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| Overview |
 Exploring the use of style in literature helps students understand how language conveys mood, images, and meaning.
In this activity, students will translate passages that demonstrate specific stylistic devices, then translate fables into the style of one of the authors they have been reading.
The examples for this lesson plan include passages by Ernest Hemingway and Nathaniel Hawthorne; however, passages by any author can be used for the activities.
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| From Theory to Practice |
Students are experts at adapting their language to their situation, shifting from one style to another easily—and often unconsciously. The words, phrases, and clauses that they use when talking to the teacher in class are different from those that are used in the hallway with friends between classes.
This lesson plan asks them to be more conscious and analytical about the language shifts that others make by exploring the use of words, phrases, and clauses in a literary passage. Understanding how authors make stylistic choices is only part of the goal here however. By considering the reasons that authors make the choices that they do, students explore the connections between audience (including the influence of society and culture), purpose, and voice. The issue of varying stylistic choices, such as those demonstrated in this lesson, is critical to students' understanding of the communicative functions of specific sets of conventions crucial to their determination of how to speak under different sets of circumstances. Such an understanding is important to their ability to participate fruitfully in a variety of literacy communities, and to use language to accomplish their own purposes.
This lesson plan was adapted from Rosemary Laughlin's "From Hawthorne to Hemingway: An Exercise in Style," Teaching Literature in High School: The Novel. (NCTE 1995): pp. 26-29.
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| Student Objectives |
Students will
- explore the ways the literary element of style is used by an author.
- explore examples of different literary styles in given excerpts.
- adapt sample passage to a different literary style.
- write an original piece applying what they've learned about literary style.
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| Instructional Plan |
Resources
Preparation
- If your students have not worked on stylistic analysis before, you might complete the Style: Defining and Exploring an Author's Stylistic Choices lesson plan before beginning this activity.
- Students should have a working knowledge of the authors who are discussed
in this activity. The activity is ideal for students who have read at least
one Hemingway short story or novel and a substantial piece by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
such as The Scarlet Letter. The activities in this lesson are from Hemingway
and Hawthorne; however, the activity could be modified to work with other authors
as well.
- Make copies of the handouts.
Instruction and Activities
Session One
- