Lit Circles Final Project

Final Project – Literature Circles

Each group has read a different book, and you all have had a different experience with the literature circles. As a final project, you will be sharing your experiences with one another. The final project consists of two parts. The first part is both a written and oral task, and the second part is strictly oral. Each group will have twenty minutes to present both parts of their final projects.

PART ONE

Each group member will choose one writing task from the list below and write a one page response to the task. As you can see, some of the tasks are required. This means that your group is required to turn in a response to that particular task. Depending on the task, you may need to do outside research, but DO NOT just copy and paste an article from online. This will result in failure. If you do use outside sources, please list them at the bottom of your page. On the day of the presentations, please paperclip all of the written work together and turn it in. In addition to turning in these written tasks, you will present the information in them to the class. Your goal is to present the book, setting, and author you chose to the class along with your opinions and recommendations of the book. Do not just read your paper. Pick the most interesting points to share, briefly, with the class. Each group member is required to present their own task.

Tasks:

~Plot Summary (*required)

~Author Biography (*required)

~Information about the historical setting of the book

~Information about the geographical setting of the book

~Letters to the author

~Short story based on the characters

~Cartoon of the major plot points (*should be two pages and should include a short explanation of the cartoons and why you chose those plot points)

~Opinion of the novel

~Dialogue between a major character and the author

~Task of your own choosing (*must be approved by me prior to your presentation)

PART TWO

In addition to presenting your written tasks, your group will perform a short skit of either your favorite scene or the scene you think is most memorable. The skit should take up approximately five minutes, and you should briefly introduce the skit so that your classmates understand what is happening.

Tell-Tale Heart

Here is the Edgar Allan Poe story for next week:

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe (1850)

TRUE! -- nervous -- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees -- very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! --would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously --oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain.All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little --a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -- and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror! --this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! --and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! --

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! --here, here! --it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Lit Circles

Here are the Lit Circle forms:

Literature Circles: A Collaborative Reading Activity

Novel Title: _______________________________

Author: __________________________________

Date: ________

Pages: _______

Discussion Director (s): __________________

Summarizer: ____________________

Vocabulary Reporter: ____________________

Passage Master (s): _______________________

Illustrator: ______________________________

Discussion Director

Name: _____________________ Book: ________________________

Assignment: page ____ to ____

Your task is to develop a list of questions that your group can discuss about this part of the novel. Your questions should be ones which require thought and get everyone talking and sharing their opinions and reactions. The best discussion questions come from your own thoughts, feelings, and concerns as you read. DO NOT write questions that call for a simple “yes” or “no” answer or a factual detail!

Order for Leading Group Discussion

• Call on the Summarizer to read the summary.
• Pose each of your questions to your group for discussion.
• Ask for your group to add their comments or questions about this section of the novel. Lead your group in responding to what each person says.
• Call on the Passage Master. As a group, look at each passage and discuss.
• Call on the Vocabulary Reporter.
• Ask the Illustrator to share their drawing.
• Fill out the Group Record sheet, with input from your group members.
• Collect all worksheets and place in portfolio.

Discussion Questions

1. ____________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________
6. ____________________________________________________________

Types of Questions

What did you think about …? (name a specific event, action, or character’s action)

Why do you think that …?

What do you think will happen …? (ask for prediction of events and characters’ actions)

What is happening at the part where …?

What do you think … (event/incident) means?

Summarizer

Name: ____________________________ Book: _________________________

Assignment: page ___ to ___

Your task is to prepare a brief summary of today’s reading. The other members of your group will be counting on you to give a summary that conveys the key points, the main highlights of today’s reading. It is a good idea to jot down the main events on scratch paper before you complete this form. Be sure to write your summary in complete sentences! When you have finished your summary, give it a short title – something that captures the main idea.

My title for the summary: ____________________________

Summary:

My comment or question about this part of the book is: ________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

My group agreed that my summary was complete and accurate: ___yes ___no (if no, edit it to add what is missing)

Word Reporter

Name: _________________________ Book: _____________________________

Assignment: page ___ to ___

Your task is to be on the lookout for a few especially important, interesting, or unknown words. Write them down along with the sentence in which they appear while you are reading. Then, later, look up and jot down their definitions and create an excellent sentence using each word. You should have 4-6 words.

1. Word: ______________ Page: _____ Paragraph: _________

Sentence from the book: _______________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

The definition is: ____________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

My sentence is: ______________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

2. Word: ______________ Page: _____ Paragraph: _________

Sentence from the book: _______________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

The definition is: ____________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

My sentence is: ______________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Continue with the words you have chosen on the back of the sheet.

My comment or question about this part of the book is: ________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

Passage Master

Name: ___________________________ Book: _____________________________

Assignment: page ___ to ___

Your task is to locate three passages of the story that your group should reread, discus, and think about.

*The passages should be important information or scenes that everyone should notice, remember, or think about.

*Choose a variety of passages, not all of the same type. Suggestions:

• Surprising/startling
• Confusing (something you wonder if other people “got”)
• Descriptive writing: figurative language, strong verbs, etc.
• Important (maybe a clue? Foreshadowing?)
• Controversial event: elicits different opinions from group members

During Your Group Meetings:

1. Either read the passage aloud yourself, have someone else read it, or ask everyone to read it silently to themselves.
2. Tell your reasons for selecting each passage; ask for comments. Does the rest of the group agree with your choices?

Page: __________ Paragraph: _________________ The first 3 words of it are: ______________

This is interesting (or puzzling) because:

Page: _________ Paragraph: __________________ The first 3 words of it are: ______________

This is interesting (or puzzling) because:

Finish on the back.

