A Tale of Two Cities

Write Like the Dickens Purpose: Students who are college-bound must learn to use various reading strategies to grasp material in a short period of time. The plan for reading A Tale of Two Cities will assist in teaching you this strategy. Thus, you will have one week for this independent reading and writing project. Core Standards Focus: Key Ideas and Details
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea 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; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 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.

Craft and Structure

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 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 and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an authors choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6 Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Audens Muse des Beaux Arts and Breughels Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). (RL.9-10.8 not applicable to literature) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

Plan: All work will be done in your journal, so if you need a new one, you had better buy it. 1. Research the French Revolution (1789-1799). Choose an on-line source Summarize the informationfind the essential facts Include the site as a citation Read the following chapters from the novel: Book I: Chapters 1, 5, 6 Book II: Chapters 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 21 Book III: Chapters 1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15 In addition, use Cliffs Notes/Sparknotes on-line. Begin a list of Dickens literary devices and themes. Note them by book and chapter. Identify which chapters focus on England and which focus on France. Choose one Core Standard from each area; provide an answer in complete sentences and paragraphs to the standards using the textyou are now the expert. Draw on plain paper an image from one of the chapters you have read. Include in your citation a How to draw book or video tutorial that you have consulted.

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Final Assessment: Two pages from the novel will be chosen and you will be asked to close read the pages and identify which of Dickens literary devices and themes you see. You will explain the purpose of the pageshow they fit into the larger scheme of the noveland the effects of the literary devices.