English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 1
TEACHER RESOURCE FOR LONG WAY DOWN BY JASON REYNOLDS
ANCHOR TEXT
Long Way Down
(Order Copies from CCS Book Warehouse)
SHORTER LITERARY TEXTS
Available HERE
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Available HERE
MEDIA/VISUAL TEXTS
Available HERE
This resource with its aligned lessons and texts can be used as a tool to increase
student mastery of Ohio’s Learning Standards. It should be used with careful
consideraon of your students’ needs. The sample lessons are designed to target
specic standards. These may or may not be the standards your students need to
master or strengthen. This resource should not be considered mandatory.
OHIO’S LEARNING POWER STANDARDS
RESOURCE FOCUS
RL. 9-10.1, RL. 9-10.2, RL. 9-10.3, RL.9-10.4,
RI. 9-10.1, RI. 9-10.2, RI. 9-10.3, W. 9-10.3
Student learning will focus on the analysis of both informaonal and poec texts. Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down will serve as a mentor text.
Students will analyze techniques used and draw evidence from several exemplar texts (informaonal and poec) to support their mastery of
cing text, determining theme/central idea, understanding complex characters/characterizaon, recognizing the cumulave impact of gurave
language and poec form, and nding connecons between ideas introduced and developed in the texts. There will be much me spent with
text-dependent quesoning, many opportunies for classroom discussions, and a few creave narrave wring opportunies.
SAMPLE LESSON 1
SAMPLE LESSON 2
SAMPLE LESSON 3
SAMPLE LESSON 4
Prior to Reading
Pages 1-70
Pages 1-192 (through Floor 5)
Pages 1-278 (through Floor 3)
READING FROM THE INSIDE
MY NAME IS
THE LOST TOOTH
LIKE BROTHERS
VOCABULARY LIST "READING FICTION"
ARTICLE
VOCABULARY LIST
VOCABULARY LIST
VOCABULARY LIST
SAMPLE LESSON 5
SAMPLE LESSON 6
SAMPLE LESSON 7
SAMPLE LESSON 8
Pages 1-298 (through Floor 2ish)
Full Text
Aer Reading
Extension of Standards to New Material
THE RULES
EARTHQUAKE
YOU COMING?
FIFTEEN
VOCABULARY LIST
VOCABUARY LIST ("CODE" ARTICLE)
VOCABULARY LIST
VOCABULARY LIST "ENDLESS" ARTICLE
WRITING/SPEAKING PROMPTS (TASK TEMPLATES AND RUBRICS: LDC 2.0, LDC 3.0, ARGUMENT RUBRIC, INFORMATIONAL RUBRIC, NARRATIVE RUBRIC, LDC SPEAKING & LISTENING, SPEECH)
Argument
- An eecve literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of
some crics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of signicant closure has
terminated with an arsc fault. A sasfactory ending is not, however, always
conclusive in every sense; signicant closure may require the reader to abide with or
adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of Long Way
Down. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately
concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.
- Some works of literature use the element of me in a disnct way. The chronological
sequence of events may be altered, or me may be suspended or accelerated. Write a
well-organized essay in which you show how the Reynolds’s manipulaon of me
contributes to the eecveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the
plot.
- A symbol is an object, acon, or event that represents something or that creates a
range of associaons beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea,
clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Write an essay analyzing one symbol in
Long Way Down. Be sure to discuss how the symbol funcons in the work and what it
reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole.
Informave/Explanatory
-Aer reading the essay “Does reading con make you a beer person?”
and examining the chart delineang the reading decline found in The
Washington Post arcle “The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading” by
Christopher Ingraham, write an essay or prepare and deliver a speech in
which you explore the social consequences of the dropping reading rate
among Americans.
-Aer reading or listening to this CBS This Morning interview with Jason
Reynolds, write an essay in which you explain why Reynolds believes
searching for books in which young readers see themselves is of crical
importance. Use examples from the interview, the novel, and your own
experience to support your response.
-Reynolds has spoken repeatedly about the role of hip hop in his
development as a writer and poet. Write a well-organized essay, prepare
and deliver a speech, or create an interacve hyperdoc in which you
examine the role of his hop--in both style and content—as it impacts the
novel Long Way Down.
Narrave
- Write a sequel or expand the exisng text of Long Way Down by imagining a
return trip back up the elevator. Dramaze through the presence of new ghosts
who usher in new or revised rules how Will has been altered by the decision to
either enact revenge by killing Riggs or by some alternate decision he may have
made. Use the seng of the elevator and Reynolds’s use of me stamps to
structure your extended narrave.
- Although the novel focuses on Will’s perspecve, Reynolds includes several
characters that aect Will. Choose one of the minor characters and write a short
narrave poem or prose piece from either that character’s point of view or create a
narrave in which you have a conversaon with the character discussing a central
feature of his or her characterizaon. Be sure to weave in specic details from the
text that reveal your understanding of the character. Choose an exisng tle from
Part One as the tle for your piece.
- People are already discussing the lm possibilies for Long Way Down. Choose a
secon of the novel to focus on and consider how you would adapt it for the screen.
Write a short screenplay that dramazes the characters and events of the secon.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 2
SAMPLE LESSON 1
Prior to Reading Long Way Down
This lesson is aligned to Ohio ELA Standards RI. 9-10.1, 2, and 3. Students will be working with informaonal texts to determine the central idea, the development of that idea,
and the analysis of the details and evidence that support the development of the central idea. Working with a video interview and a newspaper arcle, students will target and
develop the skills of close reading, summary, analysis, and synthesis.
READING FROM THE INSIDE: READING AND MIND (TWO TO THREE DAYS)
OPENING READING: Students should read “Does Reading Ficon Make You a Beer Person?” from the Washington Post (Google Doc HERE). Have students take summary
notes on the major points of the arcle and pose one queson that the arcle raised for them as readers. Consider using a graphic organizer like the one below (Google Doc
HERE) to structure their annotaons.
Record main points in arcle
(use your own words):
Record key details and phrases that illustrate the main points in the arcle
For example:
People remember emoonal
reading experiences from their
childhoods.
“I began sobbing loudly enough to summon my mother from down the hallway.”
Queson that the text invites you to consider:
For example: I wonder what the research might say about reading disturbing stories about violent or oppressive people. Do these kinds of stories also
increase empathy?
REFLECTION: Ask students to take a few minutes to write a short reecon in their spiral or digital (shared Google Folder) notebooks in which they write about a story, a
movie, a narrave video game, song ,or some other text that had a profound emoonal eect on them. Ask them to briey summarize the text and then to speculate on the
reasons for its eect on them as readers or viewers. You may wish to revisit the opening paragraphs of the arcle “Does Reading Ficon Make You a Beer Person” in which
author Sarah Kaplan recounts her reacon to reading Bridge from Terabithia. Also consider sharing your own experiences with texts that have made a deep and lasng impact
on your life.
When you give students me to write their reecons, write alongside them so students may see you model the wring and thinking processes in real me.
Aer giving students ve to ten minutes for wring and reecon, have them partner up and share their responses. Invite partners to share highlights from their conversaons
with the class as a whole.
WORKSHOP: Next, prepare for a whole-group discussion by having students revisit the “Does Reading Ficon Make You a Beer Person?” arcle in small groups. Have
students answer the text-dependent quesons below and/or share their main points and generated quesons they completed on the Does Reading Ficon Graphic Organizer
from the Opening Reading.
1. Keith Oatley claims that Kaplan’s emoonal response to a conal story was natural: “You were just being a human being.” What do you think Oatley means by this
claim?
2. Why do you think human development and cooperaon are fostered by our ability to “engag[e] with stories about other people”?
3. What brain acvity is described by the concept of “mentalizing” and how is this acvity related to “increase[ed] empathy and prosocial behavior”?
4. What do you think the phrase “form neutral” means? What evidence from the arcle leads you to form this hypothesis?
5. Why might reading literary con have more impact on developing “theory of mind” skills than noncon or genre con?
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 3
6. How are books “life simulators”?
7. Oatley claims that when we read con, we become the imagined characters, that “[w]e understand them from the inside.” What does it mean to understand
someone else “from the inside”?
8. What is the relaonship between storytelling, art, and burial? How do stories help us make sense and meaning of physical truths?
9. Extension queson: What are the social repercussions of the declining reading rate among Americans? [Consider excerpng or showing the chart delineang the
reading decline found in The Washington Post arcle “The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading” by Christopher Ingraham (Google Doc HERE).] What happens
when neighbors, communies, generaons, and cizens cannot understand each other’s experiences “from the inside”? How might reading about other’s experiences
not only help us to understand other people but also help us to understand ourselves?
10. Extension queson: What social problems exist today that reect a breakdown in people’s ability to understand one another? How can reading literature help to
mend these breakdowns?
DISCUSSION: Foster a whole-group discussion in which students share their workshop invesgaons and their answers to the queson posed by The Washington Post arcle:
“Does Reading Ficon Make You a Beer Person?”. Extend the queson by posing follow up quesons such as: “If reading does, in fact, help us to become more empathic and
cooperave, what can we do to increase reading?”. Encourage students to support their claims with direct evidence from the arcle as well as evidence from their own
experience.
CRITICAL VIEWING: Introduce Trevor Noah’s interview with Jason Reynolds and preview the guided viewing quesons below. Have students answer the quesons while
viewing the video.
1. Why does Noah suggest that it was “insane” that Reynolds hadn’t read a whole book unl he was seventeen?
2. Reynolds concludes that it was and was not “insane.” Why, in one sense, wasn’t it “insane” for Reynolds not to have read a novel unl he was that old?
3. What role did hip hop play in helping Reynolds to become a writer?
4. How did rap music give Reynolds “voice”?
5. Why does Reynolds consider his books to be “thank-you leers” and “love notes”?
6. Noah shares an anecdote regarding a young African American man who asked him about making a movie about his book Born a Crime. Why does Noah share this story?
7. Reynolds oers an explanaon as to why some young people don’t connect with canonical texts such as those by Shakespeare. What is his explanaon?
8. Reynolds outlines three approaches that may help students to connect with literature. What are they?
9. Reynolds concludes with a powerful claim: “Your life is dependent upon your relaonship with words.” Explain what you think he means by this asseron.
Once students have had me to answer the quesons individually (you may wish to show the video more than once or allow students to use personal devices to view at will),
assign them to small groups to do the following:
1. Begin by discussing what each student found most relevant or intriguing in the video.
2. Review answers to the crical viewing quesons.
3. Provide examples from your own lives that bear out the claims made by Reynolds or those experiences that may challenge Reynolds’s posion.
4. Speculate how Reynolds would respond to the Kaplan queson, “Does reading con make you a beer person?”. Would he agree completely in the armave, would
he disagree, or would he advance a more compromised posion? What details from his interview support your answer?
5. Select a spokesperson to share the group’s answers to the discussion quesons. Consider using the "stand and share” protocol #8 (Google Doc HERE) for spokespeople
to encourage more movement in discussions.
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Once groups have shared their discussion quesons, have students separate from their groups. Take a few minutes to summarize the
acvies. Have students open their spiral/digital notebooks and respond to this prompt: How does the cover art for Long Way Down illustrate a central idea of either The
Washington Post arcle or the Trevor Noah interview or both. Be sure to describe specically the detail or details from the cover that connect with details from the newspaper
arcle of the interview in your response.
-You may collect this or assess the prompt responses during a reading/wring workshop me on another day or during a reading/wring conference looking specically and
giving feedback for mastery of cing text RI.9-10.1, determining central idea RI.9-10.2, and making connecons RI.9-10.3.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 4
SAMPLE LESSON 2
Prior to Lesson: Students should read Part I: Pages 1-70
The rst part of this lesson is aligned to Ohio ELA Standards RL.9-10. 1 and RL. 9-10.3. Students will be working with poems that reveal complex characterizaon and plot &
theme development. The reecon secon of this lesson targets W.9-10.3 and W. 9-10.9 by asking students to write narraves in which they imagine experiences drawn from
details in the text.
MY NAME IS: UNDERSTANDING CHARACTER (TWO DAYS)
MINI-LESSON: Reynolds’s poem “My Name Is” on page two funcons as an introducon not only to the central voice and character of the novel but also to the core conict and
theme of the work as a whole. Read the poem out loud to students as they follow along. Ask students to share what they learn about the narrave persona that inhabits the
novel. Tell students that this lesson will help them cite evidence to support analysis as well as determine how writers create complex characters that advance the plot and
theme of a text.
Then have the students read the poem again while focusing on the following quesons: What do we learn about Will personally? What do we learn about his movaon for
telling this story? What details or moves does Reynolds include that help us understand Will’s character? What does a person’s name reveal about him, his family, his past, his
future? Review the methods of direct and indirect characterizaon (Google Doc HERE) with students and then have them analyze the poem for these methods (advise students
that character name falls under “indirect characterizaon” but does not neatly t one of the ve core methods of STEAL on the handout—speech, thoughts, eect on others,
acons, and looks). Below is a list of key details from the poem and teacher inferences for each to use as a guide for this lesson.
Method of characterizaon
Detail/Example
Explanaon: what does this detail reveal about the character?
Name
“MY NAME IS / Will. / William. /
William Holloman.”
By introducing the narrator with three names, Reynolds may be suggesng that Will is a
complex person with many sides: informal and inmate: “Will,” formal and removed:
“William,” and public, historic, and legal: “William Holloman.” Addionally, the names
of “Will” and “Holloman” invite a more symbolic reading. The narrator’s rst name is
suggesve of volion, acon, decision: will he or won’t he? Also note that the word
“will” is both a noun and a verb. What does it mean to will something and what does
the noun “will” imply that may be related to the story on these pages? How might the
text as a whole be thought of as a will? Therefore, in this choice of name, Reynolds
foreshadows the key conict at the heart of the enre novel and the author’s purpose
in wring the novel. Addionally, the surname “Holloman” is also suggesve: it calls to
mind the words “hollow” and “man.” Perhaps Reynolds is alluding to T. S. Eliot’s poem
“The Hollow Men” or inving associaons with hollowness: Will is at present empty,
grieving, traumazed. Will his “hollowness” ever be lled?
Name
“just Will. // So call me Will”
Reynolds extends name symbolism through repeon: he uses the name “Will” or
“William” ve mes in the opening poem. In these lines, the narrator also directly
addresses readers by inving us to call him “Will.” Such an invitaon reveals a character
who is open and seems to want to extend that openness to readers. (This opening also
calls to mind Herman Melville’s famous opening imperave: “Call me Ishmael” from
Moby Dick, an opening that also serves as a narrave frame for the novel by introducing
a narrator who begins with a tone of surprising inmacy.)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 5
Eect on others
“people who know me / know
me”
The narrator repeats the phrase “know me” to acknowledge that there are depths to his
personality: those who only know the exterior of his character and those who know the
complexity of his character. By inving readers to call him “Will,” the narrator is inving
us into the depths of his character; he appears willing to be open, honest, and
vulnerable.
