Name:___________________________

Unit l: Identity and Characterization in

Short Stories

Literature Circles

Essential Questions:
● How do external and/or internal factors and experiences influence our identity?

● How do our responses and reactions to the factors that influence our identity reveal
who we are as a person?

● How do our choices or decisions impact the way we see the world and our beliefs?
 Short Story Unit: Literature Circles
What are Literature Circles?
In literature circles, small groups of students gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. The discussion is guided by students'
response to what they have read. Literature circles provide a way for students to engage in critical thinking and reflection as they read, discuss,
and respond to texts. Collaboration is at the heart of this approach. Students reshape and add to their understanding as they construct meaning
with other readers. Finally, literature circles guide students to deeper understanding of what they read through structured discussion and
extended critical responses.

What is the purpose of Literature Circles?

● To engage in peer collaboration and foster critical thinking skills
● To prepare a class discussion around essential understandings
● To increase your capacity in self-directed analytical reading

Before meeting in your literature circle, you will prepare by reading the selection of text and preparing a role. Note that there must be at least
one person in each role for every discussion, and every person in the group must have a role.

Facilitator/Summarizer
The Facilitator/Summarizer is responsible for summarizing the main ideas/main points of the text as a way to review and clarify before diving into a
deeper discussion. The F/S is also responsible for moving the entire discussion along and keeping track of time so that every member of the group
has a chance to lead in his/her role.
● The main things that happened in what we read…
● Can anyone else think of another main event…?
● The part that we read was mostly about…
● Were there any parts that were confusing?

Literary Luminary:
The literary luminary’s role is to identify and analyze the function of literary devices within a selection of text. The literary luminary will identify
literary devices in a given selection and present these to the group. By finding literary devices, the literary luminary will help the group discover
literary techniques specific to the author’s use of characterization. The literary luminary will present their findings and lead a discussion around
their meaning and significance. Prompts the group to respond by asking:

● What is the meaning behind/of…?

● Why would the author…?
● How is the characterization of….represented in this chapter?
● What does this reveal about the character?
● How does….function…?

Critical Questioner:
The questioner comes up with two open-ended discussion questions to foster the group’s critical thinking skills. At least ONE of the questions
should reference identity and/or our essential questions in a meaningful way. These questions can synthesize information from different points in
the short story to make new connections. The questioner facilitates a discussion by posing his/her prepared discussion questions. Discussion
questions stems could include:

● How does…impact…? What is the evidence for…?

● How is …similar to…? How is…different than…?
● What does…reveal about…identity? Judge the value of…
● Do you think…is a good or bad…? What do you think of…
● What can we infer from…? What is the significance of…?
● What is the author’s purpose when…? Why is…important to…identity?

Passage Master:
The purpose of the passage master is to analyze how a character’s identity develops over the course of a text. The passage master select a passage
in which the character’s identity is portrayed at the beginning of a text and how the character’s identity is portrayed at the end (think
approximately a paragraph per passage). The passage master has these two passages selected and prepares to lead the close reading of the passage
by doing a thorough analysis ahead of time. The passage master must direct group members to particular passages in the book and lead a
discussion.

● How do external or internal factors and experiences influence our identity?

● How do our responses and reactions to the factors that influence our identity reveal who we are?
● How do our choices or decisions impact our own moral growth, the way we see the world, or our beliefs?
 Group Interaction Rubric
Students in groups will be scored based on how they work together to achieve the goals of
the Literature Circle Discussion: furthering understanding of the text.

Level Description
All group members participated and stayed focused on the assignment.
Everyone's ideas were respected. Students asked each other questions in
100
relation to their responses, making ideas by group members built upon
Above & Beyond
other ideas in the group and supported by the text. Group members’
participation consistently adds momentum to the academic discourse.

Group members participated in the activity and were respectful of others’

ideas. They stayed focused on the roles and displayed good time
88
management. Students start the discussion with questions. Students
Complete and
invited each other to speak and asked each other questions in relation to
Correct
their responses, but not all follow-up questions built upon other ideas or
they were not always supported by the text.

Group members participated in the activity, but participation and

engagement was not consistent. Students may have simply read from
77
some places on their sheet instead of leading discussions with questions.
Almost There
Most discourse was academic, but textual evidence as support was
sparse. Time management or division was inconsistent.

Group members did not work well together. Participating group members
accepted the lack of participation of others. Members of the group were
66
not focused on the activity given. Members spent most of the discussion
On your Way
reading directly from their forms. Time is frequently wasted on
non-academic discourse.

50 Group members did not work together. There was no evidence of

You’ve Got Work academic discourse.
to Do
 Facilitator/Summarizer
Text: Red Dress – 1946
REMINDER: Your role is to prepare and lead a brief discussion about the key points of the assigned reading. Focus on the
major plot points and character development during your time. Your job is also to invite your team members to share
areas that they need to be clarified. Prepare for your time using the following format for notes.

