Measurable Learning Goal(s) 

Aligned to Common Core standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

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.

Since ELAR skills are often cyclical and rarely independent, this lesson cycle addresses three learning standards using selected stanzas from Li Young-Lee’s poem “Persimmons” and provides  students opportunities to show mastery of all three standards. An online learning platform called Nearpod will be used for this lesson, which allows it to be conducted synchronously or asynchronously. When used synchronously, as it will be in this lesson, Nearpod allows students low stakes opportunities to fully and confidently participate in class. Additionally, it allows instructors to immediately identify which students are fully engaged and which are not based on submitted responses, as well as providing teachers with easy and frequent checks for understanding. 

Warm-Up / Engagement 

1. Before the engagement component, I will briefly introduce myself and set a few classroom norms for the demo lesson. (1 min)

2. I will engage students in this lesson by asking them to reflect on the word “identity.” They will then answer the following questions (2min):

• Who shapes our identity? 

• What shapes our identity?

Sequence of Activities or Learning Experiences

1. Before transitioning into the lesson, I will then briefly remind students about the following literary terms (2 min): 

• theme 

• symbol

• analysis

• speaker

• stanza

• line

2. I will then give brief background notes about Li-Young Lee. (4 min)

3. I will also provide an image of a persimmon in the following Nearpod slide, as some students may not be familiar with this type of fruit, and it is background knowledge needed to understand the poem’s content as persimmons serves as a symbol throughout the poem.

4. Next, I will read selected stanzas from Li-Young Lee’s “Persimmons.” For the sake of time, I have selected only a few stanzas, as the poem in its entirety is quite long. (2 min)

5. Students will then write a text/tweet length summary of the poem. This will ensure students have a literal understanding of the poem before we begin analyzing it. (2 min)

6. After, I will begin scaffolding questions and modeling my thinking to elucidate themes of identity in “Persimmons” using both the background notes and lines from the poem.” (3 min)

• Why does Mrs. Walker slap the speaker? What does this tell us about her and her way of thinking? 

• What words are used

• I will encourage students to respond to these questions verbally and may cold call students.

7. Next, I will show a written model of my thinking (2 min):

• Lines 6-7, which also break the first and second stanzas, reveal the speaker's confidence, which he struggles with in the first stanza as he is subjected to physical violence when “Mrs. Walker / slap[s] the back of [his] head…for not knowing the difference between persimmon and precision” (1-5). However, the speaker does in fact know the difference between “precision” and “persimmon,” something readers later discover Mrs. Walker does not know. This enjambment suspends the speaker's identity, one that transforms from an unconfident, hesitant speaker in the first stanza to one who later realizes his own knowledge not only exceeds Mrs. Walker’s, but many other English speakers and writers. 

8. Students will then repeat this activity by choosing 1-2 different lines from the remaining lines/stanzas. This will be the assessment I use to determine student mastery (2 min).

• Choose 1-2 lines from the stanzas below that tell you something about the speaker’s identity/relationship with another character.  What do these lines tell you? What word(s) in the line(s) reveal something about the speaker’s identity? If you notice an example of figurative language, feel free to mention it in your response. Please write in complete sentences.

Scaffolding and Differentiation

This lesson is scaffolded by providing students with necessary background knowledge (Lee’s biographical information and a photograph of persimmons), defining content vocabulary, and chunking the learning into steps. The questions I will ask and the written model I will provide students also serve as scaffolding.

To differentiate, if the content is too difficult, I will provide a second model response after students submit their final responses:

• The speaker clearly experiences a sense of longing as "[he] rummag[es], looking / for something [he] lost" (32-33). His father is described as "happy that [the speaker has] come home" (37), which further indicates there is some distance there as well. Perhaps the speaker's relationship with his father is strained or distanced. 

If students move through the lesson quickly, revealing the content is too easy, I will challenge students by asking them to identify and analyze figurative language devices related to the speaker’s identity.  

If this were a full lesson cycle, I would use breakout rooms (virtually) or small groups of 3-4 students (in person) and ask students to work together to brainstorm responses to the above Nearpod questions. These groups would be leveled, so that I am able to spend time with students who are not achieving the learning standard. 

Assessment(s)

The formal check for understanding and student mastery assessment will be student responses to the following Nearpod question:

• Choose 1-2 lines from the stanzas below that tell you something about the speaker’s identity/relationship with another character.  What do these lines tell you? What word(s) in the line(s) reveal something about the speaker’s identity? If you notice an example of figurative language, feel free to mention it in your response. Please write in complete sentences.