Connie Alves
Spring 2005
English 90 Teaching Community
Lesson Plan/Assessment #4
Course Outcome: Read to make meaningful connections, personally, socially and academically.
Learning Outcome for this Lesson:
Students will practice summary/response writing in their journals. Using reading strategies developed in class, students will summarize and respond to Margaret Atwood’s purpose for writing The Handmaid’s Tale.
Reading Apprenticeship Model: Dimension Addressed
This lesson plan directly addresses the cognitive dimension:
- Getting the big picture
- Breaking it down
- Monitoring comprehension
- Using problem-solving strategies to assist and restore comprehension
- Setting reading purposes and adjusting reading process
Assessment Instrument:
Students will write a summary/response as their last journal entry for the semester.
Assessment Criteria:
This is an end of the semester assignment, so expectations are high for good journal writing. Reading comprehension will be evident in the summary as well as the response. Analysis of Atwood’s purpose for writing The Handmaid’s Tale will be evident in the response. I will use the cognitive dimension as a guideline for my assessment.
High: Students demonstrate complete understanding of the assignment, and respond in a thoughtful, articulate, mostly error free manner.
Medium: Students understand the assignment, but do not articulate as well as the higher-level students. They often have more errors in comprehension as well as in grammar.
Low: Students put little effort into the assignment. Comprehension is lower, errors are higher, and analysis is weak.
Lesson Plan:
Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale became a semester long project because we could do so many different activities with it. We read it using all of our discussed/class developed reading strategies, journaled several times on different aspects of the story, organized group plays around different chapters for the mid-term, and wrote a final summary/response discussing Atwood’s purpose for writing this book. I will address this final assignment.
Day 1
Students brought their research on Atwood’s background to class. They then got into study groups to discuss what they had learned and to revisit the story itself. Conversation was lively because the story was well known by this time. I answered questions and reminded them of the following important steps of summary/response writing.
Your summary must include:The author, title, and source of the original
The main idea or thesis of the original in your own words
The most important supporting ideas of the original
Attributive tags (the author states, he shows, etc.)
I again explained to my students that a response is interpretive and evaluative writing where they add their own opinions, evaluations, and/or comments on a reading. In college, they often will need more than a clear understanding of the author’s main points. They may also need to understand the reading at a deeper level when writing strong responses. At this point I gave them a response handout that included the following:
Guidelines for writing strong responses:
What is the author’s purpose in writing this text?
Who is the intended audience?
What change does the author hope to make in the reader’s view of her topic?
What strategies does the author use to convince the reader?
What questions does the text raise or what ideas are thought-provoking?
What new insights have they gained from reading this text?
Day 2
Students discussed The Handmaid’s Tale for about 15 minutes. They then had one hour and 20 minutes to write a summary/response discussing what they thought were Atwood’s main ideas and responding to them.
Assessment Results:
See student samples of high, medium and low journal writing.
Twelve students handed in summary/response journals:
High7
Medium3
Low2
Example of High Level Response to the Assignment
Reading Journal #10
English 90
May 11, 2005
Summary/Response to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Summary
Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, shows readers what can happen if freedom for all people is not protected. Atwood set her story in a city named Gilead. A major shift in the government has occurred leaving the city a former shell of itself. Atwood describes men with guns walking around the city protecting or controlling the people. The people have lost their rights, their money, and their freedom. Atwood is careful not to use any dates in her novel because she want her readers to realize this story could happen to anyone at anytime.
Atwood uses the color of clothes as a way of describing the status of each group of people. She is forceful in showing that women have lost all power and dignity. Men rule, but Atwood is careful to show that their freedom of movement has also been curtailed. It is clear from Atwood’s description that woman have resumed their place of serving men. The handmaid’s only purpose for existence is to bare children. Atwood’s main character is a young handmaid living in the home of Commander Fred making her name Offred (of Fred). Atwood uses the “of” references to illustrate that the handmaids only identity is that of the commander with whom they reside.
Atwood displays fear throughout the novel to motivate the women to obey the law and not wander from their position. She makes a point of telling the reader that the privilege of reading and writing has been removed from woman, so they can easily live in the position in which they have been appointed. Atwood uses dead bodies hanging from the walls of the city as examples of what will happen if laws are broken. Offred refers back to her old life throughout the novel, so that Atwood can show that life held unlimited possibilities for women at one time. Now women are not allowed to read, have money, or communicate with one another. Learning is out of the question making the point that if one is kept uneducated and illiterate, one can be controlled.
The way Atwood choose to end the novel leaves her readers with many questions. It is not clear if Offred makes it out of the country to safety; however, the readers do know that she has made it out of Gilead. In the last chapter of the novel, Atwood describes what appears to be a symposium of professors lecturing on Gilead. Some of the professors are women, so we know that another change of government has occurred. Atwood describes to the readers that a purge has taken place, and the men that were in control were killed, but the records for that time period are unclear. The professors are using the story as a learning tool as Atwood does for her readers.
Response
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a powerful novel about loss of freedom for all people, and the absolute devastation of women’s rights because people did not take an active part in governmental affairs; they got too lazy to protect their rights, and little by little freedom was eroded. Sound familiar? This is a story that could happen in our society today. For example, there is always so much talk about “getting the vote out.” Every time someone doesn’t vote, that person is giving up a little freedom, and sadly, many people don’t vote. I believe apathy is laying waste to our country, and I believe this is one of Atwood’s major themes.
