LAFS.1112.RL.2.6
Description:
Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
Maps to Reading Plus skills:
6A, 6B, 6C
Exemplars
6A: Recognizing Author's Intent
6A: Recognizing Author's Intent
Description:
Recognizing Author's Purpose
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-6
K-6
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2418 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: After a serious football injury, Sam gets a highly trained monkey that not only assists him physically but helps him emotionally.
Excerpt:
Sam gazed up at the full moon, and then back at Avery and Gretchen. "I'm coming back, Avery, I know it, like a work in progress."
Sam continued to hold Avery's hand as he sang "Dancing in the Moonlight," with Avery wheeling his chair side to side and Gretchen shrieking and clapping her hands.
Sam continued to hold Avery's hand as he sang "Dancing in the Moonlight," with Avery wheeling his chair side to side and Gretchen shrieking and clapping her hands.
Question:
Why does the author use the images of "dancing" and "moonlight" in the selection?
- to emphasize her theme of miracles and hope
- to demonstrate how Gretchen liked to imitate Sam.
- to highlight the importance of Sam's football game
- to reinforce Gretchen's ability to brighten Sam's life
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Assess the value or importance of an author's choice of prose, setting, or characterization in a selection.
Evaluator
Organization:
Curriculum Design Institute
6C: Recognizing Mood/Tone
6C: Recognizing Mood/Tone
Description:
Recognizing Mood and Tone
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-29
K-29
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2253 words
Author: Anonymous
Synopsis: To what lengths would you go to keep a promise?
Excerpt:
Tong-Yong's mother had died while he was an infant. When he became a youth of nineteen years his father also passed away, leaving him utterly solitary in the world, and without resources, for, being an impoverished man, Tong's father had put himself through great straits to educate the lad, and hadn't been able to lay by even one copper coin of his earnings. Tong lamented greatly to find himself destined to such destitution that he couldn't honor the memory of his good father by having the customary burial rituals performed and a carven monument erected upon a propitious site. The poor only are friends of the poor; among all whom Tong knew there was not one acquaintance able to assist him in defraying the expenses of the funeral.
In one way only could the youth obtain money: by selling his services as a slave to some rich cultivator, which he earnestly pledged to do.
Even as she ceased speaking, the great glow diminished, and Tong, reopening his eyes, knew she had passed away forever, mysteriously and irrevocably as the light of a flame extinguished.
Still his child slumbered, smiling in his sleep. Outside, darkness was breaking; the sky brightened swiftly; the night was past. With splendid majesty the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming of the sun, and, illuminated by the glory of its coming, the morning vapors wrought themselves into astonishing shapes of shifting color, into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven in the loom of Tchi-Niu.
In one way only could the youth obtain money: by selling his services as a slave to some rich cultivator, which he earnestly pledged to do.
Even as she ceased speaking, the great glow diminished, and Tong, reopening his eyes, knew she had passed away forever, mysteriously and irrevocably as the light of a flame extinguished.
Still his child slumbered, smiling in his sleep. Outside, darkness was breaking; the sky brightened swiftly; the night was past. With splendid majesty the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming of the sun, and, illuminated by the glory of its coming, the morning vapors wrought themselves into astonishing shapes of shifting color, into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven in the loom of Tchi-Niu.
Question:
Based on these two excerpts, the tone of this selection can best be described as shifting from
- desperation to contentment.
- frugality to excess.
- joyfulness to desperation.
- resistance to acceptance.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Imagine you are making a movie version of a fictional selection. Describe how you would shoot scenes from the selection to convey an appropriate mood and tone.
Evaluator
Organization:
Curriculum Design Institute
6B: Recognizing Persuasion
6B: Recognizing Persuasion
Description:
Recognizing Persuasive Devices
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-30
K-30
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2160 words
Author: Mark Twain
Synopsis: American humorist Mark Twain reflects on a specific experience as an editor.
Excerpt:
"I wish to read aloud what must've triggered that instinct -- it was this editorial. Listen, and confirm it was you who authored it: 'Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.' Now, what do you think of that -- for I suppose you wrote it?"
"Think of it? Why, I think it's good; it makes sense. I have no doubt that every year millions upon millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree --"
"Shake your grandmother!" the elderly gentleman exclaimed. "Turnips don't grow on trees!"
"Oh, they don't, don't they?" I replied "Well, who said they did? The language was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative; anybody who knows anything will presume I meant the boy should shake the vine."
The elderly gentleman got up, tore his paper into small shreds and stomped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and exclaimed I didn't know as much as a cow, and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such an absurd fashion that I reckoned he was displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I couldn't help him.
"Think of it? Why, I think it's good; it makes sense. I have no doubt that every year millions upon millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree --"
"Shake your grandmother!" the elderly gentleman exclaimed. "Turnips don't grow on trees!"
"Oh, they don't, don't they?" I replied "Well, who said they did? The language was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative; anybody who knows anything will presume I meant the boy should shake the vine."
The elderly gentleman got up, tore his paper into small shreds and stomped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and exclaimed I didn't know as much as a cow, and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such an absurd fashion that I reckoned he was displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I couldn't help him.
Question:
Dramatic irony happens when the audience understands a situation but the character involved does not. Twain often used this device to convey humor. In this excerpt, the sentence, "But not knowing what the trouble was, I couldn't help him" is humorous because
- the elderly gentleman was clearly frustrated that Twain knew nothing about agriculture.
- the elderly gentleman was trying to disguise the fact that he envied Twain's position.
- Twain was widely regarded as a profitable and knowledgable farmer.
- Twain was quickly becoming bored by the elderly gentleman's complaints.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Give examples of the use of rhetoric in a selection and tell how it influenced your interpretation of the selection's ideas or themes.
Evaluator
Organization:
Curriculum Design Institute