EXAMPLE LESSON PLAN for “I Used to Live Here Once,” by Jean Rhys
Focus Question:
The last line of the story says: “That was the first time she knew.” What exactly does she “know for the first time”?
Skills and Knowledge:
Literary Terms: perspective, mood, sensory/imagery, ambiguity, symbolism, plot line
Reading Skills: annotating, visualizing, self-monitoring, inference
Explanation of use:
§ Plot line à map it to ensure basic comprehension
§ Notice sensory details (by visualizing) à explain that they create a mood of familiarity with the place (knowing rocks well) and also sadness about changes (trampled bushes) à the sad mood explains how she feels about coming back to where she used to live (title)
§ Notice sensory details (the boy feels cold) à this helps us infer what may be happening (is she dead or as if she is dead?) à helps us come up with possible answers to the ambiguous last line
§ Infer à why does the first paragraph skip from looking at the rocks to being across? Because she is (a) dead so she floated (b) so familiar she doesn’t even need to think about it
§ Perspective (first person title versus third person narrative)
Lesson Objective:
- Students will analyze how Jean Rhys creates mood out of sensory details (descriptions) that show instead of telling
- Students will analyze how the changing mood in the story helps us create meaning out of a confusing last line
Vocabulary: engender – to give rise to something; to cause something (often an emotion)
Sentence: The author used vivid images of dark fields with lurking shapes to engender fear in his readers.
Sentence: The teacher asked me to explain what sort of emotion I had been trying to engender by including the adjectives, “warm kitchen,” “sweet biscuits,” “soft-spoken mother.” I told her I was trying to engender nostalgia.
Sentence: The power of Martin Luther King’s words engender courage and a desire for justice in all who heard him speak.
Pre-Reading:
“We are going to read a story that really creates an experience. It almost a mystery story, so we are going to discuss it as a class after we are done reading in order to try and figure out what it means and what its message is.”
Background for teacher: Jean Rhys is Welsh, born in Dominica, moved to London when she was 16
Comprehension Level:
On Board: Write “Comprehension Level: What happens?” + a plot line.
· Remind Students: “This is a line that represents the plot of the story. Each dot is a major event. It bumps up like a mountain to show rising tension/conflict in the story – just like the bars on an equalizer/mixer go up as the volume intensifies. The climax is the moment when you are most on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen. We will summarize every paragraph or so and place the events on the plot line so we have a visual of what is going on.”
· Go paragraph-by-paragraph writing a one-sentence plot dot on the plot line to sum up the actions/event in each paragraph.
· Have students copy the plotline on the student handout (see below)
Remind Students: (Definition on Board) Remind students of the definitions of “sensory detail” and “mood” (learned at the identify level in previous lesson).
· Read the first paragraph together and demonstrating circling sensory details then writing an inference about what the mood is in the margin.
· Next two paragraphs have students circle and infer individually, and then share out.
· Then have them do the rest until the end on their own.
Interpretative Level: (Discussion based on scaffolded questions)
Expectations for discussing the questions:
o Sometimes we will be discussing as a group, sometimes you will be writing. Unless your hand was raised and you were called on, you should be quiet.
o You will receive a classwork grade based on written answers to discussion questions, your participation in discussion, and the respect you show by listening and not talking out.
o Think HARD so that you can have the sense of satisfaction when you figure out the meaning of the story.
o You will annotate as we discuss and you reread.
Remind Students: “There is more in this story that is important than sensory details even though we are focusing on that. So, remember to annotate texts and use reading strategies by”: (Steps On Board)
(1) find a “hmm…” moment & underlining
(2) picking a reading strategy to help make meaning (specific question, infer/draw conclusion, make a connection, predict, self-monitor)
(3) explain how using that strategy helps them make meaning.
On top of board, very big and bold (also on student handout):
“FOCUS QUESTION: What does she ‘know’ for the first time at the end of the story?”
Note to teacher: The discussion and questioning should move in the direction of realizing the following: The central conflict/tension of the story is between the tension between the past and the present. The author reveals this tension through the details and sensory imagery used to describe things that are the same and things that have changed. We are left with a mysterious question at the end of the story about what the main character knows for the first time. Some students might feel that she knows that she is a ghost. Whether or not she is alive or dead, the crucial theme is that she cannot go back to her childhood or the past; things are different; her childhood is symbolically running from her and she is symbolically dead. The confusion over perspective (why is the title in the first person and the narration in the third? Why in the very last three sentences does it almost seem like she is the little girl because of the confusing pronoun “her arm fell”?) leads to the confusion over who she is – a kid or an adult – and is she alive or dead, really there or dreaming and remembering? Theme: the ambiguity is intentional – looking back on your past is surreal, like being dead.
Discussion Questions and Answers (on student handout, which students are taking notes on as we discuss questions):
(1) Why does the story begin with such a long description of the stones? Furthermore, based on this description of the stones, what guesses can you make about how the girl feels about this place and what her relationship to the place is like? (Think about sensory details and mood.)
By using so much detail, the author shows that the girl remembers the stones very clearly. This river with the rocks was probably very familiar and important to her.
(2) What is different about this place than it once was? What is the same? Make two columns and list details.
The Same: stones - 1, the same road (but wider) - 2, worn stone step of house – 4, the clove tree – 4, the lawn
Different: the road is wider, felled trees, trampled bushes – 2, glassy sky – 3, screw pine and summer house gone – 4, new house added, painted white – 4, car in front of house – 4
The familiar things seem happy but the changed things seem sad (like the trampled bushes.)