Speech
“aer I tell you / what I’m about
to tell you””
Reynolds extends the direct address of the reader to create suspense for the story in
the subsequent pages. This suspense helps to create plot momentum.
Thoughts
“you’ll either / want to be my
friend / or not”
Reynolds has Will reveal that the story he is “about to tell” will have a dramac impact
on readers. Although Will seems to be friendly and open, he acknowledges that the
story may cause people to reject him. This dichotomy of either/or extends the central
conict and begins to foreshadow a theme of the novel regarding choice and
consequences.
Thoughts
“Either way, / you’ll know me /
know me”
Reynolds concludes this poem by repeang both the core idea of choice: “either way”
and knowledge: “you’ll know me.” Reynolds invites readers to consider that the book
will have a crical choice at its heart, a choice that has more to do with readers then
with the characters.
Once you have led students in modeling an analysis of the rst poem and its signicance in revealing character, conict, theme, and iniang the plot, transion to the rest of
secon one to extend the lesson on characterizaon.
STUDENT WORKSHOP: In groups, assign or have students select one of the following characters to analyze in secon one (pages 1-70). Have each character group complete a
Character Analysis Graphic Organizer (below and Google Doc HERE) or record on butcher paper, their analysis to help develop their skills in character analysis, cing evidence,
and exploring how characterizaon aects plot and theme. You may wish to direct students to parcular poems for each character to help scaold their analysis.
Will
Shawn
Tony
Riggs
Mom
Lecia
“I’m Only William” (3)
“I’m Not Sure” (20)
“I Felt Like Crying” (30)
“Our Bedroom: A Square,
Yellowy Paint” (36)
“It Used to Be Dierent”
(43)
“And When I Was
Thirteen” (44)
“Now the Cologne” (46)
“A Penny Drop” (53)
“But I Also Feel Guilty” (62)
“Our Bedroom: A Square,
Yellowy Paint” (36)
“I Won’t Pretend that
Shawn” (39)
“My Mother Used to Say”
(40)
“A Penny Drop” (53)
“The Yellow Light” (69)
“The Day Before
Yesterday” (9)
“Aer the Shots” (11)
“In Case You Ain’t
Know” (19)
“A Penny Drop” (53)
“Which Brings Me to
Carlson Riggs” (50)
“People Said Riggs”
(51)
“Riggs and Shawn
Were So-Called
Friends, But” (52)
“Reasons I Thought
(Knew) Riggs Killed
Shawn” (55)
“The Plan” (67)
“And My Mom” (16)
“In That Bag” (25)
“Back on the Eighth
Floor” (29)
“My Mother Used to
Say” (40)
“In the Kitchen” (68)
“Things That Always
Happen Whenever
Someone Is Killed
Around Here” (14)
“I Won’t Pretend That
Shawn” (39)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 6
CHARACTER ANALYSIS GRAPHIC ORGANIZER (LONG WAY DOWN)
Character Detail: record a key feature
of the character as revealed in the
text
Quoted evidence and page
number
Method of characterizaon
(STEAL)
Signicance of detail to character (the selected character or
another character), plot, or theme.
EXAMPLE:
Will looks up to Shawn as a role
model
“he was the king / around here”
(54)
Character’s thoughts
This detail reveals that Shawn’s acons and approval are very
important to Will, helping readers understand why Will feels
the need to defend Shawn by seeking revenge for his killing.
Once groups have nished their character analyses, use the "double jigsaw” protocol #18 (Google Doc HERE) for students to share their insights into character. Each new group
should have at least one person from each original character group. Have each student complete a “Characterizaon Crosswalk” (Long Way Down) to record deeper insights
into other characters learned about during conversaons in the jigsaws.
CHARACTER CROSSWALK
Character
Three key details/facts/traits about the
character
What movates this character? What is important to
him or her?
What object (either from the text or one that
you create) best represents this character?
Will
Shawn
Tony
Riggs
Mom
Lecia
Once students have completed their crosswalks, foster a discussion in which you explore the character insights, draw inferences about theme, and make predicons about plot
and character development for the rest of the novel.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 7
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: NARRATIVE WRITING Take a few minutes to summarize the acvies. Have students open their spiral/digital notebooks to record
their response to the following prompt:
In an earlier lesson, we explored how reading literature helps us develop empathy and cooperaon by allowing us to enter the mind of someone else “from the inside.”
Choose one of the characters we focused on in this lesson that you were drawn to in some way. Perhaps you idened with him or her, perhaps you were angered or annoyed
with a choice that he or she made, or perhaps you were confused by why they behaved in some way or held certain beliefs. Write a short narrave poem or prose piece from
either that character’s perspecve or create a narrave in which you have a conversaon with the character discussing a central feature of his or her character. Be sure to
weave in specic details from the text that reveal your understanding of the character. Choose an exisng tle from one of the poems in Part One (pages 1-70) as the tle for
your piece.
As students work on this creave reecon, give feedback in real me via shared digital doc and/or circulate through the room conversing about the wring. Invite two to
three students to share their pieces or secons of their pieces in the last few minutes of class. [See Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kile’s workshop structure in 180 Days: Two
Teachers and The Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents (2018) in which they close each class with the sharing of students’ “beauful words” (43).]
You may collect this or assess it during a reading/wring workshop me on another day or during a reading/wring conference looking for student’s ability to understand the
character they chose and to use or parody narrave/poec techniques to develop characters.
For example:
Original poem
Text connecons
MY NAME IS
Riggs.
Carlson Riggs.
But don’t call me Carlson,
unless you want to get
more than this bark
in your neck.
My back of bone
was steeled in the
Dark Sun,
forged by my
block boys
who knocked
s the so of
my mother’s dream.
For me, she made
me wheel, hoping I would
never drop, but
drop I did.
Only no one knows
the worst thing I did,
how far I dropped,
or who.
Title of poem on page 2
Similar to opening of “My Name Is”
Uses same method of direct address as in “My Name Is” (2)
“He wanted to join so he / wouldn’t be looked at like / all bark no more” (55)
“could have a backbone built for him” (55)
“where the Dark Suns / hang and be wild” (55)
“so as his rst name” (50)
“when you wear ghts and know how / to do a cartwheel” (51)
“the best thing he ever did for Shawn / was teach him how to do a Penny Drop” (52)
“The worst thing he ever did for Shawn / was shoot him” (52)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 8
SAMPLE LESSON 3
Prior to Lesson: Students should through Floor Five: Pages 1-192.
This lesson aligns to Ohio ELA Standards RL.9-10.1, RL.9-10.2, and RL.9-10.4. Students will be engaging in the close reading and analysis of several poems with a parcular focus
on gurave language and drawing conclusions about the cumulave impact of images/symbolism to convey character, conict, and theme.
THE LOST TOOTH: IMAGE AS SYMBOL, PART ONE, LESSONS A & B (ONE TO TWO DAYS)
LESSON A
MINI-LESSON: This lesson focuses on how writers use images to introduce and develop symbolism.
Step One Ask students to write a short reecon in their spiral/digital notebooks about symbolism. Ask them to dene “symbol,” provide an example of a symbol (personal,
cultural, naonal, or universal), and then ask them to write a paragraph about why symbolism can be dicult to understand in poetry. Consider posng the following Excerpt
from Thomas Foster’s How to Read Poetry Like a Professor (2018) as a starng point. You may wish to ask students to respond to one or more of the claims in Foster’s saric
“proof” with evidence from their own reading experiences to support, challenge, or qualify Foster’s claims.
From Chapter Twelve: Images Symbols, and Their Friends Thomas Foster’s How to Read Poetry Like a Professor (2018)
When people say they don't like poetry, this is almost certainly the part they mean. It makes your head hurt. It gives me a pain in the neck. There’s a near-
universal response that can be wrien as a proof:
1. Poems contain symbols;
2. Therefore, symbols are poems;
3. Poets put symbols into their poems;
4. Symbols are confusing;
5. Therefore, poets want their poems to be confusing;
6. Alternavely, teachers invent symbols that aren’t really there;
7. Symbols are confusing;
8. Therefore teachers use “symbols” to confuse and control students;
9. Symbols give me a headache and make me feel inadequate;
10. Therefore, I hate symbols;
11. Therefore, I hate poetry. (138)
Step Two Have students pair up to share their responses and then share out to the class as a whole. Using a projected shared Google doc, document projector, or white board,
take notes of student denions, examples, and responses.
Step Three Introduce the formal denion of symbol and then explore the dicules in not just idenfying symbols but understanding their range of meanings. Foster denes a
symbol as “an object or acon or phrase that stands for something beyond itself” (145). Foster acknowledges the diculty lies in that “‘something’ isn’t one and only one ‘thing’”
(145). He cauons readers to recognize that “things in literature are rst of all, their literal selves. A frog is a frog [….] So let’s remember always to acknowledge that the tulip is
indeed a tulip before we go running o to assert that it’s really a fairy” (139). Advise students to begin always with the literal meaning of poems: what the words actually say and
what kind of literal experience they convey. Then explore how certain words and phrases invite readers to explore the “small constellaon of possible meanings” (Foster 146).
Direct students to trust their insncts but keep the range of meaning tethered to the world of the poem.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 9
WORKSHOP: Next, read the poem “Summer Apples” by Cathryn Essinger (Google Doc HERE) out loud to the students as they follow along with the text. Then have them work in
small groups of two or three students on the “Summer Apples” Inial Analysis Chart (below and Google Doc HERE). Emphasize to students that this lesson will help them master
RL.9-10.4 in which students will determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including gurave and connotave meanings; analyze the cumulave
impact of specic word choices on meaning and tone. You may wish to model a “think aloud” in arriving at an eecve paraphrase for the sentences in the poem. Note that the
nal sentence is very dicult to paraphrase. Warn students of this challenge and encourage them to “struggle” with the text here as a way to build resiliency in reading.
Emphasize the importance of uncertainty in poetry: it is ok and at mes even desirable to not fully comprehend a complex text, especially in the inial reading.
POEM
PARAPHRASING
Put poem sentences into your own words.
(Note: you will have four sentences. A good paraphrase
maintains the point of view and tense of the original but
varies the word choice and sentence structure without
leaving any details out. It should be equal to or longer
than the original text.)
NOTICING/INFERENCING/WONDERING
Take note on what surprised you about the secon
nong inferences, confusions, or quesons you may
have.
Summer Apples
I planted an apple tree in memory
of my mother, who is not gone,
but whose memory has become
so transparent that she remembers
slicing apples with her grandmother
(yellow apples; blue bowl) beer than
the fruit that I hand her today. Sll,
she polishes the surface with her thumb,
holds it to the light and says with no
hesitaon, Oh, Yellow Transparent . . .
they're so fragile, you can almost see
to the core. She no longer remembers how
to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but
her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants.
And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core—
to that lile cathedral to memory—where
the seeds remember everything they need
to know to become yellow and transparent.
For example:
Sentence one: I give my mother fruit today but she
doesn’t remember because her memory is rooted
in the past, a past in which she and her mother
sliced yellow apples that were in a blue bowl; I
planted an apple tree to represent my love for my
mother and the legacy of her life even though she
is sll alive.
Sentence two: My mother (either today when I
handed her fruit or in her memory with her
mother) rubs the skin of the apple with her thumb
examining the fruit and remarks that the skin is so
thin and delicate it appears to be so see-through
that one can see to its center.
Sentence three: My mother has forgoen the
mulple steps and skills required to make a pie
crust and fruit lling, but she is aware that she
wants a pie and knows what it feels like to want
something.
Sentence four: Therefore, I carefully cut near to the
center, which is an elaborate church that
celebrates remembering, a place where the
sources of life remember what is necessary so that
they can transform and develop—they may nally
be brightly colored and seen through.
Example response:
I was surprised that the speaker planted a tree in
memory of her mother even though her mother is sll
alive. I guess the speaker has already begun to miss her
mother, and in some way is experiencing grief and
mourning for her mother because usually, when we do
something “in memory” of someone, it is to honor and
remember that person and help us come to terms with
their loss.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 10
Aer students have spent some me working through the text, structure the sharing of their insights by asking each member of the group to share at least one component of
their work:
• a paraphrase (one student can read the group’s paraphrase, another can discuss why they chose a certain word, or why they structured their sentence in the way that
they did)
• an observaon about where the text was easier and where it was more dicult to paraphrase and explore the reasons for this variability
• a queson they had or confusion they experienced
• an inference or insight gained through the paraphrasing acvity
• a surprise or insight into the text
Take and model class notes on a shared copy of the poem projected to the class. (A blank copy of the “Summer Apples” Inial Analysis Chart can be found HERE.) Have
students add to their own annotaons as you work through the poem together.
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT/EXIT TICKET: As a concluding acvity, ask students to write in their spiral/digital notebooks or complete an exit cket (possibly through
Google Classroom) in which they idenfy a symbol in the poem “Summer Apples.” Ask them to idenfy the symbol and discuss at least two details in the poem that led them to
infer that the meaning of the word, phrase, or acon means something beyond its literal meaning. Ask them to conclude with a discussion of the possible meaning of the symbol.
(You may wish to dierenate this task by increasing the range of associaons, the number of supporng details, or the number of symbols to challenge and extend the
assessment for gied students.)
LESSON B
MINI-LESSON: Going deeper into image: when does an image become a symbol? This mini-lesson is designed to help students recognize the mulple meanings of words and
phrases within a poem and how writers use language to invite this range of meaning. Lead students through an analysis of the poem by direcng them to focus on the physical
reality of certain details in the poem (the images) and then to explore the possible connotaons of these images. Advise them to include their reasoning, an explanaon of what
warrants their gurave inferences. Below is a Poem Organizer (Google Doc HERE) with several examples to help scaold the analysis. You may wish to lead students through
this analysis or have students work together on one or two bolded phrases of their choice. (The Poem Organizer contains a blank organizer and a completed one.)
POEM
LITERAL MEANING OF PHRASE
FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE MEANING
OF PHRASE
REASONING
Summer Apples
I planted an apple tree in memory
of my mother, who is not gone,
but whose memory has become
so transparent that she remembers
slicing apples with her grandmother
(yellow apples; blue bowl) beer than
the fruit that I hand her today. Sll,
Apple trees in the summer
The speaker has physically
planted a real apple tree
The mother uses her thumb to
Summerme is suggesve of growth,
ferlity, and maturaon.
The line break invites a more gurave
understanding of this image. We
mentally pause at the line break to
consider what it might mean to plant a
tree in memory. We can’t literally plant a
tree in memory, so this image may be
suggesve of the speaker’s love for and
desire to remain united with her mother.
The word “polish” is suggesve of ne
Flowers turn into fruits and ripen
throughout the summer.
The expression “to plant something in
one’s memory” usually means that one
wants the memory to be permanent.
