When it comes to evaluating students at the beginning of the year, I find that analysis is one of those topics that get swept under the rug. We assume that by high school, students have already learned these skills, and yet we find out, year after year, that that is not the case for some of them. This lesson I created adresses some of those issues.
Analysis Overview
PreTest, Overview, Close Read, Annotations
Things You Will Need to Teach This Lesson:
· Instructions
· Analysis Overview PowerPoint
· Analysis PreTest Handout (Included in PDF file)
· Analysis PreTest Answer Key (Included in PDF file)
· The Story of an Hour Handout (Included in PDF file)
· The Story of an Hour Answer Key (Included in PDF file)
Before the Lesson:
· Please review the lesson plan and PowerPoint. Delete anything that isn’t applicable to you. Add things that are. Make this lesson your own.
· Print the student handouts for each student.
Lesson:
Activity One: Analysis Overview
Using the PowerPoint titled “Analysis Overview,” discuss analysis as a concept.
· Slide 2: How and Why We Read video. After watching, discuss why literature is important.
· Slide 3: Definition of analysis. Discuss the idea that analysis is found in many contents.
· Slide 5: Different methods to analyze. Discuss the idea that although students may see or prefer one method over the other (including teacher discretion), no one way is right or wrong.
Activity Two: Analysis PreTest
This activity allows you to easily access where students are in their UNDERSTANDING of analysis. Hand each student the “Analysis PreTest Handout.” The handout features sixteen common literary elements that deal with the analysis of a text. Students have 10 minutes to match the definition to the element.
Once the 10 minutes is over, have students trade papers with a shoulder or group partner. Read and go over the answers students. Answer any questions they may have.
Intervention Activity
If students are not successful with the activity, have them correct their tests (can use teacher review, peer tutoring, or individual correction) and make flashcards of the vocabulary.
Extension Activity
If students are easily successful, have them go through the list of terms and come up with examples of each from stories they’ve read.
Activity Three: Story of an Hour
This activity helps you to access if students can IDENTIFY literary elements within a short text. Give each student a copy of “Story of an Hour.” Students should close read the text (teacher led, group collaboration, individual) per the instructions, annotating as they go.
Answer key is available to be used at your discretion.
Activity Four: Analysis Question
The last activity will help you access whether or not students can SYNTHESIZE the information they’ve received and WRITE a coherent analysis paragraph. On the last page of the “Story of an Hour” handout, students are asked to answer the prompt “Choose one of the literary elements that you noticed while reading and write a short analysis response in which you discuss how that particular element affects the story.”
Intervention Activity
Direct teach how you want the students to answer an analysis question. Chunk the process into steps if need be.
Extension Activity
Have students write their answers to the analysis question independently.
And that is all she wrote, folks!
If you’re interested in the handouts I’ve created for this lesson, you can find them in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.