(3) How does the mood of the story change as the girl gets closer to her house?
· What is the mood of paragraphs 1? Explain your answer using the specific sentences and words give you this feeling. Mood = familiar, comfortable, happy
· What is the mood of paragraphs 2-3? In what ways is it different than paragraphs 1-2? Explain your answer using the specific sentences and words that make you feel the mood is changing. Mood = still positive, but less so – “careless”, “trampled” “unfinished”
· What is the mood of paragraphs 4? How does this mood compare to the mood in paragraphs 1-2? Explain your answer using the specific sentences and words that make you feel the mood. Mood = nervous/excited – not happy with changes but happy to see her house? “heartbeat”, “strange”, missing trees and summer house
(4) How do you think the girl feels about the changes she sees? (Think about the particular descriptive words/sensory details and ask yourself whether they are positive or negative.)
The words that she uses to describe the changes seem very negative such as “unfinished” and trampled”. In particular, she describes the car in front of the house as “strange.” She doesn’t come right out and say how she feels so it is hard to tell. She also doesn’t make it sound like she thinks the changes are terrible. It seems more like she is happy at first and excited to see the house again so she is not getting upset about the changes at first.
(5) Why do you think that she “longs” to touch the two children? (Make an inference.)
She longs to touch the children because they remind her of her own childhood in that house. She wants to return to that childhood. Wanting to touch them is like touching an old photographic like that might almost bring you back into the scene of the photo.
(6) If you were the girl, how would the behavior of the two children in paragraphs 5 and 6 make you feel? How do you think the children felt about the girl? Explain your answer by pointing out specific things about the way they react to her. (Make an inference.)
I would be sad if I were the girl. She says hello three times and even says that she lived in the house. The boy just ignores her. Then he says “Hasn’t it gone cold all of a sudden.” It almost seems like he means this to be an insult to the girl, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge that he hears her or see her. It’s like when a kid is being annoying and talking a lot and someone says “Do you hear something? I don’t hear anything!” even though you know that they do.
(7) What does she “know for the first time” at the end of the story? There is no “right” answer. Use the details of what happened just before this line to make a guess.
The fact that her arms “fell” to her side as the children ran away makes it seem like she is sad or defeated. Whatever she realized, it must be sad. Maybe she realized that the house was not hers anymore and she could not go back to being a child there. Although some things were the same, like the stones, other things were changing. It would never be the same again and it would never be hers again. The children running away might have made her think of her own childhood “running away from her”. In other words, it is gone like the children are gone.
* Wrap-Up Key Points:
· Rhys picks her words carefully. Every word helps you to understand more once you really, really read closely.
· Rhys lets you experience the girls’ sadness for yourself in order to come to the same realization that the girl did, in the same slow way that the girl did. This is more interesting than just being TOLD, and you understand it better because you FEEL it yourself.
· Imagery is one powerful way to create experiences/feelings in your writing so USE IT in your place description. Don’t tell the NYC kids about Halifax, bring them here with your words.
* Please note: this discussion took my class a total of 2.5 class periods! *
Individual check for understanding: Do you think that the girl in the story is alive or dead? Make a claim and defend it using specific evidence from the text and explanations about what the evidence proves. Your answer should be at least 15 sentences long.
I Used to Live Here Once -- by Jean Rhys
A story set in Dominica, in the Caribbean.
She was standing by the river looking at the stepping stones and remembering each one. There was the round unsteady stone, the pointed one, the flat one in the middle the safe stone where you could stand and look around. The next wasn't so safe for when the river was full the water flowed over it and even when it showed dry it was slippery. But after that it was easy and soon she was standing on the other side. (1)
The road was much wider than it used to be but the work had been done carelessly. The felled trees had not been cleared away and the bushes looked trampled. Yet it was the same road and she walked along feeling extraordinarily happy. (2)
It was a fine day, a blue day. The only thing was that the sky had a glassy look that she didn't remember. That was the only word she could think of. Glassy. She turned the corner, saw that what had been the old pave had been taken up, and there too the road was much wider, but it had the same unfinished look. (3)
She came to the worn stone steps that led up to the house and her heart began to beat. The screw pine was gone, so was the mock summer house called the ajoupa, but the clove tree was still there and at the top of the steps the rough lawn stretched away, just as she remembered it. She stopped and looked towards the house that had been added to and painted white. It was strange to see a car standing in front of it. (4)
There were two children under the big mango tree, a boy and a little girl, and she waved to them and called 'Hello', but they didn't answer her or turn their heads. Very fair children, as Europeans born in the West Indies so often are: as if the white blood is asserting itself against all the odds. (5)
The grass was yellow in the hot sunlight as she walked towards there. When, she was quite close, she called again, shyly: 'Hello'. Then, 'I used to live here once,' she said. Still they didn't answer. When she had said for the third time 'Hello' she was quite near them. Her arms went out instinctively with the longing to touch them. It was the boy who turned. His gray eyes looked straight into hers. His expression didn't change. He said, 'Hasn't it gone cold all of a sudden. D'you notice? Let's go in.' 'Yes, let's,' said the girl. Her arms fell to her sides as she watched them running across the grass to the house. That was the first time she knew. (6)