Also, while this tree is likely planted in
the speaker’s yard, because she
connects the tree to her mother and her
memory, one cannot help but think of a
family tree, the tradional symbol of the
relaonships between the generaons
in one’s ancestry. People create family
trees to remember those who came
before them.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 11
she polishes the surface with her thumb,
holds it to the light and says with no
hesitaon, Oh, Yellow Transparent . . .
they're so fragile, you can almost see
to the core. She no longer remembers how
to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but
her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants.
And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core—
to that lile cathedral to memory—where
the seeds remember everything they need
to know to become yellow and transparent.
rub and clean the skin of the
apple.
Yellow Transparent is a real apple
variety known for its light color
and thin skin.
The speaker compares the core of
an apple to a cathedral. This
metaphor draws on the physical
image of an apple core, the more
brous core esh that
geometrically creates lile
shelters or rooms within which
the seeds are protected. This
image calls to mind the internal
and external structural members
of a cathedral which surround the
heart of the church: the altar.
metals, jewels, and treasure. The mother
treats the apple as if it were precious.
The word “transparent” appears three
mes in the poem (in addion to the
word “clear,” a common synonym),
which suggests that the meaning is more
than literal. Essinger compares memory
to the skin of an apple to suggest not
only its fragility but also its ability to
connect us to our pasts, the experiences
that created the core of our idenes
and relaonships.
Essinger suggests that this apple--its skin,
esh, and seeds—are symbolic of a holy
object or personage—the core of which is
the church within or throne upon which
our memory presides. Like a bishop,
priest, or other spiritual leader, our
memories help us understand where we
have come from and why we are here;
they unite us with the mysteries of
creaon.
We usually polish silver, gold, and
gemstones to bring out their value and
beauty.
“Transparent” means clear or being so
thin as to allow light to pass through it.
Etymologically, the word means to
appear across. These denions
combined with its repeon in the
poem deepen its signicance. We
usually repeat words or phrases that we
want to emphasize. Also, poets care a
lot about words, their meanings, and
their roots, so it makes sense that
Essinger would draw on the mulple
meanings and roots of this word in her
poem.
A cathedral is an elaborate church
designed as the principle center of
worship for a diocese. Combing this
detail with the earlier image of the
speaker handing fruit to her mother,
calls to mind the act of communion, the
process by with Chrisans enact the
spiritual union with Christ. Alluding to
established Chrisan symbolism within
the poem, Essinger wants the reader to
consider the parallels between Chrisan
communion and familial communion.
WORKSHOP: Aer processing the analysis with students, ask them to discuss the signicance of the apple variety chosen for the poem. What details about its name, culture, and
characteriscs invited a more symbolic understanding of its physical presence in the poem? How would the poem’s meaning have changed if Essenger had chosen a dierent
apple variety, or even a dierent kind of fruit? These quesons should help students to appreciate the importance of specic details and their power of suggeson. Then have
students either work individually or in small groups of no more than three students to complete the following tasks:
Step One Have students use this Apple Variees page to complete the Apple Variety Symbolism Chart (below and Google Doc HERE) to brainstorm possible connotaons
implied by the names and descripons. Alternately, they can research the Apple Variees page on their own and choose variees to list descripons and connotaons for in a
chart that they make in the spiral/digital notebooks.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 12
Apple Variety
Descripon (excerpted from Apple Variees page)
Connotaons
Autumn Gold
Bright red blush over yellow-green. Keeps beer than Golden
Delicious.
Ballarat Seedling
Large, green with red blush. Coarse, hard esh. Subacid. Winter
keeper, keeping several months without refrigeraon. Excellent
cooking apple.
Black Oxford
Round deep purple fruit with a black bloom.
Chivers Delight
Delighul, easy-going apple, sweet, juicy, crunchy - and some
aromac qualies
Goof
A round, medium sized apple, pale green overlaid with deep
purplish-red, and faint yellow streaks. White esh is crisp, juicy
and moderately subacid.
King Luscious
Very large apple. Streaky, somewhat dull red over yellow green.
Yellowish-white, ne-grained, crisp and juicy esh.
New Rock Pippen
An old English late-season dessert apple variety originang
from Cambridgeshire. Highly regarded by 19th century writers
for its dry rm esh and rich avour and hint of anise.
Pixie Crunch
Small, sweet avored, crisp and juicy apple. Greenish-yellow
base color with 90-100% red-purple overcolor.
Sweet Sixteen
Large, red striped fruit. Firm, crisp, aromac esh. Moderately
acidic.
William’s Pride
Fruit is medium in size and slightly conic in shape with a rich
aromac avor. Apples are 70-80% red with excellent eang
quality.
Step Two Instruct students to select one of the variees from their chart or list whose name and/or characteriscs makes them think of a parcular person (self, friend, relave,
or famous person) and write a paragraph in which they explain how the apple represents that person.
Step Three Now have students work individually in transforming their paragraph into a poem that centers on the symbol of the apple to communicate their atude toward the
person they believe the apple represents. Encourage them to think of a moment or scenario in which an apple is both an image—it physically exists in the poem—and a symbol—
its meaning casts beyond its literal presence. There are several professional models to use to help students with this task including Peter Heller’s “Apples,” Donald Hall’s “White
Apples,” Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Apple Orchard,” Grace Shulman’s “Apples,” George Bradley’s “August in the Apple Orchard,” Robert Frost’s “Aer Apple Picking,” and John
Bradley’s “Chernobyl Apples.” Below is a teacher example of steps two and three and can be found on a Google Doc HERE.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 13
Step Two: Reect on person and symbol
Step Three: Transform prose to poem
The apple Autumn Gold makes me think of my father. He is 83
years old, a fact that reminds me of the characterisc “keeps
beer than Golden Delicious.” He has lived a long, full life and I
am grateful for my connued relaonship with him as he
remains a source of guidance, a model of integrity, and my
foundaon in love. This past year he has undergone heart
surgery and is slowly but determinedly recovering. Seeing him
navigate among these changing circumstances in his life while
maintaining his spirit of curiosity and humility has deepened my
appreciaon and love for him. As he comes to terms with the
limitaons of his body and lifespan, he sll teaches me what it
means to never stop growing and learning. Like the apple’s
name Autumn Gold, my father’s legacy is one that connues to
ripen and increase in value.
Autumn Gold
No maer what me of year it was,
there were always apples in the house,
usually in a wooden bowl on the kitchen table.
And now, in early summer, well before the
apples in my orchard blush into ripeness on their limbs,
now, when they are ghng with Wooly Aphids,
Codling Moths, and Redbanded Leafrollers for their
survival, their kin delivered from other states
shine in full splendor in my house.
When I last saw you, just freed from the hospital
with a stack of scripts to ll in your hand,
I drove you home and made a shopping list
to ll the fridge and cabinets with health
to ease the pressure on your heart.
And mine.
I carried in the groceries—salmon, blueberries, broccoli—
along with the Warfarin, Lasix, Amiodarone,
and saw the apples on the table, Autumn Gold,
sll there, here, keeping beer than we thought.
Step Four: Have students meet in small wring groups to share their dras and give and receive feedback on the use of their central image. To support students in this process,
students can consider these quesons: Can the central image be determined by the group? Is it’s symbolism clear? Does the language used in the poem make you go WOW in a
good way, or WHAT in a bad way? Have students revise to make the central image/symbolism clear and language produce a WOW eect.
Step Five: Conclude class with a symphony round in which each student shares at least one phrase, line, or secon from their dra to the class as a whole. Have students
acknowledge each other’s contribuon with snaps, oohs, ahs, or some other small signal of community appreciaon.
Extension Step: Have students use feedback to revise dras for submission to electronic wring porolio to share, publish, and assess at a later date. Consider having the
students enter their poems into a contest, such as Ohio Poetry Associaon’s High School Contest.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 14
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Have students read the poem “Scrapple” by Afaa Michael Weaver (Google Doc HERE) and write a response in which they explain the
signicance of scrapple in the poem. Explain to students that scrapple is a mush made of pork scraps and cornmeal and/or wheat our that is usually fried and served as a
breakfast food.
PROMPT: What does scrapple come to symbolize about the speaker and his family in the poem? What qualies of the food item reect qualies of the speaker’s family? What is
the cumulave impact of food images/symbolism? In your response, cite and explain at least three details that develop the scrapple/food symbols in the poem. Determine the
speaker’s atude toward his family and support that determinaon with evidence from the text.
You may collect this or have students share it electronically for assessing during a reading/wring workshop on another day or during a reading/wring conference and have
them add it to their electronic wring porolio. Assessments should look for
THE LOST TOOTH: IMAGE AS SYMBOL, PART TWO (TWO TO THREE DAYS)
GUIDING LESSON: Begin by reviewing the denion of image (picture that is evoked in your mind when you perceive a parcular combinaon of words) and symbol (any image
or thing that stands for something else) and then introduce the poems “The Sadness” on page six and “A Noise form the Hallway” on page 60. In these poems we see Reynolds
creang a symbol in one poem and then developing the range of meanings of that symbol in the second poem. Aer reading the poems out loud, have students work in small
groups of two or three students on the analysis quesons below (Google Doc HERE). Emphasize to students that this lesson will help them to master the RL.9-10.4 in which asks
students to determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including gurave and connotave meanings; and analyze the cumulave impact of
specic word choices on meaning and tone.
Text-Dependent Quesons for Analysis of “The Sadness”
1. One common poec technique is called enjambment in which poets extend a sentence beyond a line or stanza of poetry by running it over to the next line or stanza
without end punctuaon. When poets enjamb their lines, readers should not pause at the end of lines but connue reading on to the next to complete the thought.
However, the physical separaon the enjambment creates through the empty “white space” on the page serves to mentally isolate the words of each line and
complicate their relaonship. Reynolds oen uses this technique most notably seen in his use of tles. Why would Reynolds want to create this barrier, this mental
separaon by enjambing the tle into the rst sentence? In other words, why might he want to isolate the words “the sadness” from the rest of the sentence? How is
such a separaon related to the experience of sadness in general?
2. Reynolds describes quite graphically the experience of having one’s tooth ripped out by a stranger. Noce the muscularity of his words. Note at least three acve verbs
that help to convey the physically assaulng nature of this experience.
3. Why does Reynolds describe the assault occurring in the night by a stranger? How do these details help to convey Will’s experience of losing his brother?
4. What other words in addion to “stranger” help to convey the mysterious nature of this comparison? What other details about Shawn’s murder that we learn
elsewhere in the novel does this paern of vague or mysterious language call to mind?
5. What details in the poem emphasize the symbolic signicance of the tooth? How do they help us understand that the tooth is symbolic? What might this tooth
symbolize? Which detail do you think is the most important in helping you narrow your answer?
6. Why does the speaker claim that the feeling of the missing tooth is actually worse that the pain of its extracon? What is the dierence in each of these kinds of pain?
What details in the poem help to clarify the dierences in these forms of suering?
7. Noce the dramac enjambment of the last three lines of the poem. Reynolds not only enjambs the lines, but dramazes the enjambment by creang extra space
between the lines. How do these line spacing choices contribute to the theme of the poem? For support, students may use this Theme Guidance from the ODE and/or
this “The only way you will ever need to teach theme” video.
8. The word “sadness” is a rather general abstract noun. In fact, it is the most abstract word in the poem. Why is it so “hard to explain” abstracons? (If you need a
refresher on the dierence between abstract and concrete nouns, check out this short Khan Academy video explaining the dierence with special aenon to the word
“sadness”.)
9. What part of the poem did you nd the most moving or eecve? Why?
10. Condense the poem into six-words using words from the poem. For example: Sadness is hard: someone no more.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 15
Text-Dependent Quesons for Analysis of “A Noise From the Hallway”
Part one of the novel includes poems that help us understand the hours between Will’s discovery of his brother’s death and his plan to enact revenge by taking his brother’s gun
and entering the elevator in search of Riggs. We gain insight into his trauma and the thinking process that his memories and feelings aect in many of these poems. We
gradually begin to see a portrait of a young man tortured by grief and twisted by moral anguish; he is struggling to follow “the rules” he has been taught, but is terrorized by the
their implicaons.
1. How does Will’s mother respond to her son’s murder? How is her response similar to and dierent from Will’s? What role do “the rules” play in their dierent
responses? What details in this poem show how Will and his mother are responding to Shawn’s death?
2. Unlike most of the poems in this novel, the tle of this poem is not enjambed into the rst sentence. Furthermore, the rst stanza is a rhetorical fragment, lacking
grammacal compleon. The isolated details conveyed in the tle and the rst stanza help to convey Will’s edginess. How so? How do these fragmented details help us
enter Will’s mind? Why does it make sense that Will is nervous?
3. Reynolds describes Will’s mother “stumbling” to the bathroom. Certainly if we wake up suddenly in the night and walk in the dark, we might stumble. What other
connotaons does this word have within the context of the poem? How else is Will’s mother “stumbling”?
4. Reynolds complicates the image of Will’s mother walking to the bathroom by personifying the act of crying. He describes “her sobs leading the way.” What is Reynolds
suggesng about Will’s mother by suggesng that she is not leading herself, that her tears are the leader? How does this technique help to show Will’s mother’s
powerlessness? How does this detail contrast with Will? Which “rule” does it magnify?
5. Noce that once Will recognizes that the noise in the hallway is coming from his mother, he turns out the light. Why does he do this? How does this acon further
develop his sense of isolaon?
6. Noce that there is only one verb in the poem: “slapped” but many verbals, especially adjecval present parciples (verbs ending in -ing that funcon as adjecves).
These parciples convey images of acon: “stumbling,” “leading,” “dropping,” “pushing,” but lack the more vigorous force of true verbs. Why might Reynolds prefer to
render acon as descripon rather than as force in this poem? How is Will’s behavior that of inacon? Why does it make sense that acon be suspended at this point in
the story?
7. Why does Will push the gun under his pillow? What does this acon suggest about his atude toward the handling of the gun?
8. The nal line of the poem contains an evocave simile; Reynolds compares the gun to a “lost tooth.” Taken within the context of this poem alone, explain the
appropriateness of the comparison.
9. This image of the lost tooth, however, is not limited to this poem alone. It calls to mind “The Sadness.” How has the image changed meaning in this poem?
10. The lost tooth in “The Sadness” has to do with the terror and grief of losing a loved one. In “A Noise From the Hallway” it has to do with a “pistol.” Why does Reynolds
connect these two associaons? If the tooth represented Shawn in the rst poem and now represents Shawn’s gun, what might Reynolds be suggesng about the
relaonship between mourning and violence? Which “rule” does this relaonship illustrate?
11. What part of the poem did you nd the most moving or eecve? Why?
12. Condense the relaonship between “The Sadness” and “A Noise From the Hallway” into six-words using words from both poems. For example: Imagine the worst part:
darkness dropping.
WORKSHOP
Once students have analyzed the relaonship between the two example poems in the Guiding Lesson and have shared answers with the class as a whole, introduce the List of
Symbols in Long Way Down (below or Google Doc HERE) that Reynolds develops from pages 1-192. Alternavely, you could have them brainstorm their own list. Have them
locate poems or select two (or more) poems from the List of Symbols in Long Way Down that feature a symbol and work in small groups unpacking the details that reveal how
Reynolds is developing and complicang the meaning of the symbol through its repeated use. Have them look back at the quesons in the Guiding Lesson to get analysis ideas.
Have students complete the Symbol Comparison in Long Way Down graphic organizer (below and Google Doc HERE) digitally or post on butcher paper their analysis and then
share out with the class. Alternavely, you could have the students complete a gallery walk or carousel in which each staon has a group’s completed Symbol Comparison in
Long Way Down graphic organizer on a shared electronic document or on large paper. At each staon, vising groups would take notes and provide feedback for each group’s
analysis.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 16
List of Symbols in Long Way Down (pages 1-192)
The Middle
Drawer
Tupac and
Biggie
Gold Chain
Cologne
The Elevator
The L Buon
Monkey
Bars
Cigaree
Smoke
Shawn’s
Gun
Penny
Drop
“The Middle
Drawer” (38)
“So Usually”
(41)
“Suddenly”
(47)
“The Middle
Drawer Called
to Me” (48)
“The Elevator
Rumbled” (96)
“Our
Bedroom: A
Square,
Yellowy Paint”
(36)
My Mother
Used to Say”
(40)
“It Used To Be
Dierent.”
(43)
“I Stood
There,” (22)
“Beef” (27)
“A Guy Got
On,” (74)
“There Are”
(159)
“So Usually”
(41)
“And When I
Was Thirteen”
(44)
“Now the
Cologne” (46)
“At the
Elevator” (70)
“There’s a
Strange Thing”
(73)
“The Elevator
Rumbled” (96)
“The Elevator,”
(149)
“A Guy Got On”
(74)
“L Stood for
‘Loser’” (75)
“You Got Work
To Do” (101)
“She Checked
To Make Sure”
(111)
“From Where?”
(124)
“Me and My
Friend Dani”
(127)
“Gunshots”
(131)
“A Girl Stepped
In “ (110)
“I Didn’t Know”
(112)
“I Joined In”
(116)
“I Looked Back at
Buck” (145)
“Buck Oered,”
(146)
“The Elevator,”
(149)
“Cigaree
Smoke” (150)
“I Fanned and
Coughed,” (151)
“There Are” (159)
“Meanwhile”
(191)
“The Middle
Drawer” (38)
“The Middle
Drawer Called
to Me” (48)
“Nickname”
(49)
“I Had Never
Held a Gun”
(59)
“A Noise From
the Hallway”
(60)
“I Wrapped My
Fingers” (64)
“Catching My
Breath, I
Asked,” (89)
“Riggs and
Shawn Were
So-Called
Friends, But”
(52)
“A Penny
Drop” (53)
I Wrapped My
Fingers” (64)
Symbol Comparison in Long Way Down
SYMBOL:
POEM ONE TITLE:
POEM TWO TITLE:
Summarize the poem in two to three
sentences.
Cite the words, phrases, lines or
sentences that feature the symbol.
What are the possible meanings of the
symbol in the poem? Describe at least
two possible meaning.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 17
Explain your reasoning for your
interpretaon, why you believe the
object means more than itself.
What other techniques does Reynolds
use in the poem that help highlight the
signicance of the symbol? Idenfy and
cite least one (consider the following
techniques: imagery, gurave devices, sound
devices, sentence or grammar elements, word
order, spacing, enjambment, and repeon).
Explain how the use of this device
contributes to your understanding of
the symbol.
Discuss how the meaning of the symbol
changes from the rst poem to the
second.
What larger theme of the novel as a
whole does this symbol help to convey
and develop?
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Take a few minutes to summarize the acvies. Then have students read the poems “In That Bag” (25), “In the Kitchen” (68), “My Pop”
(198) and “Is It Possible”(199). Have them write a response to the following prompt in their spiral/digital notebooks or Google Classroom Assignment as an exit cket or
formave assessment to the lesson.
Prompt: These poems [“In That Bag” (25), “In the Kitchen” (68), “My Pop” (198) and “Is It Possible”(199)]all make reference to the skin condion of eczema. [Note: the poem
“My Pop” does not make explicit menon of eczema but is helpful in understanding its use in “Is It Possible.”] At rst we might conclude that this detail is only signicant in
explaining why Shawn had to go to the store to buy “special soap.” However, Reynolds returns to this image several mes in the novel, and in each occurrence the meaning
slightly changes. How does the meaning of eczema change from its inial presence in “In That Bag,” to “In the Kitchen” and nally in “Is it Possible”? What is the cumulave
impact of these references to/images of the skin condion of eczema on the overall meaning in Long Way Down? Cite specic details from each poem to support your answer to
the prompt.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 18
SAMPLE LESSON 4
Prior to Lesson: Students should reread poems “Our Bedroom: A Square Yellowy Paint” (36), “Anagram” (37), “Confessed” (295), “Anagram No. 1” (88), “Anagram No. 2” (137),
“Anagram No. 3” (169), and “Anagram No. 4” (188) and read through secon three up through page 278.
This lesson aligns to Ohio ELA Standards RL.9-10.1-4 and W. 9-10.3 Students will be engaging in the close reading and analysis of several poems with a parcular focus on
language, and drawing conclusions about its impact on character, conict, and theme.
LIKE BROTHERS: ANAGRAMS AND CHARACTER (TWO TO THREE DAYS)
MINI-LESSON: Begin class by reading out loud “Our Bedroom: A Square Yellowy Paint” (36) and “Anagram” (37) as students follow along in their texts. Ask students to share what
they know about anagrams. Have them write down in their spiral/digital notebooks the denion of anagram and one or two examples. Then lead a discussion in which students
explore the following quesons:
1. How are the words “ocean” and “canoe” “somehow connected”?
2. How are the words “scare” and “cares” connected?
3. How are anagrams “like brothers”?
4. What does the choice of wall decoraons reveal about the values and personalies of Will and Shawn?
5. How are the posters of Biggie and Tupac related to Will’s anagram of “SCARE = CARES”?
6. Who is more like an ocean and who is more like a canoe, Will or Shawn? Why?
WORKSHOP: Using Reynold’s anagram poems as exemplars [“Our Bedroom: A Square Yellowy Paint” (36), “Anagram” (37), “Confessed” (295), “Anagram No. 1” (88), “Anagram
No. 2” (137), “Anagram No. 3” (169), and “Anagram No. 4” (188)], have students compose their own poems using an anagram as the themac heart First, have them brainstorm
possible anagrams or use this Anagram Generator. Model using the generator by plugging in some of your interests and some abstract words. Encourage them to write about
themselves or their understanding of a close friend or family member. Below is an example of both the brainstorming and a resulng poem (Google Doc HERE).
When you give students me to write their poems, write alongside them so students may see you model the wring and thinking processes in real me.
Anagram Brainstorm
Teacher Model
teacher
cheater
Cheaters
This summer solsce
I watch my neighbors leave in the dawn,
gripping coee and courage
to meet the workday requirements all over again.
I slowly turn from the window,
sll enslippered. No urgency
at all. Cosiest.
Having not even set the alarm
the night before, no intenons
of seng it this night,
I feel guilty at my lax, somehow
sll undeserving of all this lawlessness.
TEACHERS = CHEATERS
garden
danger
cat
act
love
vole
escape
peaces
rules
lures
wring
grit win
At the close of the workshop me, invite students to share their poems or—minimally—their central governing anagrams. Those who don’t share their whole poems should be
prepared to explain how their anagram reveals a key insight about the character they focus on in their poem.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 19
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: As a closing acvity, ask students write a response to the following prompt in their spiral/digital notebooks or Google Classroom
Assignment as an exit cket or formave assessment to the lesson. Let them know that they are working on both RL.9-10.3 and RL.9-10.4 because they are looking closely at
how authors use anagrams as characterizaon.
Prompt: Dene the term anagram, and then provide either your own example, or one that was shared in the class that provides an example of the literary use of the term.
Idenfy the anagram and explain how it not only meets the denion of the term but also reveals a key insight about character.
LIKE BROTHERS: PART TWO
MINI-LESSON: Part Two of the lesson is designed to help students understand how Reynolds uses anagrams not only to convey Will’s creave temperament, but also as a
structural device through which he develops other characters, conicts, and themes.
Step One One of the most important poems in the novel occurs near its conclusion when Will arculates his central conict, a conict that controls the plot and the resoluon
of the work as a whole. Have students read the poem “Confessed” (295) and discuss the nature of this conict. Since this is in a secon of the novel they may not have read yet,
you will want them to read it at least twice.
Step Two Have students reread the poems within secon seven (pages 73 to 106) and answer the following quesons. You may lead the class in a whole-group invesgaon of
the quesons or assign small study groups focusing on one queson each. Be sure to have all students explore the culminang queson. You can nd a Google Doc of the
Quesons and Graphic Organizer for the Culminang Queson HERE.
1. Will doesn’t immediately recognize who Buck is or that he is a ghost. Cite evidence from several of the poems that reveal Will’s ignorance.
2. When does Will realize who Buck is, what detail helps convince him of Buck’s identy? What is ironic about this detail? Discuss several ways in which this detail may be
read ironically.
3. Likewise, Will is reluctant to accept that he is talking to a ghost. Cite details from at least two poems that reveal Will’s inner struggle to accept the existence of Buck’s
ghost. How is this inner struggle similar to the larger struggle Will faces?
4. When Will begins to accept the reality of Buck’s ghost, he then considers the possible dangers of Buck’s ghost’s movaons. Will imagines that Buck may be present to kill
him. Cite evidence for this interpretaon from at least two poems.
5. Buck’s character is largely responsible for not only reinforcing the power and danger of The Rules but also encouraging Will to follow them. How does he serve as a role
model and cauonary tale for the implicaon of following the rules? Cite specic examples from more than one poem to illustrate how Buck serves both funcons.
Culminang Queson: The numbered anagram poems coincide not only with the elevator oors but also with the roles and funcons of the ghosts. How does “Anagram No. 1”
(88) illustrate the central subject of the secon, a key quality or funcon of the ghost in the secon, a conict, and a developing theme?
Teachers may use or adapt the following example organizer to clarify the demands of the culminang queson:
ANAGRAM ANALYSIS ORGANIZER Example
Central Anagram:
ALIVE = A VEIL
Elevator oor:
Seven
Central Ghost:
Buck
Analysis focus quesons
Answers: Highlight terms of the anagram that you include in your
response.
Evidence for answers
How does the anagram reveal
the central subject of this
secon?
An important development in this secon of the novel is the
introducon of the elevator as the room within which ghosts
appear to Will on his way down to nd Riggs and fulll his mission
to avenge his brother’s death. In this secon, Will meets the rst
ghost, Buck. At rst Will cannot accept the reality of Buck’s ghost
“You don’t recognize me?” (78)
“I looked harder” (78)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 20
but later accepts his supernatural presence. In a sense, Will
gradually is able to see that the barrier that separates the living
and the dead may be beer understood as a veil. We may have the
ability to see through this barrier. The elevator cabin becomes this
veil.
“Please don’t say / I’m dead” (89)
How does the anagram connect
to the character of the ghost on
the elevator during this
secon?
Buck claims he is in the elevator to check on his gun, the gun that
he gave to Shawn that Will now has. He challenges Will to follow
Rule #3 by teasing and demeaning Will, treang him as though he
isn’t strong or brave enough to follow The Rules. This insgang
role is related to the anagram in that Buck implies that Will’s
apparent fear of death reveals his ignorance and incompetence.
Only those who can confront the reality of their own deaths—in
eect stripping themselves of the illusion of the preciousness of
their own lives— have true courage. Therefore, valuing life over
death is a kind of veil that hides one’s cowardice. The anagram,
understood in this way, encapsulates Buck’s moral code.
“Taught him how to use it too. / Taught him
The Rules” (93)
“But you ain’t / got it in you, Will, / he said,
cocky “ (101)
“You don’t got it in you, / he repeated / over
and over again / under his un-breath” (106)
How does the anagram connect
to a key conict within Will, the
ghost, or the larger society?
Will is struggling to honor his brother and uphold the social code of
The Rules but is unsure if killing Riggs is the “right thing.” This
moral conict increases in tension for the rest of the novel. The
anagram connects to Will’s conict in that he cannot see clearly
the path ahead. This moral confusion may be understood as a kind
of veil that prevents him from seeing clearly and acng in
accordance with sound moral reasoning.
“I was scared” (87)
“and I replied / with as much / tough in my
voice as / I could” (93)
“I got work to do. / A job to do. / Business to
handle” (99)
“How many should there be?” (103)
What larger theme that
Reynolds develops throughout
the novel does the anagram
encapsulate?
One of the central themes of the novel involves the psychological,
social, and ethical repercussions of vengeance as an instrument to
secure jusce. Reynolds dramazes the trauma wrought through
the violent death of a loved one and how that trauma is
exacerbated by the perceived absence of a civic system designed to
remedy such injusces.
Ideal jusce is oen personied by the image of Lady Jusce, a
blindfolded—veiled—woman holding scales in balance. The image
of the veil in Reynolds’s anagram relates to the central theme of
jusce in the novel: ideal jusce should be imparal and fair, but
Reynolds’s work challenges the equal applicaon of this ideal in
communies such as Will’s. One wonders if such a veiled form of
jusce is alive in distressed communies.
“I’m about to do what I goa do. / What you
would have done/ …. Follow The Rules” (95)
“It’s a long / way / down” (97)
“And now almost shot / myself trying / to
gure out / how to” (102)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 21
STUDENT WORKSHOP: Assign students or allow them to choose among the remaining anagram poems [“Anagram No. 2” (137), “Anagram No. 3” (169), and “Anagram No. 4”
(188)] to explore how they funcon within secon seven (pages 73 to 106) as well as the novel as a whole to develop character, conict, and theme. Students should use a blank
copy of the Anagram Analysis Organizer (below and Google Doc Here). As students are working in small groups, be prepared to help students navigate through the tasks.
Encourage divergent responses especially when students aempt to link subject, character, conict, and theme with the two terms of the centering anagram. [Also note that not
all of the anagram poems t neatly within the elevator levels or focus exclusively on one Ghost. For example, “Anagram No. 3” (169) and “Anagram No. 4” both occur within the
h oor secon but the rst focuses more on Mark and the second may be beer understood as connecng to the imminent presence of Will’s father who appears within the
fourth oor secon.]
Have students share their analysis by projecng the shared Google doc, on the document projector if Anagram Analysis Organizer was handed out, or on butcher paper that
you post around the room.
ANAGRAM ANALYSIS ORGANIZER
Central Anagram:
Elevator oor:
Central Ghost:
Analysis focus quesons
Answers: Highlight terms of the anagram that you include in your
response.
Evidence for answers
How does the anagram reveal
central a subject of this
secon?
How does the anagram connect
to the character of the ghost on
the elevator during this
secon?
How does the anagram connect
to a key conict within Will, the
ghost, or the larger society?
What larger theme that
Reynolds develops throughout
the novel does the anagram
encapsulate?
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 22
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: As an extension and formave assessment, have students read “Anagram No. 6” ( 276) and write an extended response in their
spiral/digital notebooks (or on Google Classroom) in which students respond to one of the following prompts:
• What is ironic about Will’s failure to generate an anagram for the word “poser”? While Will may not be able to generate an anagram, the poet Reynolds certainly can.
Why would Reynolds dramaze Will’s imaginave barrier at this point in the text? How does it develop his central conict and or a theme of the work as a whole? Be
sure to embed direct, quoted evidence from poems within this secon to support your response.
• As this poem comes near the end of the third oor secon, the ghost of Frick appears. What might it suggest about his character? In what way is Frick a poser? Be sure
to embed direct, quoted evidence from poems within this secon to support your response.
• How might all the ghosts be thought of as posers? How does the concept of posing relate to and convey a central theme of the text as a whole? Be sure to embed
direct, quoted evidence from poems within this secon to support your response.
• The word “poser” has several obvious anagrams: pores, prose, ropes, and spore. Choose one and defend its appropriateness on the grounds of Reynolds treatment of
character, conict, or theme. Be sure to embed direct, quoted evidence from poems within this secon to support your response.
For theme support, students may use this Theme Guidance from the ODE and/or this “The only way you will ever need to teach theme” video. You may collect this wring
assessment or have students share it electronically for assessing during a reading/wring workshop on another day or during a reading/wring conference looking for textual
citaon to show impact of techniques on meanng, conict, character, or theme.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 23
SAMPLE LESSON 5
Prior to Lesson: Students should through page 298 and especially read/reread these poems about rules: “No. 3: Quesons” (18), “In Case You Ain’t Know” (19), “I Felt Like
Crying,” (30), “The Rules No. 1: Crying” (31), “No. 2: Snitching” (32), “No. 3: Revenge” (33), “There’s A Strange Thing” (73), “And I’m Glad I Found It” (94), “You Got Work To Do”
(101), “I Had Half a Second” (109), “When They Said” (135), “Dani Was Killed” (141), “But To Explain Myself” (173), “Uncle Mark Hued” (174), “The Scene” (176), “I Wiped My
Face” (209), “What You Think You Should Do” (210), “But You Did What You Had To Do” (217), “Shawn Ain’t Say Nothing” (253), “Again” (267), “Tony Talking” (273), “When the
Elevator Door Opened” (281), “I Told Him” (293), “Explained” (294), “The Rules Are The Rules” (296), “I Looked Back at Shawn” (298).
This lesson is aligned to Ohio ELA Standards RI. 9-10.1-3 and RL.9-10.2. Students will be working with informaonal texts and poems to determine the central idea, the
development of that idea, and the analysis of the details and evidence that support the development of the central idea. Working with a video interview, a magazine arcle, and
selected poems, students will target and develop the skills of close reading, summary, analysis, and synthesis.
THE RULES PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING NORMS (ONE TO TWO DAYS)
OPENING LESSON: Introduce students to the concept of social norms. You may begin by asking them to dene the concept or provide it and then ask them to exemplify it.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, social norms are “ the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and sociees.” These rules are unwrien and oen
tacitly understood. They are among the forces that shape identy and society. Have student discuss this idea for a few moments and then ask them to write an extended
response in their spiral/digital notebooks in which they idenfy a social norm that they believe is valuable either to themselves, their family, or their community. Ask them to
describe it and explain why the norm is important. Aer ve to ten minutes of wring, have students share with partners (this step is a think, write, pair, share protocol). As
groups share out, record and display class notes on a shared Google doc so students may beer understand the variety of examples and the importance of them in forming
identy and social bonds.
STUDENT WORKSHOP: CODE OF THE STREET
In addion to the standards and skills menoned above, this workshop is designed to help students understand the complexity of social norms as they impact race, youth, class,
gender, and survival in communies.
Step One Introduce Elijah Anderson and preview the guided-viewing quesons below. Have students answer these Code of the Street Quesons (below) while viewing the short
video Code of the Street.
Crical Viewing
1. What condions contribute to the weakening of the “civil law” and the strengthening of the “code of the street”?
2. What principle of jusce does the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” mentality exemplify?
3. Whose perspecve is oen missing from discussions of inner-city jusce?
4. Anderson interviews two young men--James and Mustafa—within this video. Why is their parcipaon important?
5. Mustafa’s story in parcular illustrates the intersecon between alienaon and “decency.” How so? What do you think Anderson means by “decency”?
6. Why does Anderson interview Bilal Qayyum? What insight does his parcipaon provide?
7. What is the role of the concept of “manhood” in the “code of the street”?
8. What is the role of “respect” in the “code of the street”?
9. Anderson claims that “street cred is high maintenance.” What does he mean?
10. What are most of the ghts about in “the street”?
11. Why has st ghng declined?
12. Anderson claims that the “code of the street is a kind of social exchange that allows for a certain order in the community.” How does the “code” establish and maintain
order? How does it erode or undermine order? What does social order mean?
13. What does respect for the police have to do with the “code of the street”?
14. Why has such respect eroded?
15. What role does class have on the strength and prevalence of the “code of the street’? Why?
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 24
16. Qayyum explains that although young people don’t want to engage in violence or crime, they oen feel like they have no choice, that they become the “creature of
[their] own environment.” How do Mustafa’s and James’s nal remarks exemplify this problem?
17. How do the images and music contribute to the eecveness of the video? Choose one image or sound that you nd parcularly eecve. Explain its impact on the
video.
18. Extension Queson: Anderson concludes by asserng that the problem of survival lies at the heart of “this country’s racial divide.” What do you think he means by this
claim? Do you agree? Why or why not?
Step Two Aer viewing the video (you may need to show it twice), have students answer this nal reecon queson with a neighbor: What part of the video most resonated
with you? Which detail, insight, quotaon, queson, or other element elicited the most pronounced response form you (either posively or negavely).
Step Three Share out some of the reecons to the class as a whole.
Step Four Introduce The Atlanc arcle “The Code of the Streets” by Elijah Alexander (Google Doc HERE) and explain that this essay advances a more elaborate invesgaon of
the “code of the street.” The essay consists of seven secons: Decent and Street Families, Campaigning for Respect, Self-Image Based on “Juice”, By Trial of Manhood, Girls and
Boys, “Going for Bad,” and An Opposional Culture. Begin the essay together reading out loud as students follow along the rst ve paragraphs wherein you will model the
strategy of reciprocal teaching. Then either have students choose a secon/text chunk or assign secons/text chunks to small groups (this will allow you to dierenate by
ability) wherein they will apply the reciprocal teaching strategies to understand their secon. Use or adapt the Reciprocal Teaching Organizer (below and linked) to support
students as they work through this process. The Reciprocal Teaching Organizer has an example of the rst chunk of the arcle completed for you and a blank organizer. You
can use it to model the strategy for the rst secon/text chunk (rst ve paragraphs) before breaking students into small groups. The groups can use a hard or digital copy of
the blank organizer while reading their secon/text chunk.
Text Chunk
Predicon
Quesons (create at least
one literal and one
inferenal queson for each
paragraph)
Claricaon
Summary
EXAMPLE: Headline and summary
chunk:
The Code of the Streets
In this essay in urban anthropology a
social scienst takes us inside a world
most of us only glimpse in grisly
headlines—"Teen Killed in Drive By
Shoong"—to show us how a
desperate search for respect governs
social relaons among many African-
American young men.
I predict that this arcle will be a
kind of inside look into the lives of
African American youth that most
people never see.
My evidence for this predicon
are the words “inside” and
glimpse.” The author will go
beyond the surface to help
readers understand underlying
causes.
Who is the audience for this
arcle? (Inferenal)
What kind of perspecve does
the headline “Teen Killed in
Drive By Shoong” exemplify?
(inferenal)
What “governs social relaons
among many African American
young men”? (literal)
Anthropology is the study of how
human sociees and cultures
develop. Knowing this denion
may help students understand the
scienc lens through which the
essay is framed.
The words “grisly” and “desperate”
create two dierent responses
from the reader. Knowing that
“grisly” means causing horror or
disgust may help readers to
understand that the author wants
to elicit a dierent response to
stories of inner-city violence, a
response of not disgust but
empathy and understanding.
This part of the text reveals
the intended audience—people
who are unfamiliar with the
lives of inner-city African
Americans—and the purpose
of the essay—to help readers
understand that violence
among African American inner-
city young men arises out of a
deep need for respect.
Step Five Have each group set up a staon to share their completed Reciprocal Teaching Organizer of predicons, summaries, quesons and claricaons for the secon/text
chunk they read. They can choose to have their organizer in digital or hard copy format at their staon. Once staons are set up, give each student access to Code of the Streets
Note Taking Chart (below and Google Doc HERE). Each student should now visit each staon and take notes on their copy of the Code of the Streets Note Taking Chart in the
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 25
corresponding row for each staon to help clarify their understanding. If more claricaon is needed, they should have a conversaon with one of the members of the group for
the staon they want claried.
Code of the Streets Note Taking Chart
Secon Title/Text Chunk
Key terms/vocabulary
Summary
Quesons I have
Connecons I see (with own
experience and with details
from Long Way Home)
Decent and Street Families
Campaigning for Respect
Self-Image Based on “Juice”
By Trial of Manhood
Girls and Boys
“Going for Bad”
An Opposional Culture
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Take a few minutes to summarize the acvies. Then have students reread the poems “The Rules No. 1: Crying” (31), “No. 2: Snitching” (32), and “No. 3: Revenge” (33).
Have them write a response in their spiral/digital notebooks as an exit cket to the lesson.
Prompt: How do the poems “The Rules No. 1: Crying” (31), “No. 2: Snitching” (32), and “No. 3: Revenge” (33) exemplify Alexander’s claims in his essay “The Code of the
Streets”? Cite evidence from both the essay and the poems to jusfy your response.
Let them know that you are looking to see if the students are able to cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the arcle and poems say explicitly
as well as inferences drawn from the texts.
THE RULES PART TWO: CODE COMPLICATIONS (ONE TO TWO DAYS)
OPENING: Begin by revising the exit-cket responses for the prompt: How do the poems “The Rules No. 1: Crying” (31), “No. 2: Snitching” (32), and “No. 3: Revenge” (33)
exemplify Alexander’s claims in his essay “The Code of the Streets”? Cite evidence from both the essay and the poems to jusfy your response. Consider digital
sharing/projecng of this Claim Connecons organizer (below and linked) to illustrate the intersecons between the poems and the claims in the essay as students revisit and
share their responses to the prompt. An example is completed for you in the rst row.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 26
Poem
Claim from “The Code of the Streets”
Evidence from poem
Evidence from “The Code of the Streets”
The Rules No. 1: Crying
Example: Alexander emphasizes the
importance of the performance of
“manhood.” Young men feel compelled
to display a certain emoonal
toughness requiring them to suppress
their vulnerability.
“No maer what” (31).
“[Manhood] implies physicality and a
certain ruthlessness…. For many inner-city
youths, manhood and respect are ip
sides of the same coin; physical and
psychological well-being are inseparable,
and both require a sense of control, of
being in charge” (14)
No. 2: Snitching
No. 3: Revenge
STUDENT WORKSHOP: COMPLICATING THE CODE
This workshop is designed to help students understand how Reynolds’s novel may be understood as the imaginave manifestaon of Alexander’s descripon of the “code of the
streets.” This part of the lesson will help students parcularly with Standard RL. 9-10.2. They will be analyzing how Reynolds develops and complicates the theme topic of “The
Rules” throughout the novel. Remember “The Rules’ is a theme topic and not a fully developed theme. A theme is the message conveyed by a text that applies to mulple other
texts described in a phrase or clause, not in a single word. It implies a conict and/or an argument about the core idea. So, if “The Rules” is a core idea, one would need to say
what the message(s) of the novel is around that core idea/topic to create theme(s).
Have students form small “theme topic study” groups in which they will select ve poems featuring “The Rules” to track the theme topic’s expression and development. They will
work together to complete the following THEME TOPIC ANALYTICAL ORGANIZER which you can share digitally or hand out (below and linked). The THEME TOPIC ANALYTICAL
ORGANIZER has both a blank version and an exemplar one. Have students review all of the poems featuring “The Rules” and select ve that seem to form a paern that reveals
Reynolds’s development of his atude toward “the rules,” i.e. what message he may be trying to form around the topic of “the rules.”
The following poems feature “the rules”: “No. 3: Quesons” (18), “In Case You Ain’t Know” (19), “I Felt Like Crying,” (30), “The Rules No. 1: Crying” (31), “No. 2: Snitching” (32),
“No. 3: Revenge” (33), “There’s A Strange Thing” (73), “And I’m Glad I Found It” (94), “You Got Work To Do” (101), “I Had Half a Second” (109), “When They Said” (135), “Dani
Was Killed” (141), “But To Explain Myself” (173), “Uncle Mark Hued” (174), “The Scene” (176), “I Wiped My Face” (209), “What You Think You Should Do” (210), “But You Did
What You Had To Do” (217), “Shawn Ain’t Say Nothing” (253), “Again” (267), “Tony Talking” (273), “When the Elevator Door Opened” (281), “I Told Him” (293), “Explained” (294),
“The Rules Are The Rules” (296), “I Looked Back at Shawn” (298).
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 27
THEME TOPIC ANALYTICAL ORGANIZER (exemplar)
Poem
Summary
Evidence from poem that
reects key “Rule”
Explanaon of how the evidence
reects the rule and/or Reynolds’s
crique of the rule
Text Feature and example that
contributes to the theme topic’s
development (literary techniques)
No. 3:
Quesons
This poem describes the
aermath of Shawn’s death
when police arrived at the
scene and began interviewing
witnesses. No one present
claimed to know or have seen
anything.
“Even he knew beer than
to / know anything”
Reynolds describes Marcus Andrews,
the “neighborhood / know-it-all” who
is following the rule regarding
“snitching.” He knows that it is socially
unacceptable to report to the police
any informaon regarding the
homicide.
Irony: By describing Andrews as the “know
it all” who claims to not know anything,
Reynolds uses irony to clarify the power of
the rule and its importance in establishing
and maintaining social bonds. In order for
Andrews and Will to maintain their es to
their community, they cannot violate the
rule of no “snitching.” They must nd ways
outside of the ocial legal codes to seek
jusce.
In Case You
Ain’t Know
This poem extends the previous
poem by making a broader
generalizaon regarding the
reacon to homicide within
Will’s community. In Will’s
experience, most people
retreat from gunre and
pretend that they heard and/or
saw nothing.
“Best to become invisible /
in mes like these”
Reynolds describes the more general
social behavior of people withdrawing
from geng involved in reporng
violence because they deem it
“[b]est.” In other words, people have
made a calculated moral decision to
not parcipate in police invesgaons.
Reynolds’s ambiguity in his use of the
word “best” begins to indicate the
complexity of this “rule.”
Direct Address: Reynolds’s tle “In Case
You Ain’t Know” directly addresses the
reader, a reader who is not an insider,
who does not already know what is “best.”
This address heightens the irony of Will’s
claim that “Everybody knows” that
cooperaon with the police is not an
acceptable choice in his community.
No. 2:
Snitching
This poem succinctly states the
rule that prohibits police
cooperaon.
“Don’t.”
The concision of this poem combined
with its expression of the rule as a
mandate, an imperave, illustrates its
centrality in Will’s community.
Whether explicitly or implicitly taught,
Will and the other members of his
community do not queson this rule,
“[n]o maer what.”
Rhetorical Fragments: This poem consists
of rhetorical fragments, each line
containing a deliberate incomplete
sentence. These fragments highlight the
tacit acceptance of the rule: its
presentaon within this poem as simply a
mandate without explanaon,
elaboraon, cause or eect enacts the
crical importance of the rule in Will’s
society. Reynolds expresses the rule as a
commandment, one whose obedience is a
maer of life or death.
Shawn Ain’t
Say Nothing
Will describes Shawn’s
response to Buck’s murder: he
didn’t talk to the police or to
anyone; he simply began
“Shawn Ain’t Say Nothing”
The tle of the poem encapsulates
Shawn’s internalizaon of Rule #2.
When the police came to interview
him regarding the death of his friend
Dicon: Reynolds’s use of words such as
“locked” and “caught” imply connotaons
of isolaon and entrapment. Shawn’s grief
and trauma combined with his alienaon
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 28
preparing to follow Rule # 3.
“James” as described in the previous
poem, Shawn remains commied to
the social norm forbidding police
cooperaon. As this commitment
results in Shawn’s own murder,
Reynolds underscores the tragic
consequences of this powerful code.
from tradional avenues of jusce
contribute to a kind of prison from which
the only perceived escape is the upholding
of Rule #3: Revenge.
Tony Talking
This poem claries the
dierence between talking to
police, (snitching) and talking
to members of one’s own
community. Tony, who may
have witnessed Buck’s murder,
told Shawn that Frick was
responsible.
“Tony talking / was laying
claim, / loyalty / an
allegiance to / the asphalt
around / here”
Reynolds’s poem describes the need
for internal systems of jusce that ll
the vacuum created by the loss of faith
in the tradional jusce system. As
Elijah Alexander describes in “The
Code of the Streets,” “[M]any
residents feel they must be prepared
to take extraordinary measures to
defend themselves and their loved
ones against those who are inclined to
aggression.” Here, Tony feels
compelled to assert his own power
and increase his status within his
community by helping its members to
nd jusce, “one way or another.”
Assonance: Reynolds links the words
“allegiance” and “asphalt” by repeang
the inial vowel sound to emphasize the
power of community within Will’s world.
The “rules” are a means through which
community members enact their
commitment to each other and to jusce,
even though that commitment may result
in the exponenal perpetuaon of cycles
of violence.
THEME TOPIC ANALYTICAL ORGANIZER (blank)
Poem
Summary
Evidence from poem that
reects key “Rule”
Explanaon of how the evidence
reects the rule and/or Reynolds’s
crique of the rule
Text Feature and example that
contributes to the theme topic’s
development (literary techniques)
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 29
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Take a few minutes to summarize the acvies. Then have students read the poems “I Was Breaking Down” (297) and “I Looked Back
at Shawn” (298). Have them write a response in their spiral/digital notebook (or Google Classroom) for the following prompt as an exit cket or formave assessment to the
lesson.
Prompt: In the poems “I Was Breaking Down” (297) and “I Looked Back at Shawn” (298), Reynolds describes Will starng to cry and then Shawn crying as well. How do these
poems reect the complex nature of the rules? What theme can be formed around the topic of the rules based on how we see Will struggling with his need to follow the rules
while at the same me beginning to realize how self-destrucve the rules can be? Cite specic details from each poem to support your answer to the prompt.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 30
SAMPLE LESSON 6
Prior to Lesson: Students should nish reading the novel and reread poems “I’ve Never Been” (13), “In His Hand” (24), “At the Elevator” (70), “But” (143), and “The Rules are the
Rules” (296).
This lesson aligns to Ohio ELA Standards RL.9-10.1-2, and W. 9-10.3. Students will be engaging in the close reading and analysis of several poems with a parcular focus on
language and form drawing conclusions about their impact on character, conict, and theme.
EARTHQUAKE: THE POWER OF FORM ( ONE TO TWO DAYS)
MINI-LESSON: Begin class by projecng the poem “I’ve Never Been” (13). Invite three separate students to read it out loud, having all students follow along in their texts..
Encourage them to make their own decisions about pace and pausing. Between each reading, ask the class to note observaons about the student’s decisions. What details in
the text did the readers respond to and interpret in their performances? How else might the poem be read? What details create a range of possible performance choices in the
reading of the poem? How might the poem’s force be altered if Reynolds had not shaped the poem in the same way?
Introduce the concept of concrete poetry and then ask the students to idenfy the ways in which Reynolds uses “nonlinguisc elements” to create meaning. How does his use of
spacing, caesuras, and lineaon support the feeling of shock and trauma Will describes in discovering the death of his brother? How is such an experience like an earthquake?
STUDENT WORKSHOP: Have students compose their own group or individual concrete poem about a symbol, character, conict, or theme of the novel. Consider using the ps
for wring concrete poetry taking from the Powerpoetry.org website (below and Google Doc HERE):
1. Write: With concrete poetry, it’s a good idea to rst write out your whole poem without pung it into a shape and then add then let the words make up the shape later.
There are no rules when it comes to a concrete poem, so you’re free to let your imaginaon run wild and create any story you’d like! Don’t worry about the length of
your poem, but remember that the more words you have, the bigger your shape will be.
2. Shape: Pick a shape that you want your poem to create. If someone looks at your poem from far away, they will see the outline of the shape, but up close they will
actually be able to read the words. Knowing this, you will probably want to pick a prey simple shape. First, think of what story your poem will tell, and match the shape
to the theme of the poem. For example, if you are wring a love poem you might want the poem to be shaped like a heart.
3. Draw: You don’t need to be an arst to make this poem look great! Just draw an outline of the shape you picked, either on paper or with a drawing tool from a
computer program like Paint, or Photoshop if you're feeling fancy. If you’re going to draw your concrete poem by hand, you can always scan the picture and upload it to
your computer so you have a virtual version too!
4. Words: Remember, the words of the poem are just as important as the shapes they make for a concrete poem. So, it’s a good idea to experiment with using bold, italics,
or even colors to add shade and texture to the words or to make whatever shape you use look 3D! Then, either by hand or using a program, paste the words of the
poem you’ve wrien onto the outline of the shape in the order you want them to be read! Now, you will have created your own original poec picture!
5. Make a Scene: Don’t just stop at one shape — make a whole scene! Go crazy and write a whole bunch of poems that are dierent lengths and turn them into all
dierent sizes of shapes to create an image that tells its own story! You could even make a picture book using your concrete poetry.
6. Power Poetry: As always, the possibilies are endless. Make sure to post your concrete poem to PowerPoetry.org to inspire other poets to turn their poems into visual
art too!
Here is an example concrete poem about the choice Will faces at the close of the book and the role his relaonship with his brother gures in that choice:
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 31
In the Mirror
Aer the workshop, have each group or individual share their concrete poems by posng them around the room for a gallery walk or adding them to a shared Google
Doc/Google Classroom assignment. Then assign students into small groups of two to four students to respond to several poems. Give students dierent colors of Post It notes on
which to record their notes or have them comment in dierent colored typeface on the following prompts for each poem:
1. I NOTICE: What did you noce about the use of visual space and/or typography in the poem? Cite and explain one detail that shows how the poet(s) used shape to
convey the meaning of the poem.
2. I NOTICE: How did the poet(s) make clear a symbol, character, conict, or theme of Long Way Down? Cite and explain how that symbol, character, conict, or theme
contributes to the meaning of the poem.
3. I WONDER: What quesons do you have about the poem—a line, a word, an image, an idea—you would like to pose to the poet(s)? Pose at least one queson.
4. I ENJOY: What do you appreciate or parcularly enjoy about the poem? Cite a detail or technique that you think is parcularly eecve and briey note why you liked
this choice.
Aer students have completed their gallery walks, conclude the acvity by having the poet(s) examine the feedback Post It notes/comments and wring or discussing what they
learned about how their choices impacted their audience. What was surprising about the feedback? What was encouraging? What might they change in a revision, what might
they add or eliminate if they had more me? What would they keep the same?
As an extension, have the class submit their poems to the Powerpoetry.org website where they can publish and comment on poems on the site. Consider creang a classroom
group where you can have students post and comment in a more organized and safe way.
I see you, my brother,
so young,
so scared,
like me.
I want to tell you,
I want to.
But.
I’m trapped
in be tween
you and these doors.
It’s too
late.
I see you, my brother,
nally, but
I can’t see
your eyes.
What do you want
me to do?
Shawn?
Answer me
pl ease
know me now be- fore
it’s too
late.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 32
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Have students write in their spiral/digital notebooks about concrete poetry. What advantages does this form have? What are its
disadvantages? Why do they think Reynolds wrote so many poems that relied on shape to convey meaning as much as words?
Extension Exit Ticket: Choose one of the following poems and discuss the ways in which Reynolds uses “nonlinguisc elements” to convey or enhance the meaning of the poem
as a whole: “In His Hand” (24), “At the Elevator” (70), “But” (143), “The Rules are the Rules” (296). Briey summarize the poem and then discuss at least two ways in which
Reynolds uses spacing and/or shape to enact the meaning of the poem. What impact do the “nonlinguisc elements” have on character, conict, or theme.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 33
SAMPLE LESSON 7
Prior to Lesson: Students should read full text.
This lesson is aligned to Ohio ELA Standards RI.9-10.1-2 and RL.9-10.1-2. Students will be working with informaonal texts and poems to determine the central idea, the
development of that idea, and the analysis of the details and evidence that support the development of the central idea. Working with video, news arcles, a scholarly arcle,
and selected poems, students will target and develop the skills of close reading, summary, analysis, and synthesis. Addionally, the seminar poron of the lesson can help
students to develop mastery of Speaking and Listening standards SL. 9-10. 1.
YOU COMING?: READER RESPONSIBILTY (THREE TO FOUR DAYS)
OPENING: One of the most compelling and provocave aspects of Reynolds’s novel in verse is the ending: “You coming?”. Reynolds leaves the reader to decide if his protagonist
will carry out his plan for vengeance. This queson governs the plot and theme of the novel and is therefore a ng queson for a Socrac seminar discussion.
Step One Begin class by asking students to write in their spiral/digital notebooks about their reacon to the ending of the novel. Ask them to respond to one or more of the
following quesons for reecon:
1. How did you react to the ending? Was it surprising, disappoinng, appropriate, frustrang, or did it evoke some other reacon? Examine your reacon and explore the
possible reasons for your reacon.
2. How might Will answer this queson? Is he, in fact, coming? Provide a raonale for what you think his answer would likely be.
3. Why do you think Reynolds chose to end his novel in this way? Does its ambiguity broaden or narrow the signicance of the story? How?
4. Why do writers somemes write endings that do not end? Why do readers seem to need “closure,” the feeling of an ending? Why would a writer withhold such a feeling?
Step Two Aer giving students me to write, have them share their thoughts with a partner using the Think, Write, Pair, Share strategy.
Step Three Aer sharing with the class some of their inial thoughts, introduce the arcle “Endless fascinaon: in praise of novels without neat conclusions” by Lee Rourke for
The Guardian(Google Doc HERE). Explain that Rourke presents an explanaon for and defense of books that end without establishing “closure.” Lead students through a close
reading of this arcle by having them annotate the text or by answering the text-dependent quesons below if scaolding is needed. Provide students with the vocabulary for
the arcle ahead of me to help them overcome barriers to comprehension. Be sure students are well grounded in the meaning of the word “ambiguity” before reading.
Text-Dependent Quesons:
1. What words in the tle and subtle best reveal Rourke’s posion regarding ambiguous endings?
2. Rourke does not present his argument in a vacuum. He is responding to an ongoing conversaon about narrave endings. How does he situate his argument within a
broader context of opinions about endings?
3. Rourke does not directly aack Williams’s posion regarding “dy endings,” instead he presents a more complex response to her posion. What details does he include
about her view that reveal his more nuanced posion? Why is such a posioning an eecve argumentave move? How would his argument be less eecve if he directly
aacked her posion in his opening paragraph?
4. What is the “well-worn formula” for most stories? Why do we like so many of our stories to “make sense” either from the beginning or by the end? Think of an example of a
story that follows this formula. What was so sasfying about it?
5. Explain the “double-edged event” that writers grapple with as they work out their plots with their readers in mind.
6. Why does Rourke include a discussion of the play Waing for Godot? (Here is a link to student-friendly summary of the play from Shmoop).
7. Rourke claims that only when we encounter “oblique junctures” such as those at the heart of Becke’s play do we realize that dy endings “don’t cut it.” What does he
mean by this phrase? Look up both words “oblique” and “juncture” and explain how they relate to endings that don’t fully conclude.
8. Rourke argues that narraves that conclude “in an orderly fashion” leave us inially sased, but don’t have a lasng eect on our experience. Why not?
9. Why does Rourke advocate for endings that do not end? What is his central criterion for art that is implicit in his defense of narraves with ambiguous endings? In other
words, what do you think Rourke believes is the purpose of art?
10. Do you agree with Rourke’s argument? Why or why not?
11. Would Reynolds agree with Rourke’s argument? Why or why not?
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 34
STUDENT SEMINAR OVERVIEW: Spend some me describing the purpose, methodology, and structure of Socrac seminars to students. Spend one to two days preparing for the
seminar by having students read and annotate the supplemental sources (linked below) and looking for connecons to the core text: Long Way Down. In addion to annotang
the texts, students should prepare for the discussion by answering the core queson in wring with as much detail and evidence as possible. You may use the template for
Socrac seminars to provide instrucon. Be sure to put the core queson on the template and think about adding a few addional quesons. Be sure to keep the area on the
template where students can add their own quesons. Students should also come prepared with answers to the quesons on the template including their own to use to help
take ownership of the discussion.
CORE QUESTION: Lee Rourke claims, “Much like real life does, novels without endings reveal to us the ambiguity that is crucial to our own desire to simply nd out things for
ourselves.” He goes on to assert that novels without resoluon have “more reality” than any novel with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Reynolds not only ends his book
steeped in ambiguity, he does so by posing a queson not just to Will but to the reader as well.
