(RL. 3) Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story (e.g. how characters are developed and how they interact.)
(RL. 5) Analyze how an author’s choice concern structure contributes to the overall effect and meaning. Examine how perspective and style shapes historical record.
(RL. 9) Demonstrate knowledge of American literature, including American Indian works
How does learning about other's experience, assist a person in understating their own?
How truly can a person understand someone else's experience without living it themselves?
How does place and history influence a person and a culture?
DIRECTIONS: You MUST complete the required assignments The rest of the points can come from any other other the level assignments listed below. Point totals are points POSSIBLE. To earn full credit, you must do a thorough job of answering each question with full sentences and support.
Use the Google Doc created for you in Google Classroom to compile your work. (The reading journal may be done in a notebook if you so choose.) Be sure to clearly label each prompt you are responding to what you are respond to. A strict structure of how you compile these activities isn't required, just make sure your final product is clear and delineated.
ASSESSMENT
A+ = 110 points and you MUST do an assignment from each of the 3 levels.
A = 90 points
B = 80 points
C = 70 points
D = 50 points
F = below 50 points
REQUIRED ASSIGNMENTS: must do both of these
READING JOURNAL (20 points) As your read this novella, make an entry in a notebook or Google Doc keep a reflection journal for three chapters in each of the sections: "The Setting Out," "The Going On," "The Coming In," and the epilogue as well. For each chapter, you should...
write a brief, few sentence summary of that chapter's themes and ideas
write down your own personal thoughts and reactions. Try not to censure your reactions to the text but to include more than "I liked (or hated)" type of statements. Be reflective; think about why you may be responding the way you are.
Refer to the following kinds of questions to help guide your personal thoughts:
Plot: What is the main conflict? What are the minor conflicts? How are all the conflicts related? What causes the conflicts? Where does the climax occur, if there is one? Why? How is the main conflict resolved? Which conflicts go unresolved?
Narrative Structure: How does the story move? What kind of narrative device is employed to move the plot? That is, are the characters on a journal through geographic space? Does the narrative move chronologically? How does this structure seem to reflect or comment on others elements (i.e. characters and themes) in the text?
Point of view: Who tells the story? Can you trust the narrator to tell you the truth about events, characters, and settings of the story? Why has the author chosen this point of view? What effects does it have on other elements of the story?
Characterization: How are the characters portrayed? Are they flat, round, dynamic, static? Do they change? How and why do they change? What do they learn? What problems do they have? Do they have traits that contradict one another and therefore cause internal conflicts? Do they experience epiphanies? How or what? How do they relate to each other? Etc.
Setting: Where does the action take place? (Think not only about geographic location but also physical space: indoors, outdoors, small rooms, palatial homes, etc.) What does it look like, sound like, feel like? What relationship does place have to characterization, the plot, themes, and the narrative structure? At what period in history does the action take place?
Keep in mind, our over arching goals are to 1) Understand someone else's perspective and 2) Reflect on how learning about other perspectives and stories might influence, broaden, or deepen connections in our own life.
Similar to Momaday’s three part voice, you are to select an individual idea from your own history (this could be an event, a hobby, a memory, a place, or even a thing) and explore it through three different styles of writing each about ~150-200 words long. These writings need to be clearly connected by a central idea/event and the sections/styles need to be labeled.
NOTE! THE EXAMPLES MAY BE MUCH LONGER THAN WHAT YOUR WRITING ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE
Description (examples) - The primary purpose of descriptive writing is to describe a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader's mind.
Personal Narrative/Reflection (example) - This first person style of writing explores YOUR thoughts and experiences on the subject.
Objective Reporting/Journalism (example) - Pretend you’re a reporter and you are covering this event to report facts, dates, and details. This should read like it could appear in a history book or a newspaper.
Letter Writing (example) - Write a letter to a character or a person involved in some way with your central idea
Poetry (example) - Write a short poem reflecting on your event
OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENTS:may choose any or all of the following to earn the grade you want.
LEVEL 1 - 10 points possible
Answers all readingComprehension Questions below about the prologue using full setnences
Recall - Where is Rainy Mountain and why does Momaday Return there?
Clarify - What two natural phenomena are explains by the Kiowa legend about the seven sisters and their brother?
Summarize - What important events in the Kiowa history does Momaday recount?
Vocabulary - Use the vocabulary word list below) to select 5 words and create vocabulary word webs for them. LIST: enmity, inherently, luxuriant, opaque, pillage, preeminently, profusion, solstice, tenuous.
Determine the central idea of a Roman numeral chapter by summarizing and comparing each of the three paragraphs and then interpreting what common idea or theme connects them in ~50-100 words.
Analyzing Visuals. In your opinion of about 50-100 words, does this photograph (Mandan Offering the Buffalo Skull, by Edward Curtis) convey the same mood that Momaday evokes in the prologue of his memoir? Explain your answer citing details from both the photograph and the text.
LEVEL 2 - Analysis prompts 20 points possible
Prompts: In a 200 word or more response, select and respond to any one of the following prompts. Be sure to include evidence from the text to support your responses.
Momaday includes cultural myths as well as personal reflections in his account of the Kiowa tribe. Evaluate what these accounts add that a history book may not.
Analyze the Introduction and the Epilogue and explain what is the most important insight Momaday gains about his heritage from his journey.
How did the journey to the Wichita Mountains define the Kiowa as a people?
How did the loss of Tai-me, described in the epilogue, and the loss of the Sun Dance ceremony cause the decline of the Kiowa culture?
The book contains two poems, one before the prologue titled “Headwaters,” and one after the epilogue titled “Rainy Mountain Cemetery.” Compare and contrast these two poems. How do these poems represent or reflect the beginning and end of the Kiowa?
What is the historical and socioeconomic significance of horses in Kiowa society? Is it different from the symbolic significance of horses in the Kiowa legends included in The Way to Rainy Mountain? Why or why not?
Momaday links the survival of his people to their ability to remember, preserve, and pass on stories. Do you agree that a culture’s survival rests on this ability? Explain, using evidence from The Way to Rainy Mountain to support your opinion.
LEVEL 3 - CREATE 30 points possible
1. WRITING TRIPTYCH
See above
2. CREATE A REFLECTION in which you discuss your feelings about an aspect of your own life.
Momaday chose to write his novel reflecting on the concepts of family, history, heritage and tradition. You could choose to reflect on something similar.
This reflection could be a video production, an audio recording like a podcast, or a written essay. For example, you could create a podcast that explores how family history shapes who you are OR how geography and landscape has an effect on people. Imagine this work is going to be featured on TV, on the radio, or in a magazine, so final versions should be edited and “ready for professional publication” meaning refined, proofread, and edited. Video/audio should be about 4 minutes long. Written works should be around 500 words.
3. SYNTHESIZE INFORMATION
When you synthesize information, you make connections between different sources, including your own personal experience. Using sections from “The Way to Rainy Mountain” as examples write a 500 word essay in MLA format, that argues what value do people today hold in common to the views expressed by N. Scott Momaday.
