Targeted CCS Standards for Project

I reviewed the Common Core State Standards for reading literature in the 9th and 10th grade. At this level, student are expected to "cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis" of texts, as well as "analyze how authors choice's concerning how to structure a text...create...effects." I think these are skills that are necessary for my intention of broadening cultural perspectives to work; students need to interact with the text on a level that allows them to form judgments about authorial choices. With that in mind, I've chosen two of the standards to highlight. According to this document, students at the targeted level should:

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

6. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impacts of specified 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)

I believe these standards allow me to accomplish my goal for a variety of reasons. First, I can integrate the two to show students how figurative language is used to develop a central theme. Second, authorial choices in structure and figurative language will allow the student to determine biases or cultural proclivities. In "The Second Coming," for example, the Christian language clues the reader in to the author's Judeo-Christian heritage, which creates a context for the work. The kinds of changes this author suggests, then, represent a destabilization of his Christian moral center.

My real challenge at this point will be leading the students through the reasoning using the questions. I need to ask questions which first identify the particular element I wish to isolate before launching into questions of authorial choice, structure, and figurative language.