The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity Goals/Standards: Students will understand that literature is influenced by history. An analysis of the historical period reveals dimensions of characters and plot that enrich the study of literature. ELACC11-12RL9: Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenthand early twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics. Pre-assessment: Students will be grouped based on readiness based on a formative assessment of content in the first 4 chapters of The Great Gatsby. A sample formative assessment would be to give each student an index card and have students answer the following question: What has happened in Chapters 1-4? Teachers will sort these based on student understanding of major characters and events. Introduction: Students have read the first four chapters of The Great Gatsby for this lesson. Version 1: Knowledge/Comprehension Students in this group will need to ensure that they understand the events of the first 4 chapters of the novel. They will answer comprehension questions. They can either work in groups of 4 to discuss/answer or they can work independently and then discuss their answers together. All answers need to be supported by textual evidence. Version 2: Analysis Students in this group will focus on the following questions involving comparison and contrast. They may use a Venn Diagram for several of the questions. They can either work in groups of 4 to discuss/answer or they can work independently and then discuss their answers together. All answers need to be supported by textual evidence. Version 3: Synthesis/Evaluation Students in this group will focus on the following questions. In addition to examining The Great Gatsby, they will read and make connections with a T.S. Eliot poem as well as other historical information relating to the time period. They can either work in groups of 4 to discuss/answer or they can work independently and then discuss their answers together. All answers need to be supported by textual evidence. Closure: Each group has worked on the same text but in different ways. After groups have finished working, they should share their work with the rest of the class through whole-group discussion and sharing. Another option would be to have students write a journal entry from the perspective of Nick Carraway or another character concerning one of the events discussed in the group.
Version 1 Questions: The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity What do you learn about Nick Carraway in Chapter 1? What has influenced Nick to go to New York? What does his father warn him about as a Midwesterner going east? How is East Egg described? How is West Egg described? What about the Valley of Ashes seems interesting? How does Nick Carraway know Tom and Daisy Buchanan? What does Tom do for a living? What is his relationship with Myrtle? Who is Jordan Baker? What does she doe? List as many ways as you can that Nick is different from the other characters. What mention of mob activity do you see in the first four chapters? Back to Top Version 2 Questions: Back to Top Version 3 Using a Venn Diagram, compare and contrast East and West Egg? Compare and contrast Daisy and Myrtle as the two women in Tom s life? How does the era of the 1920 s provide a suitable backdrop fro the actions of this novel? What do you think that F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to say about people during this era? Compare Gatsby s party to Tom and Myrtle s apartment party. Analyze the first part of the novel according to shady dealings that are evident in the text. What historical events of the 20 s are alluded to in this portion of the novel? How are Nick Carraway and Dr. T.J. Eckleburg similar? What role do these two seem to play in the novel? Why is the land in between the Eggs called the Valley of Ashes? What is the significance? Read a T.S. Eliot poem (e.g. The Hollow Men or The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 708 in Prentice Hall Elements of Literature). What similarities do you find in T.S. Eliot poetry and The Great Gatsby? What other historical or philosophical influences are evident in allusions in this novel? How does a person create his/her own persona? Why would Jay Gatsby choose not to be James Gatz in the 1920 s? What social influences would provide impetus to change?
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity The Hollow Men Mistah Kurtz-he dead A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom
III The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together
And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation
Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Author Notes 1. Mistah Kurtz: a character in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." 2. A...Old Guy: a cry of English children on the streets on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, when they carry straw effigies of Guy Fawkes and beg for money for fireworks to celebrate the day. Fawkes was a traitor who attempted with conspirators to blow up both houses of Parliament in 1605; the "gunpowder plot" failed.
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity 3. Those...Kingdom: Those who have represented something positive and direct are blessed in Paradise. The reference is to Dante's "Paradiso". 4. Eyes: eyes of those in eternity who had faith and confidence and were a force that acted and were not paralyzed. 5. crossed stave: refers to scarecrows 6. tumid river: swollen river. The River Acheron in Hell in Dante's "Inferno". The damned must cross this river to get to the land of the dead. 7. Multifoliate rose: in dante's "Divine Comedy" paradise is described as a rose of many leaves. 8. prickly pear: cactus 9. Between...act: a reference to "Julius Caesar" "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/and the first motion, all the interim is/like a phantasma or a hideous dream." 10. For...Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer. T S Eliot. All rights reserved