Atwood doesn’t use dates and times, so the novel appears to be timeless, leaving the impression that what happened in Gilead could happen anywhere at any time. Clearly fear is used throughout the novel to keep the characters “in line” and too frightened to save themselves.
Atwood has written a manual on how to control woman. She wants her readers to get a clear picture that total control is extremely important to the loss of freedom. No more education for women, no reading or writing, limited language, no socialization, and supervised movements were put into place in Gilead to control the women. Add to that the loss of family and intimacy, and you have a controlled population of women.
What Atwood avoids discussing is what has happened to the rest of the world? How come the outside world didn’t help the people of Gilead? Did the world around Gilead turn their backs and allow this to happen or did they really believe that this was what the people of Gilead wanted? Atwood gives no insight into these questions. I could ask another set of questions that pertain to our world today. How come no one helped the tiny country of Rwanda? Why did the UN just stand and watch people get killed? Why is no one helping African women? We all know they are being raped and killed by the thousands each and every day.
Atwood’s eye-opening depiction of Gilead is one that will stay with me throughout the rest of my life. I will think harder about the people I vote for, and the laws I feel should be passed. I will be conscientiously diligent when it comes to protecting women’s rights. I believe Atwood accomplished her purpose, and educated her readers.
Example of Medium Level Response to the Assignment
Reading Journal #10
English 90
May 11, 2005
Summary/Response to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Summary
In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, she paints a futuristic picture of a country (Gilead) stripped of its democracy. She painstakingly explains what happens to a country and its people when women no longer have any freedom, even to the extent of being denied an education, and men live an isolated life of structured status.
Atwood portrays segregation in her story by creating different social classes. Each of these classes has different duties and is expected to wear different colors to distinguish themselves. Atwood uses color organization to show our individual qualities being stripped away and a person only seen by his/her class status. Atwood describes all of the women’s clothing covering all skin and the handmaid’s hat only allowing for restricted sight. Atwood is showing the government’s control over women.
Atwood explained fear as being the greatest control factor that Gilead used. “Perhaps he is an eye” (18). Eye is used regularly to symbolize the fear in the people. Atwood set up her book with flashbacks of her main character’s (Offred) past life. Atwood shows her reader that dramatic oppression like the actions taken against women and literature can happen.
In Gilead all books and luxury items were destroyed. By taking literature and communication away, the residents in Gilead had simpler lives and were believed not to plot against the government.
Atwood points out that denying women education and any sort of personal freedom controls the culture and discourages revolution. In Gilead women were only allowed to read pictures and every activity was controlled. Atwood successfully demonstrates that as freedom is taken away a few men will control a country, and terrible, unspeakable things happen.
Response
Margaret Atwood’s purpose for writing The Handmaid’s Tale is to warn her readers that a society like Gilead can develop when social and political diligence is
ignored. Atwood tries to warn her readers of a future that should never happen.
I agree with Atwood that it is possible for a Gilead type country to evolve with neglected freedom. Taking away women’s’ freedom reminds me of the “religious right” in this country. They believe that suppressing and controlling women is for the “good” of society, but all it does is damage the society. The old saying, “Keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant” still resounds in the red states of the United States. Atwood is clearly alarmed that something like this might happen, and it will be through patriarchal control and lack of education that this can be accomplished. Is there any benefit to destroying half of a population? I believe all it does is greatly weaken a country.
Atwood’s style of writing this book gives me an insight to her thoughts and focus about her purpose. I think she stays focused on just Gilead to show how things changed in time. She makes it clear that the rest of the world has not reformed to the same ways as Gilead. This thought makes me wonder why no one has come to help Gilead, but it also makes me realize even the United States has acted the same.
When Atwood brought up the purification of a guard accused of rape, I was shocked. It is amazing to read how corrupt Gilead is. To kill a man without any chance to prove his innocence is a drastic loss of freedom.
The Handmaid’s Tale has made me aware of our many laws and what our government is trying to do. I’m paying so much more attention to governmental policies, and I’ve become completely aware how fragile freedom can be, especially women’s rights, and how it is in my control to make sure I never live in Gilead.
Example of Low Level Response to the Assignment
Reading Journal #10
English 90
May 11, 2005
Summary/Response to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Summary
In her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood insists that what happened to Gilead could happen to any country today. Atwood shows the life of a handmaid named Offred. Atwood shows how Offred lived from day to day and what she has to put up with on a daily basis.
By flashing back and forth between Offred’s past life and her present life, Atwood shows the difference between how much freedom, privileges and rights Offred used to have compared to now. Atwood gives hints that Offred was living in a democracy, but now lives in a totalitarian, hierarchy environment.
Atwood describes the different rankings in Gilead. Each rank has a color to wear, and each rank has a specific role to play in the household. For example, the handmaids are only in the house to bare children. The Martha’s are like the maids. The wives run the household and make sure everything is in place. The commanders impregnate the handmaids.
Atwood tells a story about a country that has run amuck because women’s rights have been destroyed, and a patriarchal society has taken over Gilead.
Response
The author wrote this book because she wanted to give her readers a warning as to what can happen if all the people in a country do not protect their freedom. This book could be for any audience, but it’s probably written for an older, mature audience.
I feel like the author should have told her readers how Gilead got that way. She didn’t give enough background information on Gilead. I didn’t like the book because I don’t like science fiction books. After reading the first page, I was ready to return it to the bookstore. I didn’t really understand the social significance of this book, and I truly feel that warning us about a possible Gilead was pretty unrealistic.
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