Key Points:

1. The unnamed narrator starts the story by stating that her mother was making her a dress all throughout the
month of November. In addition to that, she also includes her friend Lonnie and how she was ashamed of her
mother for her actions and she states that she wishes to have a life more like her friend Lonnie’s.
2. The unnamed narrator tries to harm herself by a handful of ways in order to avoid going to the dance, in those
ideas she thinks about getting her ankle sprained and getting “blue with cold.” She did pretty crazy actions to
make it her way. (Failed.) What I would add after discussion with group: Unnamed narrator starts comparing
herself

3. The unnamed narrator feels a sudden wave of lonely and starts to compare herself to other girls. Saying stuff like
“Fat girls, girls with pimples….they were claimed…. Why take them and not me?” The character felt even more lonely
since her friend Lonnie was invited out to dance and left her there all by herself and the man who started dancing with
her just stopped mid-dance and left her there all alone as well.

4. Since her loneliness got really bad she found comfort in Mary’s Fortune since she was the only one keeping her
company and relating to her thoughts and emotions. This led to her smoking actual cigars.

5. At the end, after she smokes she goes out to eat with Mary but then she spots that a kid wants to actually dance with
HER, and so they do and she starts catching feelings that she shares an old tissue and she allows him to take her home.
After they do all that when they start saying bye, she feels mesmerized after he kisses her, and because of that she even
states that, “he had brought me from Mary Fortune’s territory into the ordinary world.

Character Development:

Key Conflict: The unnamed narrator has many issues with herself like insecurity, anxiety, and ungratefulness. This does
not really change at the end of the story, just that the insecure part seems to disappear slightly.

What does this conflict reveal about the main character of the story?

This conflict reveals that the unnamed narrator is an acceptance seeker and she is not comfortable with what she has
and who she is since she is embarrassed for the mom she has. We can also see that she can be very materialistic since
she wants other people to see that she has good clothes that do not look “childish.” Feels less of a woman, since getting
a man was really important back when the story was written, in 1946.

What factors influence the main character’s identity and how do they respond to those factors?

Age: She is a thirteen-year-old, at this age, most kids are known to change their attitude and give their parents a hard
time.

Economic Level: She was not rich would could have made her feel less than those around her. We can conclude that,
because her mother is a sewer and works at an old treadle machine that was pushed against a window from her home,
which means she does not have enough money to buy a more modern treadle to help her get her projects done with
faster rather than working on ONE thing for a month.

Societal Standers: Mom could not keep a man around and therefore it was another motive for the narrator to look down
on her mother.

Friends/School: She sees older girls looking a lot better and “not smiling” and we can perceive that she was influenced by
the older kids because she wanted better clothes so she could look older. She even uses the phrase, “I had worn these
clothes with docility, even pleasure, in the days when I was unaware of the world’s opinion.“ In addition to that she also
sees that her friend is actually getting guy’s attention compared to her that she is not could lead to her feeling less than
her friend and other girls in general.

Areas for Clarification from Your Group’s Discussion:

Something that was clarified in the discussion was whether the narrator had a father or not. We came to the
conclusion that she did not have one, and therefore that is why she really found some kind of comfort in other males.

Group summary of the section in 2-3 sentences:

We started off by talking about the key points and one of my classmates said that we needed to add to it a little more
we went over why it needed to be added and if it should be changed out by one of the key points that we already had.
Later on, we moved on to the other roles, and great questions were asked to me, like which one of the key points was
the most important for me. After that, we were connecting to the other story we read beforehand. Like how Ixchel is
different from the narrator in this story and what piece of advice we thought Ixchel would have given our narrator
about what to do in order to get a man and if it was important to do so or not.
 Literary Luminary
Text: The Appropriation of Cultures

Your role is to select two (2) passages from the short story that display the author’s use of two different & important literary
techniques (imagery, tone, metaphor, simile, symbolism, dialogue, etc) that develop characterization of the main protagonist. Your
job will be to share these discoveries with your group members and interpret the meaning and reason for their use.

Sentence Stems to aid facilitation

● What literary techniques do you notice in paragraph ___ on page ____?
● What does this language mean? What is the insight into a character?
● What is the effect? How does the author utilize this technique here to develop the character?

Page # ___ Literary Tech. Analysis: What does it mean? What is the effect? Why is it used?

Irony This is used to describe how it was hard for him to start playing the
song since he was a black man singing a song about racism. This later
on shocks people, because again, he had the courage to sing a song
made to mock his people. This leads us to conclude that he is
“Daniel sang this song…Deciding courageous because he is able to sing a song in front of a crowd filled
with people who are looking forward to mocking him. But along with
that the lyrics were his.” that, this quote is supposed to be understood as some kind of sarcasm
because obviously, since it is made for an offensive cause, Daniel is not
proud of that.

Page #______ Literary Tech Analysis: What does it mean? What is the effect? Why is it used?

“Give me back my flag.” Symbolism This is used to show that even though the main character always
felt like he never belonged in the South, in the end, he realizes
that since his ancestors had lived there their whole lives doing
some hard labor. Therefore, he felt that the Confederate flag was
more his because the South was mostly made up of the hard
work of his people, especially his family, had to do when they
were slaves. That is why he felt that the flag was supposed to be
waved by African Americans in a proud way rather than White
people waving it to offend those of color.

