Bell Work: choose a passage from “Marigolds” that uses diction, imagery, and syntax to convey voice.

Write
the passage in your notebook. Write an interpretation of the passage and how it connects to the theme of
“coming of age.” Then, write how this section of text implies the personality and voice of the narrator.
- In a group (3 minutes per person), read your passage.
- Read your interpretation.
- Share your interpretations.
o Listen and share one academic discourse statement with the group.

Gallery Walk: Walk the room with your group. Read the quotes at each station. Using academic discourse
statements, explain how the quotes below show the narrator’s voice. Make one inference about the narrator
at each station. Do not duplicate your own diction.

 Opening Voice:
“dry September of the dirt roads”
“arid, sterile dust”
“brown, crumbly dust of late summer”
“as I recall that devastating moment when I was suddenly more woman than child, years ago in Miss Lottie’s
yard”
“the dust and squalor of our lives”
“the beginning of the experience that in some inexplicable way marked the end of our lives”
“days are ill-defined in my memory, running together and combining like a fresh watercolor painting left out in
the rain”

 First Encounter with Miss Lottie and Voice:

“we children hated those marigold. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place”
“Then I lost my head entirely, mad with the power of inciting such rage, and ran out of the bushes in the storm
of pebbles, straight toward Miss Lottie, chanting madly. ‘Old witch, fell in a ditch, picked up a penny and
thought she was rich!”

 Overheard conversation and Voice:

“where did I fit into this crazy picture”
“But the room was too crowded with fear to allow me to sleep”

 Final act of destruction and Voice:

“…whatever was of love and beauty and joy that had not been squeezed out by life, had been there in the
marigolds”
“I leaped furiously into the mounds of marigolds and pulled madly, trampling and pulling and destroying
perfect yellow blooms.”
“The fresh smell of early morning and of dew-soaked marigolds spurred me on as I went tearing and mangling
and sobbing”

 Closing and Voice:

“Of course I could not express the things that I knew about Miss Lottie as I stood there awkward and
ashamed.”
“In that humiliating moment I had looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the
beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence.”
“The years have taken me worlds away from that time and that place, from the dust and squalor of our lives”
Group Members:__________________________________________________________________________

As a group; underline the claim. Circle the explanation. Put a box around the evidence. Use brackets around
the two sentence warrant. Put a box around a second piece of evidence used. Label the one sentence
warrant with brackets. Place a bow next to the concluding sentence.

Writing Prompt: Describe the voice of the narrator. Then, explain how the writer’s diction and imagery create
this voice. You might also mention other literary elements, such as juxtaposition, the contribute to the
narrator’s voice or point of view. Be sure to: begin with a clear thesis for your position, include multiple direct
quotations to support your claim, and punctuate them correctly. Include transitions and a concluding
statement.

Sample Response: The narrator, Lizabeth, has chosen to retell a story as an adult reflecting on a significant
incident from her childhood. Her voice is that of a reflective, thoughtful adult, but she tells the story with the
vivid detail of the child who experience it. The narrator sets the tone by saying she is recalling “that
devastating moment what I was suddenly more woman than child.” From her diction, using the word
“devastating,” the reader knows the incident was significant and probably negative. In choosing to juxtapose
woman and child, the narrator sets up an internal conflict at an important point her life. The narrator also
shows us her mature sense of understanding by juxtaposing “dust” and “marigolds” as a symbols of her
personal sense of the barrenness and hopelessness of her childhood, in contrast to Miss Lottie’s hopeful
nurturing of beauty amid the ugliness of her surroundings. After the child, Lizabeth, “leaped furiously into the
mounds of marigold and pulled madly, trampling and pulling and destroying the perfect yellow blooms,” the
adult realizes that she has also destroyed “whatever was of love and beauty and joy” for Miss Lottie and for
herself. The imagery and diction convey the angry, bewildered child whose adult self is, in an act of reflective
clarity, trying to understand herself.

Create: Academically discuss the symbol of the dust and marigolds in Collier’s short story. Choose a symbol to
represent your own “coming of age,” using voice, explain what the symbol represents. Write the explanation
in your journal.

Group Member’s Name and Symbol:

Group Member’s Name and Symbol:

Group Member’s Name and Symbol:

Group Member’s Name and Symbol:

Group Member’s Name and Symbol: