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Guided Explication Practice

Group Activity Instructions
Honest Self-Evaluation Checklist

Group Activity Instructions

Step 1 (7 minutes):
As a group, do the following:

1) Read explication quiz feedback

2) Read the passage. Discuss who the speaker and/or characters involved are and the context of the passage. You don't have to write this down.

3) Go through the passage together. Circle/underline and take notes on anything that seems significant or that jumps out at you-literary characteristics, sentence structure, word choice, imagery, tone, etc. What words seem to have multiple meanings? What connotations do these words carry? Write down as many things and mark up the passage as much as you can in the time provided.

Step 2 (5 minutes):
As a group, do the following:

1) Look at what you noticed in Step 1 and, in Box A, write down any of the words or phrases or literary devices that together form a pattern or that might be logically grouped together (i.e. words that relate to the same idea)

2) In Box B, write down why you grouped the words in Box A together (i.e. they are all words that relate to the theme of X).

3) In Box C, Assert an argument (1-2 sentences) about how the passage illustrates the novel's attitude toward or stance on one specific theme/issue. The argument should be something that you can use what you did in Box A and B for as evidence.

Step 3 (7 minutes):

1) Individually-read Box E. If there's anything you don't understand, ask the members of your group.

2) As a group-Collaborate together to make a rough outline of an explication in Box D. What will you write about in what order?

Step 4 (15 minutes)

Individually-Use your outline from Box D to write an explication in paragraph format on the handout.

Step 5 (1 minute)

Individually-Look at the checklist in Box E and HONESTLY check off which ones you did in your explication. This is not graded, so there is no benefit to checking things off if you didn't do them. The point of this is that you evaluate your own work so that you know where you need to improve. If you're not sure if you did something, don't check it off, or put a question mark there.

Checklist from Box E:

Honest Self-Evaluation

At the beginning of my explication, I briefly identified:

• the work, author, speaker and/or characters involved
• the context of the passage
• an argument about how the passage illustrates the novel's attitude toward or stance on a specific cultural issue.

In my explication, I:

• talked only about things that relate to my main idea/argument
• quoted directly from the passageq explained the relevance of every quote that I use to my main idea/argument
• organized my examples with a clear, logical orderq made sure that every one of my sentences somehow mentions or relates to the passage.
• explained briefly how the novel's exploration of the idea/argument in the passage is significant to the whole novel