➢ Why does Reynolds end his novel so provocavely? Why is such an ending more “real” than one that provides an answer?
Supplemental Sources:
Chicago Tribune story “Tyshawn on swing when gangbangers out for revenge targeted him: prosecutors”
Chicago Tribune story “Tyshawn Lee’s killing the fourth in recent feud between gang facons”
CBS This Morning story “Inside the Gun Violence Epidemic on Chicago’s South Side”
Video trailer for the lm The Mask You Live In (Note: voiceover language is deliberately provocave)
USA Today arcle “A chain of violence: Gang retaliaon has made Wilmington an especially deadly place for teens”
Video sneak peek for The Mask You Live in: The Men that Men Look Up To: Masculinity in Popular Culture (Note: contains violent imagery)
Excerpt of scholarly arcle “Violent Stories: Personal Narraves, Street Socializaon, and the Negoaon of Street Culture Among Street-Oriented Youth” by Timothy Lauger
SEMINAR PREPARATION: Create seven staons around the room, each equipped with several copies of one of the supplemental texts or with devices through which the
students may engage the texts. Separate the class into seven groups and assign each group a starng staon. Give them 15 to 20 minutes for each staon during which they will
read or view their text and complete an Analysis/Synthesis Chart (below and Google doc HERE). Consider displaying a countdown mer to help students manage their me.
Below is a sample Analysis/Synthesis Chart to use or modify for your students.
TASKS
Source:
SUMMARIZE:
Summarize the source in one to three
sentences including its main idea.
OUTLINE:
Outline the key supporng points
CITE:
Cite the most compelling facts,
stascs, tesmony, or images in the
source.
REACT:
Describe you reacon to the source:
what was surprising? disturbing?
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 35
provocave? What ideas can you
relate to and which seem distant or
unconvincing?
QUESTION:
What quesons does this source
elicit? Pose at least one queson you
have that springs from this source.
CONNECT:
Describe and cite connecons to
specic secons in Long Way Down
CONNECT:
How might you use this source to
answer the core seminar queson or
another seminar queson or the one
that you generated?
SEMINAR PARTICIPATION: Invite a student to begin the seminar by either asking one of his or her own quesons, or by responding to one of the quesons that connects
directly to students’ experiences. Beginning and ending seminars with student experience helps students to understand the relevance and importance of the lesson. Students
may wish to begin with their spiral/digital notebook reecons from the rst day to warm up to the core queson and the invesgaon of the supplemental texts. As students
speak, use this Socrac Seminar Standard List to assess how students are progressing on RI.9-10.1-3 and RL.9-10.2.
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: At the conclusion of the seminar, ask students to complete a self-evaluaon (found on page 9 of this Socrac seminars document) in
which they reect on how well they prepared for and parcipated in seminar. Ask them to make a goal for improvement in the next seminar. Also ask them to idenfy and
celebrate someone in the class who made a signicant contribuon to the discussion or who took a successful risk in the discussion. Share these celebraons with the class if
me allows or revisit when the class next meets and you discuss the seminar as a whole.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 36
SAMPLE LESSON 8
Prior to Lesson: Students should read William Staord’s “Fieen” (Google Doc HERE).
The aim of this lesson is for students to apply the skills developed throughout the earlier lessons by analyzing new material. Many of the lessons have focused on RL.9-10.1-3,
how writers use details, techniques, and sequencing to develop themes/theme topics, characters/conict, and convey literal and inferenal meanings. This lesson will expand
students’ ability by having them apply these skills.
FIFTEEN (ONE TO TWO DAYS)
MINI-LESSON: Read “Fieen” out loud to students as they follow along with their texts. Ask them to noce how Staord creates structure with lineaon and develops meaning,
character, conict, and theme through his use of repeon, language, caesura, enjambment, and line breaks. Have them write in their spiral/digital notebooks at least three
parallels between the speaker in Staord’s poem and Will in Long Way Down. Have students share their reecons in small groups or the whole class.
WORKSHOP: Break the class into small groups assigning each group a dierent stanza of the poem to examine. Have each group complete a Stanza Analysis Chart (below and
Google Doc HERE) to examine how Staord marries technique to meaning. They can do this in their spiral/digital notebooks in a four-column chart or you can share the Stanza
Analysis Chart with them. The secons of the analysis chart are Stanza Number, Summary/Paraphrase, Techniques and Examples, and Eects. Encourage students to examine
how the techniques within their focus stanza relate to the development of the poem as a whole. Below (and here) is a sample organizer for students to use in their analysis.
For example, an analysis of the third stanza may look like the following:
Stanza Number:
Four
Summary/Paraphrase:
Aer contemplang a
future of adventures with
this motorcycle, I
discovered the owner of
the vehicle who was just
coming back into
consciousness aer his
accident in which he was
thrown over the guard
rail. I noced that he
seemed to be in shock
from the accident, having
lost blood, color, and
consciousness, so I guided
him back to his
motorcycle. He caressed
the bike, thanked me for
my goodness, and rode
aggressively away.
Techniques and Examples:
Eects:
Caesura: “Thinking, back farther…””
Staord begins the fourth stanza with a parciple followed by
inverted syntax that delays the target noun for the modier
“thinking.” This deliberate pause and delay enacts the speaker’s
own thinking process which is slow and just coming into focus
as he begins to recognize the repercussions of the choice he
was just contemplang. In eect, the earlier stanzas dramaze
the acons, admiraons, and imaginings of the speaker, but not
his raonal or ethical “thinking.” This stanza includes the seeds
of such consideraons.
Dicon: paern of language connong danger
and transgression:
“ipped over the rail”
“blood on his hand, was pale”
“roared”
While readers understand in earlier stanzas that the speaker
recounts an experience in which he came upon a recent
vehicular accident, Staord delays the images of the accident—
its vicm, cause, and consequences—unl this stanza.
Surprisingly, the earlier stanzas are completely devoid of the
language of danger and transgression that populate this stanza.
Staord includes such language here to add to the speaker’s
ethical calculaons as he decides what moral choice he will
make.
Breaking of the refrain: “I was een”
Aer reading the rst three stanzas, readers expect to nd the
closing refrain “I was een.” Its absence here is surprising and
discomng. The reader’s expectaon is not fullled creang
added ambiguity. The earlier iteraons move in tone from
factual, to explanatory, to enthusiasc as if to capture the
speaker’s growing awareness of his posion on the cusp of
manhood, about to enjoy the power and freedom of adulthood.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 37
The refrain’s absence in this stanza seems sobering, like the
eect of the caesura at its opening.
Irony: “called me a good man”
While the owner of the motorcycle is clearly grateful for the
speaker’s help in regaining his vehicle, his expression “good
man” is ironic for several reasons. Staord clearly emphasizes
the speaker’s age of een (he uses the word “een” ve
mes), so he is not yet a “man.” Furthermore, he has just
contemplang stealing the motorcycle and escaping the scene of
the accident with no regard for the health or life of the vicm.
Such acons are not deemed morally “good.” Addionally, while
the speaker may be acng like a “good man,” one who shows
concern for others and respects property, the nal line of the
poem—“I stood there, een”—enacts a sense of regret on the
part of the speaker. He recognizes that although he did a “good”
thing, something remains lacking in his life, a power, an escape,
a transcendence whose evasion renders him stac and isolated.
Possible Theme: Illegal/Immoral choices can be
encing even though they are ethically wrong.
In this poem, the youth (een) “indulged a forward feeling, a
tremble” when he interacted with the motorcycle. The thought
of stealing it enced him. To e this theme to the enre poem
and relate it to Long Way Down, one could narrow the theme to
say that Illegal/Immoral choices can be encing to young
people, even though they are ethically wrong. The eect is the
same—the theme oers some insight into humanity.
Have students share their analyses with the rest of the class. Foster a discussion in which you explore how Staord’s language and form are instrumental in conveying a theme of
the poem.
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: As an exit cket or formave assessment, have students read the poem "Looking for Omar” by E. Ethelbert Miller (Google Doc HERE)
and answer the following prompt: In a well-craed essay, detail how “Looking for Omar” is similar in theme to “Fieen.” Identy, cite, and explain at least two techniques that
the poems have in common that support the development of the theme. You can use this assessment to determine mastery of RL.9-10.1-2 and/or include mastery of RL.9-10. 3
or 4, depending on techniques used by students. You may wish to share this Summary Document to help students understand assessment criteria. This Summary Document can
be used as a cover page to shorten grading me and increase student ownership because it asks students to detail items in their wring .
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 38
SHORTER LITERARY TEXTS FOR PAIRING
Summer Apples by Cathryn Essinger
I planted an apple tree in memory
of my mother, who is not gone,
but whose memory has become
so transparent that she remembers
slicing apples with her grandmother
(yellow apples; blue bowl) beer than
the fruit that I hand her today. Sll,
she polishes the surface with her thumb,
holds it to the light and says with no
hesitaon, Oh, Yellow Transparent . . .
they're so fragile, you can almost see
to the core. She no longer remembers how
to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but
her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants.
And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core—
to that lile cathedral to memory—where
the seeds remember everything they need
to know to become yellow and transparent.
Scrapple by Afaa Michael Weaver
It was cousin Alvin who stole the liquor,
slipped down Aunt Mabie's steps on the ice,
fresh from jail for some small crime.
Alvin liked to make us laugh while he took
the liquor or other things we did not see,
in Aunt Mabie's with her oors polished,
wood she polished on her hands and knees
unl they were truth itself and slippery
enough to trick you, Aunt Mabie who loved
her Calvert Extra and loved the bright inside
of family, the way we come connected in webs,
born in clusters of promises, doed
with spots that mark our place in the karma
of good mes, good mes in the long ribbon
of being colored I learned when colored
had just given way to Negro and Negro was
leaving us because blackness chased it out
of the house, made it slip on the ice, fall
down and spill N-e-g-r-o all over the sidewalk
unl we were proud in a new avenue of pride,
as thick as the scrapple on Saturday morning
with King syrup, in the good mes, between
the strikes and layos at the mills when work
was too slack, and Pop sat around pretending
not to worry, not to let the stream of sweat
he wiped from his head be anything except
the natural way of things, keeping his habits,
the paper in his chair by the window, the radio
with the Orioles, with Earl Weaver the screamer
and Frank Robinson the gentle black man,
keeping his habits, Mama keeping hers,
the WSID gospel in the mornings, dusng
the encyclopedias she got from the A&P,
collecng the secrets of neighbors, holding
marriages together, pung golden silence
on children who took the wrong turns, broke
the laws of geng up and geng down
on your knees. These brile things we call
memories rise up, like the aroma of scrapple,
beauty and ugliness, life's mix
where the hard and painful things from folk
who know no boundaries live beside
the bright eyes that look into each other,
searching their pupils for paths to prayer.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 39
Looking for Omar by E. Ethelbert Miller
I’m in the school bathroom
washing my hands without
soap but I’m sll washing my hands.
I turn the water o
and look for a paper towel
but paper towels have been gone
since the rst day of school
and it’s June now.
I start to leave the bathroom
with my wet hands but then
the big boys come in talking
loud and cussing like they
rap stars or have new sneakers.
I hear the one named Pinto
talking about how someone
should get Omar aer school
since he’s the only Muslim they know.
Pinto talks with an accent
like he’s new in the neighborhood too.
I don’t have to ask him
what he’s talking about
since everybody is talking
about the Towers and how they
ain’t there no more.
My momma said it’s like
a woman losing both
breasts to cancer and my daddy
was talking at the dinner table
about how senseless violence is
and Mrs. Gardner next door lost
two tall boys to drive-bys
Bullets ying into
both boys heads
making them crumble too.
Everybody around here is
lled with fear and craziness
and now Pinto and the big boys
thinking about doing something bad.
I stare at my wet hands
dripping water on my shoes
and wonder if I should run
and tell Omar or just run.
I feel like I’m trapped
in the middle of one of those
Bible stories but it ain’t
Sunday.
I hear my Momma’s voice
saying
Boy, always remember to wash
your hands but always remember
you can’t wash your hands from
everything.
Nashville, TN 10/12/01
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 40
In Defense of “Moist” by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
Sprawling river / peeling o the chest / a wet slap / endless summer / not quite drenched to the bone / yet sll a burden / how it sits heavy on the tongue / aer being spoken /
leaving the mouth / a humid storm / becoming the denion of itself / inside you / heaviness in the prison of your body / I am trying to pull my shirt over my head / aer a full
court game / in June / and I am thinking of how everyone I love / was once taken from the inside of another person / moist with what carried them / into the world / isn’t that
worth the smallest praise / I am closing my eyes / as the shirt’s coon clings to my back / and I am thinking that all wetness must have teeth / especially the wetness that grows
from within / and spills out / or / chews its way through the skin / and falls onto another’s skin / the night Michael Jackson died / everyone black / in Ohio / danced in a
basement / unl the walls were moist / unl it rained indoors / and we saw our heroes /resurrected in the reecon / of our own drowning / I say moist / and do not rst think
about two naked bodies / the sound their skin might make / when they awkwardly press into each other / underneath a hungry sun / in an apartment with a broken air
condioner / I say moist / and rst think of / the eager and swallowing mud / the bullet that burrowed into Sean’s chest / on Livingston Ave / the country of dark red / that grew
across his white tee / while his mother held / his paling face / I say moist / as in / my homie’s blood le the corner of my block moist / or / his mama had her hands moist with
what once kept her baby alive / or / my eyes were moist when I heard the o.g. say / “someone gonna die every day” / and then he wiped blood o of his shoe / and it felt like
summer for ten years
On Revenge by Frances Bacon
REVENGE is a kind of wild jusce; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the rst wrong, it doth but oend the law; but the
revenge of that wrong pulleth the law out of oce. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to
pardon. And Salomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an oence.
That which is past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come: therefore they do but trie with themselves, that labour in past
maers.
There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself prot, or pleasure, or honour, or the like. There why should I be angry with a man for loving
himself beer than me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no
other.
The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law or remedy; but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a
man's enemy is sll beforehand, and it is two for one.
Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh: this is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt
as in making the party repent: but base and cray cowards are like the arrow that ieth in the dark.
Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perdious or neglecng friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable: You shall read (saith he) that we are
commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit of Job was in a beer tune: Shall we (saith he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also? And so of
friends in a proporon.
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Caesar; for the death of Pernax (1); for the death of Henry the Third of France (2); and many more. But
in private revenges it is not so. Nay rather, vindicve persons live the life of witches; who as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.
(1) Publius Helvius Pernax became emperor of Rome in 193 and was assassinated three months aer his accession to the throne by a soldier in his praetorian Guard.
(2) King of France, 1574-1589, assassinated during the Siege of Paris.
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 41
Excerpt from Hamlet: Act 3:3
Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying.
And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father, and, for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
Oh, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as ush as May.
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought
'Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged
To take him in the purging of his soul
When he is t and seasoned for his passage?
