arts experience. I truly wish

that you would take a moment to review my website. The website is cock-full of information

and it is available at your fingertips.

Newsletters: I will send home weekly newsletters. The newsletter will have class

happenings, exciting classroom news, up coming projects, and parent volunteer opportunities.

This information will also be updated on my website and sent out as a blast email.

Back-to-school night and Parent-Teacher Conferences: Information regarding parent-

teacher conferences will be sent out two weeks prior to parent-teacher conference week.

Classroom Rules:

� My student’s physical and emotional safety is of the utmost concern. Students will not be allowed to bully, physically, or emotionally cause intentional harm to another

student. I want to do my best to make sure every child feels safe. Therefore, I

have a Zero tolerance for this type of behavior.

� Students are not allowed to use cell phones for phone calls or to send text-

messages at any point during class time. Please help me insure that all students have an opportunity to learn by asking your child to refrain from using their cell phone in

class. You will be asked to retrieve your child’s phone upon the second time they

choose not to follow this rule.

Next week your child, his /her fellow classmates, and I will put together our complete list

of our final classroom rules; your, as well as your child’s signature is required. Should you have any concerns or suggestions, please feel free to call or email me. I really look forward

to meeting you really soon.

Cordially,

Ms. West

Appendix M

Annotated Bibliography

Alameda Office of Education(2008). Special. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from

http://ww3.acoe.org/apps/page.asp?Q=512

County/state departments

The Alameda County Office of Education’s Special Education Department offers Designated Instruction

and Services (DIS). These services include Language and Speech Development and Remediation,

Occupational Therapy, Career preparation/vocational, Psychological counseling and guidance,

Health/Nursing service, and Vision service.

Schools can make sure that they have a rapport or partnerships with these departments. They can assist

parents with utilizing the services. Teachers can use professional development opportunities in which they

seek out more information regarding the extent and cost of these services. ACOE has a plethora of services

that include Gifted and Talented (GATE) district coordinators network, and an EL forum for schools to

obtain current strategies. Parents can utilize their various educational and health services to assist their

child in gaining educational benefits in the public school system.

Alameda County Library website (2008).

http://www.aclibrary.org/services/adaServices/default.asp?topic=ADAServices&cat=ADAServices

Community resources

The Alameda County public Library offers resources for people with special

needs. They have computer monitors that magnify up to 2x, remote access screen

readers, large text print, document holders, large keyboard labels, books on tape,

and closed caption videos. If parents are unable to provide their children with

these materials at home, the library may be able to be of some assistance.