Choose the technique that produced the richest discussion. Synthesize your group’s responses here:

Irony was the technique that produced the richest discussion since we all agreed to my explanation of why that
particular quote was used, but we also built off each other. One of my partners brought up the fact that he was trying
to change how people thought about the song Dixie, Daniel was trying to make their thinking and interpretation a
more positive one because, “The more you see it the more you won’t be surprised later on.”
 Critical Questioner
Text: ______The Black Ball__________

The questioner comes up with two (2) open-ended discussion questions to foster the group’s critical thinking skills. One of the
questions should reference identity and/or our essential questions in a meaningful way:

● How do external or internal factors and experiences influence our identity?

● How do our responses and reactions to the factors that influence our identity reveal who we are?
● How do our choices or decisions impact our own moral growth, the way we see the world, or our beliefs?

These questions can synthesize information from different points in the short story to make new connections. The questioner
facilitates a discussion by posing his/her prepared discussion questions. Discussion questions stems could include:

● What would happen to … if… Why do you think...?

● How does…impact…? What is the evidence for…?
● How is …similar to…? How is…different than…?
● What does…reveal about…identity? Judge the value of…
● Do you think…is a good or bad…?
● What can we infer from…? What is the significance of…?
● What is the author’s purpose when…? Why is…important to…identity?

Question 1:

In page 30, what is the author’s purpose in writing, “He already played with the ball…He was learning the rules of the
game already, and he didn't know it…But I’d begin telling him the rules later.”

Pre-discussion answer: The author's purpose is to show how the father is conscious of how his son is starting to see how
the world actually is and that there are people who are not going to like him. For example, the kid Jackie teases him and
calls him black, just like the older kid who threw his ball into the window. But the father also realizes that he can't keep
his kid in a bubble and he will have to make his own mistakes and gain his own experiences. In addition to that, we can
infer that the dad also says he won't tell him the rules of the game yet because his son is still really young and should
enjoy his childhood for as long as he can.

Question 2: What would have happened if John had answered differently, in page 26, when the fellow told him that
things in certain unions had changed?

Pre-discussion answer: What could have happened is that the fellow would not have had to use his scarred
hands in order to convince John to support the union. That would have led to John not having that image of
the guy's hands in his mind all day and we can arrive at a mental conclusion that maybe the guy’s message
would not have had as big of an impact on John. Later at the end of the story, John looks at his hands and
because of the episode that Berry, John, and John’s son had, that made him realize that things needed to
change, and he remembers what the guy had said and decided to attend the meetings.
 Passage Master
Text: And of Clay Are We Created

The purpose of the passage master is to analyze how identity and a character’s development is represented within a selection
of text. The passage master selects a passage in which characterization reveals something important about the character or
their identity, the way they view the world, or how the choices they have to make impact their identity (think approximately
a paragraph or two per passage).

The passage master has these two passages selected and prepares to lead the close reading of the passage by doing a
thorough analysis ahead of time. The passage master must direct group members to particular passages in the book and lead a
discussion. You can use the following stems:

● What do you notice about how a character is described in this passage?

● How might this passage be viewed in terms of the context and how it is influencing the character’s identity?
● How might this passage impact the theme of identity within the story?
● What tone is evident in this passage? What word choice reveals this tone? How does the tone reveal an aspect of the character’s identity?
(look to your tone sheets)
● What I noticed was…The reason I chose this passage was…

from page(s) 31 & 37

Your pre-discussion response: What tone is evident at the beginning of the story and at the end?

At the beginning of the story, there is a lot of suspense because the first sentence starts by describing a dead girl and
dead bodies that are being found because of a tragedy. This could give an idea of many different tragic scenarios that
might have caused a lot of orphans and dead children. As for the end of the story, the tone is still quite suspenseful and
sad because it talks about a girl passing away and how one of the characters, Rolf, assured her that he loved her more
than anything and anyone. I can conclude that if someone has not read the story, this can seem romantic and sad butt at
the same time suspenseful because a girl is dying, just like at the beginning of the story where the passage mentions, "
the girls head protruding from the mud pit, eyes wide opened."

from page(s) 31

Your pre-discussion response: How might this passage impact the theme of identity within the story?

I can conclude that the first piece of this reading is evidence on how this chunk of text can have an impact on identity
because it can lead to trauma on further events. Since seeing dead children and "where the weeping of orphans and
wails of the injured filled the air," could be considered as traumatic. Making it seem that the characters in this story are
affected by what they saw and will now have a different perspective on the events that follow, compared to how they
might have viewed those events if they hadn't seen or heard stuff due to that tragic event that occurred.
Choose ONE of the questions that produced a rich discussion. Synthesize your group’s critical responses below:

Something that produced a rich discussion was that we all really had deep connections with the story and we were going
above and beyond with making interpretations. The text was really helpful because the narrator used a specific way of
describing the scenarios and vibes that were going on in the moment. Which again, made us interpret the story in
different ways and by sharing them, a rich discussion was produced. Specifically, this question, do yall think the main
character could have done something a lot more to save the girl?