- Determine how literary devices shape themes
- Write about a theme, describing how it is developed
- Evaluate paragraphs for organization elements
What we did:
- The students were given an assignment to read Katherine Mansfield's "The Apple Tree" as a practice for our short stories exam. I explained that on the exam next week, the students will be expected to cold read a short story, determine a theme, identify literary devices (such as irony and symbolism), and write about how the literary devices help to develop the theme throughout the story. After reading "The Apple Tree," the students practiced all of these steps in groups and produced an 8-sentence paragraph. Once they had finished, we went through the paragraphs step by step to check for organization, and the students color coded their sentences to show the Schaffer model organization. No homework was assigned for tonight other than reading and making sure that parents have given permission for school computer access on Skyward.