Illustrator

Name: _________________________ Book: __________________________

Assignment: page ___ to ___

Your task is to draw a part of the story from today’s assignment that you think is particularly significant. This can be a passage that drew your attention because it was startling or because you think it holds a deeper meaning for the book as a whole. In addition to drawing the passage, you should include a brief summary of why you choose this particular passage to illustrate.

Page: ______ Paragraph: _________

Event being portrayed: ___________________________________

I chose this passage because:

Daily Group Record Sheet

Name of Daily Director: ___________________ Book: ___________________

Assignment: page ___ to ___

Following the group discussion meeting, the Discussion Director will complete this form with the help of the group members.

1. Two topics which generated the most discussion today were:

2. As a group, we agreed that one of the most important or intriguing passages in this part was about (this may or may not be one that the Passage Master selected):

3. Group participation today: (1) means beginning – OK (2) means developing – better (3) means focused – good (4) means exemplary – excellen

Member’s Completed Contributes Listens to Fulfills Overall ranking

Name reading relevant info group duties

Members

1. ________________________________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________________________________

4. _________________________________________________________________________

5. _________________________________________________________________________

6. _________________________________________________________________________

7. _________________________________________________________________________

To Kill a Mockingbird Reading Questions

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

I asked Atticus if Mr. Cunningham would ever pay us.

“Not in money,” Atticus said, “but before the year’s out I’ll have been paid. You watch.”

We watched. One morning Jem and I found a load of stovewood in the back yard. Later, a sack of hickory nuts appeared on the back steps. With Christmas came a crate of smilax and holly. That spring when we found a crokersack full of turnip greens, Atticus said Mr. Cunningham had more than paid him.

“Why does he pay you like that?” I asked.

“Because that’s the only way he can pay me. He has no money.”

“Are we poor, Atticus?”

Atticus nodded. “We are indeed.”

Jem’s nose wrinkled. “Are we as poor as the Cunninghams?”

“Not exactly. The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.”

Atticus said professional people were poor because the farmers were poor. As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers. Entailment was only part of Mr. Cunningham’s vexations. The acres not entailed were mortgaged to the hilt, and the little cash he made went to interest. If he held his mouth right, Mr. Cunningham could get a WPA job, but his land would go to ruin if he left it, and he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased. Mr. Cunningham, said Atticus, came from a set breed of men.

As the Cunninghams had no money to pay a lawyer, they simply paid us with what they had. “Did you know,” said Atticus, “that Dr. Reynolds works the same way? He charges some folk a bushel of potatoes for delivery of a baby.”

Reading Questions

1) Why does Mr. Cunningham pay the Finches with agricultural produce? Explain. (3 points)

2) Why are lawyers and doctors in Maycomb County poor? (5 points)

3) Why does Mr. Cunningham refuse to get a job with the WPA? (2 points)

Reading Questions for A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway Name ______________________

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.

Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor trucks that carried men, and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.

Reading questions – feel free to use the back of the paper if additional space is needed.

1) Why are there guns all over the valley? (3 pts)

2) What mood does the author set in these opening paragraphs with his images of the beautiful valley and the soldiers marching through? Explain. (6 points)

3) Draw a picture based on these lines. (1 points)

White Fang Assignment

White Fang by Jack London

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness – a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birchbark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled – blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.

In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over – a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offense to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man – man, who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.

Assignment – Writing, White Fang, rough draft due 11/25, final draft due 12/9

You have two options for this paper. Please choose ONE of the following options.

Option One – Non-fiction

Using the passage you have been given from Jack London’s White Fang, attempt to answer the following question: Is the Wild something worth entering and exploring, or should men stay within the bounds of already civilized areas and not venture into new frontiers? Please use excerpts from the text to demonstrate your point. You may want to use outside sources to find information about the Yukon frontier in the 1890’s – its attractions, its dangers, etc, but please cite any and all sources you use. In other words, any time you quote or paraphrase from an outside source, please cite the source. For the purposes of this essay, you may cite by putting the name of the website or book author in parenthesis following the information. Then, at the end of the essay, provide a list of your sources including website or book name, author, and publication date or website. I will not hold you to strict formatting regarding these citations, but do not forget to do them. Plagiarism (not giving credit to your sources) is illegal. Please see the example below for examples of citation. Your final paper should be at least 2-3 pages and will be graded on the following: introduction, thesis, development and cohesion of ideas.

Sample:

White Fang, Jack London’s 1906 masterpiece, is set in the Yukon Territory in Canada during the 1890’s (Wikipedia.com). In its opening passage, the book sets the scene by describing the impossibly desolate conditions of winter on the frontier stating, “it was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild” (London). But the Wild is not necessarily a place to be avoided. Its frozen beauty brings many advantages to the men willing to brave its dangers.

Jack London. White Fang. 1906

“White Fang.” Wikipedia. http://wikipedia.com/wiki/White_Fang

Option Two – Fiction

The text mentions three men – two walk next to the sled and one is dead in the coffin on the sled. Write a short story from the point of view of ONE of these three men. Keeping in mind London’s depiction of the Wild, try to explain in your story how these three characters ended up where they are. What were they doing? How did one die? Where are they going? How will they survive in the wilderness? Your story should be at least 2-3 pages and should take into account the details put into place by London in the passage that you were given and the setting of the story – the northwestern frontier in the 1890’s. Specifically, it is placed in the Yukon Territory, Canada. Otherwise, feel free to be as creative as you wish in your response. Your paper will be graded on the following: creativity, attention to detail in the original passage, development and cohesion of the story.

If you have any questions at all, please email me: mohsla01@luther.edu