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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Analyzing significant events in Jim the Boy

This activity, to be completed after reading Tony Earley's Jim the Boy, helps students identify examples and details and then analyze them effectively. The class will brainstorm examples of life-changing events in Jim's life. The teacher will select one of the events, find the pages in the novel where it is discussed, and show the students how to annotate the text by marking details and commenting on them. Using a "T" chart, the class will then select three of the details to analyze.

A lesson plan for grades 9–10 English Language Arts

By Vickie Smith

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Learning outcomes

Students will learn:

  • how to identify details to support an example
  • how to analyze details

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

Pre-activities

Students should have finished reading Jim the Boy.

As a preface to the lesson, the teacher could write the words Example, Detail, and Analysis on the board and then ask the students to explain the difference between the three. Before continuing, the teacher should emphasize that examples and details are found in the text. Analysis is found within the student-what he or she thinks about the example and details. The examples and details are the “What” of the text. Analysis is the “So What?” about the text.

Activities

Modeling

  1. Say to class, “Today we are going to learn how to distinguish between an example, detail, and analysis. All of these are critical when we are asked to do expository writing or literary analysis.”
  2. Looking at the last page of the book or using a transparency that has the words from “Through the distance” to the end of the book, give the students the following directions:
    “Each event in Jim’s life teaches him a lesson. He realizes this at the end of the book as he recalls memories. Have one person in class read the passage aloud. Then mark each event in paragraph 1 that Jim remembers.”
  3. Then ask students to list other events that taught him lessons but are not mentioned in the passage. (Sample responses include: Jim’s first day working in the fields; Jim’s road trip with Uncle Al; the story of Jim’s daddy shooting a hole in Amos Glass’s distillery; Jim winning the slippery pole contest; Jim’s trip to New Carpenter with Uncle Zeno; Ty Cobb supposedly on the train/Penn getting polio/Jim visiting Penn).
  4. The teacher should select one event/one life-changing example from Jim’s life and model how to find and analyze details from the text. One example is when Jim watches Whitey propose to his mother (see attachment; I completed the Sample of How to Annotate Passage of Whitey’s Proposal to Mama marked passage as a sample. Students should be encouraged to label details in their own way). As a class, you should re-read this passage. Using a pencil, mark details about the event you think are important. In the margins, summarize the detail. Students should be encouraged to highlight quotations as a type of detail.

Guided Practice

As a class, the teacher should help the students complete the attached T-chart which asks the students to choose three details about Jim watching Whitey propose to his mother and analyze them (attached is a sample of how to complete the T-chart).

Follow-up Activities

  • The students can select, individually or in groups, an event/example of their own.
  • The teacher could copy the pages they say they need from the book, or the students could list details on paper rather than mark them on the actual text.
  • Students can complete the “T” chart.
  • Students can write a paragraph that analyzes why their selected event was significant in Jim’s life.

Assessment

To assess the teacher-modeled part of this assignment, I use student responses. If students complete an analysis chart on their own, I would look to see if they were able to clearly distinguish between details (What is in the text) and analysis (the So What? about the text).

Supplemental information

Comments

Development of this lesson plan was made possible by a grant from the North Carolina Society for the 2002 North Carolina Literary Festival.

North Carolina curriculum alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 9

  • Goal 5: The learner will demonstrate understanding of various literary genres, concepts, elements, and terms.
    • Objective 5.01: Read and analyze various literary works by:
      • using effective reading strategies for preparation, engagement, reflection.
      • recognizing and analyzing the characteristics of literary genres, including fiction (e.g., myths, legends, short stories, novels), non-fiction (e.g., essays, biographies, autobiographies, historical documents), poetry (e.g., epics, sonnets, lyric poetry, ballads) and drama (e.g., tragedy, comedy).
      • interpreting literary devices such as allusion, symbolism, figurative language, flashback, dramatic irony, dialogue, diction, and imagery.
      • understanding the importance of tone, mood, diction, and style.
      • explaining and interpreting archetypal characters, themes, settings.
      • explaining how point of view is developed and its effect on literary texts.
      • determining a character's traits from his/her actions, speech, appearance, or what others say about him or her.
      • explaining how the writer creates character, setting, motif, theme, and other elements.
      • making thematic connections among literary texts and media and contemporary issues.
      • understanding the importance of cultural and historical impact on literary texts.
      • producing creative responses that follow the conventions of a specific genre and using appropriate literary devices for that genre.

Grade 10

  • Goal 4: The learner will critically interpret and evaluate experiences, literature, language, and ideas.
    • Objective 4.03: Analyze the ideas of others by identifying the ways in which writers:
      • introduce and develop a main idea.
      • choose and incorporate significant, supporting, relevant details.
      • relate the structure/organization to the ideas.
      • use effective word choice as a basis for coherence.
      • achieve a sense of completeness and closure.

  • Common Core State Standards

    • English Language Arts (2010)

      • Reading: Literature

        • Grade 9-10
          • 9-10.RL.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
          • 9-10.RL.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and...