No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At game a-swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvaon in ’t—
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damned and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
“Fieen” by William Staord
South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, cking over
slowly in the high grass. I was een.
I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny anks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road, and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was een.
We could nd the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and pang the handle got back a
condent opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was een.
Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had ipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale—
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.
I stood there, een.
Peter Heller’s “Apples,” Donald Hall’s “White Apples,” Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The
Apple Orchard,” Grace Shulman’s “Apples,” George Bradley’s “August in the Apple
Orchard,” Robert Frost’s “Aer Apple Picking,” and John Bradley’s “Chernobyl
Apples.”
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 42
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS FOR PAIRING
“Does reading con make you a beer person” from The Washington Post
“The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading” from The Washington Post
“The Code of the Streets” from The Atlanc
“Endless fascinaon: in praise of novels without neat conclusions” by Lee Rourke from The Guardian
CBS This Morning story “Inside the Gun Violence Epidemic on Chicago’s South Side”
USA Today arcle “A chain of violence: Gang retaliaon has made Wilmington an especially deadly place for teens”
“Tyshawn on swing when gangbangers out for revenge targeted him: prosecutors” from the Chicago Tribune
“Tyshawn Lee’s killing the fourth in recent feud between gang facons” from the Chicago Tribune
“Violent Stories: Personal Narraves, Street Socializaon, and the Negoaon of Street Culture Among Street-Oriented Youth” by Timothy Lauger (excerpt)
MEDIA/VISUAL TEXTS FOR PAIRING
Daily Show with Trevor Noah interview with Jason Reynolds
CBS This Morning Gail King Interview with Jason Reynolds
CBS This Morning: Gail King interview with Jason Reynolds (extended Green Room conversaon)
Audio recording of Jason Reynolds reading opening excerpt from Long Way Down (with illustraons by Chris Priestly)
Code of the Street YouTube documentary
Video trailer for the lm The Mask You Live In
Video sneak peak for The Mask You Live in: The Men that Men Look Up To: Masculinity in Popular Culture
Podcast 74 Seconds about the death of Philando Casle and the trial of Jeronimo Janez
Link to cover image of Long Way Down
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 43
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING LITERATURE, GRADES 9-10
CITE STRONG AND
THOROUGH TEXTUAL
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT
ANALYSIS OF WHAT THE
TEXT SAYS EXPLICITLY AS WELL AS INFERENCES
DRAWN FROM THE TEXT.
Essential Understanding
-Reading comprehension
-Draw inferences
-Cite specific textual
evidence to support
inferences and text meaning
-Analyze the text
-Evaluate evidence
-MLA formatting for in-text
citations and works cited
pages
*Extended Understanding
-Determine where text
leaves matters uncertain
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze/analysis
-cite
-drawn
-explicit
-evaluate
-inference
-MLA Formang
-textual evidence
CCR ANCHOR: READ CLOSELY TO DETERMINE WHAT THE TEXT SAYS
EXPLICITLY AND TO MAKE LOGICAL INFERENCES FROM IT, CITE SPECIFIC
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE WHEN WRITING OR SPEAKING TO SUPPORT
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE TEXT.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE: REASONING
-
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-
12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RL.9-10.1
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 44
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING LITERATURE, GRADES 9-10
ANALYZE LITERARY TEXT
DEVELOPMENT.
A. DETERMINE A THEME OF A TEXT
AND ANALYZE IN DETAIL ITS DEVELOPMENT OVER THE COURSE
OF THE TEXT, INCLUDING HOW IT EMERGES AND IS SHAPED AND
REFINED BY SPECIFIC DETAILS.
B. PROVIDE AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY OF THE TEXT THAT
INCLUDES THE THEME AND RELEVANT STORY ELEMENTS.
Essential Understanding
-Recognize and understand theme
-Analyze theme development
-Recognize refinement and
shaping of theme
-Analyze relationship of
literary/story elements and
details to theme development
-Objectively summarize the text
-Summarize a theme of a text
using relevant story elements
*Extended Understanding
-Relational analysis of two or
more themes
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze
-central idea
-determine
-development
-emerge
-literary/story elements
(e.g., conict, characterizaon,
plot, tone, etc.)
-objecve
-rene
-summarize/summary
-theme
CCR ANCHOR: DETERMINE CENTRAL IDEAS OR THEMES OF A TEXT AND
ANALYZE THEIR DEVELOPMENT; SUMMARIZE THE KEY SUPPORTING
DETAILS AND IDEAS.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE:
REASONING
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RL.9-10.2
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 45
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING LITERATURE, GRADES 9-10
ANALYZE HOW COMPLEX
CHARACTERS (E.G., THOSE
WITH MULTIPLE OR
CONFLICTING
MOTIVATIONS) DEVELOP OVER THE COURSE OF A
TEXT, INTERACT WITH OTHER CHARACTERS, AND
ADVANCE THE PLOT OR DEVELOP THE THEME.
Essential Understanding
-Understand and identify
characterization (direct and
indirect) in a text
-Analyze how conflicting or
multiple motivations reveal
character, affect character
development, and influence
relationships in a text
-Analyze how complex
characters advance the plot
line or theme in a text
*Extended Understanding
-Analyze rhetorical
strategies used by
characters in a text
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze
-character
-characterizaon
-complex character
-develop
-interact
-movaon
-plot
-propel
-theme
CCR ANCHOR: ANALYZE HOW AND WHY INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, AND IDEAS
DEVELOP AND INTERACT OVER THE COURSE OF A TEXT.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE:
REASONING
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RL.9-10.3
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 46
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING LITERATURE, GRADES 9-10
DETERMINE THE MEANING OF
WORDS AND PHRASES AS THEY
ARE USED IN THE TEXT,
INCLUDING FIGURATIVE AND
CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS; ANALYZE THE CUMULATIVE
IMPACT OF SPECIFIC WORD CHOICES ON MEANING,
MOOD, AND TONE (E.G., HOW THE LANGUAGE
EVOKES A SENSE OF TIME AND PLACE; HOW IT SETS A
FORMAL OR INFORMAL TONE).
Essential Understanding
-Interpret words and
phrases
-Determine figurative
and connotative word
meanings in a text
-Analyze how diction
impacts meaning and
tone
-Distinguish between
formal and informal
tone
*Extended
Understanding
-Identify and understand
elements of
language/rhetoric
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze
-connotaon/denotaon
-cumulave
-dicon
-evoke
-gurave language
(See your adopted textbook’s glossary
for grade-level appropriate gurave
language devices or
hps://literarydevices.net/gurave-
language/.)
-mood
-phrases
-tone
CCR ANCHOR: INTERPRET WORDS AND PHRASES AS THEY ARE USED IN A
TEXT, INCLUDING DETERMINING TECHNICAL, CONNOTATIVE, AND
FIGURATIVE MEANINGS, AND ANALYZE HOW SPECIFIC WORD CHOICES
SHAPE MEANING OR TONE.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE:
REASONING
RL.9-10.4
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 47
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT, GRADES 9-10
CITE STRONG AND
THOROUGH TEXTUAL
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT
ANALYSIS OF WHAT THE TEXT
SAYS EXPLICITLY AS WELL AS INFERENCES
DRAWN FROM THE TEXT.
Essential Understanding
-Reading comprehension
-Draw inferences
-Cite specific textual
evidence to support
inferences and text meaning
-Analyze the text
-Evaluate evidence
-MLA formatting for in-text
citations and works cited
pages
*Extended Understanding
-Determine where text
leaves matters uncertain
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze/analysis
-cite
-drawn
-explicit
-evaluate
-inference
-MLA Formang
-textual evidence
CCR ANCHOR: READ CLOSELY TO DETERMINE WHAT THE TEXT SAYS
EXPLICITLY AND TO MAKE LOGICAL INFERENCES FROM IT, CITE SPECIFIC
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE WHEN WRITING OR SPEAKING TO SUPPORT
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE TEXT.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE:
REASONING
-
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6
-12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RI.9-10.1
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 48
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT, GRADES 9-10
ANALYZE INFORMATIONAL TEXT
DEVELOPMENT.
A. DETERMINE A CENTRAL IDEA OF A TEXT AND
ANALYZE ITS DEVELOPMENT OVER THE COURSE OF THE TEXT, INCLUDING HOW IT
EMERGES AND IS SHAPED AND REFINED BY SPECIFIC DETAILS.
B. PROVIDE AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY OF THE TEXT THAT INCLUDES THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE CENTRAL IDEA AND HOW DETAILS IMPACT THIS IDEA.
Essential Understanding
-Recognize and understand
central idea
-Analyze central idea
development
-Recognize refinement and
shaping of central idea
-Analyze relationship of details
to central idea development
-Objectively summarize the
text
*Extended Understanding
-Relational analysis of two or
more central ideas
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze
-central idea
-determine
-development
-emerge
-objecve
-rene
-summarize/summary
CCR ANCHOR: DETERMINE CENTRAL IDEAS OR THEMES OF A TEXT AND
ANALYZE THEIR DEVELOPMENT; SUMMARIZE THE KEY SUPPORTING
DETAILS AND IDEAS.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE:
REASONING
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-
12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RI.9-10.2
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 49
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT, GRADES 9-10
ANALYZE HOW THE AUTHOR
UNFOLDS AN ANALYSIS OR
SERIES OF IDEAS OR EVENTS,
INCLUDING THE ORDER IN
WHICH THE POINTS ARE MADE, HOW THEY ARE
INTRODUCED AND DEVELOPED, AND THE
CONNECTIONS THAT ARE DRAWN BETWEEN
THEM.
Essential Understanding
-Identify the order in which points
are made in an informational text
-Identify and analyze how points
are introduced and developed in an
informational text
-Identify and analyze connections
between points made in an
informational text
-Analyze how an author unfolds an
analysis or series of ideas/events in
an informational text
*Extended Understanding
-Analyze why an author orders
points and develops them in a
chosen manner
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analysis
-analyze
-connecons
-develop
-drawn
-event
-introduce
-series of ideas/events
-unfolds
CCR ANCHOR: ANALYZE HOW AND WHY INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, AND IDEAS
DEVELOP AND INTERACT OVER THE COURSE OF A TEXT.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE: REASONING
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
RI.9-10.3
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 50
OHIO’S LEARNING STANDARDS-CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS-WRITING, GRADES 9-10
WRITE NARRATIVES
TO DEVELOP REAL
OR IMAGINED
EXPERIENCES OR EVENTS USING
EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUE, WELL-
CHOSEN DETAILS, AND WELL-
STRUCTURED EVENT SEQUENCES.
Essential Components
W.9-10.3.a-e
a. Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem,
situation, or observation, establishing one or multiple point(s) of
view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a
smooth progression of experiences or events.
b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing,
description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop
experiences, events, and/or characters.
c. Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they
build on one another to create a coherent whole.
d. Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory
language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events,
setting, and/or characters.
e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is
experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the
narrative.
*Extended Understanding
-Extend a short narrative into a novella or novel
Academic
Vocabulary/Language
-analyze
-characters/characterizaon
-clauses -coherent
-convey -detail
-develop -elaborate
-elements of plot (exposion, rising
acon, climax, falling acon,
denouement, resoluon, conict,
protagonist/antagonist, etc.)
-elements of prose (dicon, syntax,
imagery, gurave language, style,
theme, tone, etc.)
-engage -establish -event
-illustrate -interact -narrave
-narrave techniques (dialogue,
pacing, descripon, ashback,
foreshadow, framing device, mulple
plot lines, reecon, shi, me frame,
point of view, etc.)
-narrator -orient
-phrases -point of view
-precise -progression
-reecon -relevant
-sensory language
-sequence -seng
-signal -unfold -vivid
CCR ANCHOR: WRITE NARRATIVES TO DEVELOP REAL OR
IMAGINED EXPERIENCES OR EVENTS USING EFFECTIVE
TECHNIQUE, WELL-CHOSEN DETAILS, AND WELL-
STRUCTURED EVENT SEQUENCES.
ULTIMATE LEARNING
TARGET TYPE: PRODUCT
BROAD LEARNING TARGET:
The student can write narraves to develop real or imagined experiences or events using eecve technique, well-chosen details, and well-
structured event sequences.
Underpinning Knowledge Learning Targets:
The student can dene, idenfy, and use elements of prose (style, theme, tone . . .), elements of plot (conict, climax, protagonist . . .), and
narrave techniques (dialogue, pacing, descripon, reecon, mulple plot lines, . . .) to develop experiences, events, and characters.
The student can dene, idenfy, and use a variety of transional words, phrases, and clauses to connect sequences of events, shis in me,
changes in sengs, and relaonships among experiences and events.
The student can dene, idenfy, and use precise, grade-level appropriate vocabulary, sensory language, and gurave language to convey a
vivid picture of the experiences, events, seng, and/or characters.
Underpinning Reasoning Learning Targets:
The student can engage and orient the reader by seng out a problem, situaon, or observaon, establishing one or mulple point(s) of view,
introducing a narrator and/or characters, and creang a smooth progression of experiences or events.
The student can provide a conclusion that follows from and reects on the narrated experiences or events.
CCS ELA 6-12 PAGE:
hps://nyurl.com/CCSEnglish6-12
(CAREER CONNECTIONS)
W.9-10.3
English Language Arts 6-12 Curriculum, https://www.ccsoh.us/English6-12 51
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TEACHER RESOURCE WRITERS
This Teacher Resource was created during the summer of 2018 as part of
an iniave to increase textual choice for teaching Ohio’s Learning
Standards. It is part of a series of Teacher Resources for the following
newly adopted supplemental literature. Note: Please adhere to the grade
level chosen for each tle to avoid textual overlap for our students.
Grade Six
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
(No Fear Shakespeare Edion)
Hello, Universe by Erin Kelly
Grade Seven
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Grade Eight
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
(No Fear Shakespeare Edion)
Grade Nine
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Grade Ten
Othello by William Shakespeare
(No Fear Shakespeare Edion)
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Grade Eleven
The Help by Kathryn Stocke
Grade Twelve
Twelh Night by William Shakespeare
(No Fear Shakespeare Edion)
Carla Mae Phillips, Lead 6-12 Curriculum Coordinator
Tracie Helmbrecht, NBCT
Gina McGowan
Pam Reed
Lynn Taylor, NBCT
Melanie Thompson
Supplemental Resources for Long Way Down _____________________
NOTE: The lessons included in these supplemental resources may not be
aligned to Ohio’s Learning Standards or the Common Core. Please make
choices about using any of the lessons and ideas included here based
upon how they can help students meet and exceed learning targets.
Simon & Schuster’s Reading Group Guide for Long Way Down
TeachingBooks site for Long Way Down
Scholasc lesson on Teaching Poetry Through Rap
Yale Teachers Instute lesson: “The Beats in Poetry and the Poecs in
Rap: Learning the Elements of Poetry through Rap Lyrics and Applying
Those Learned Elements to Poetry”
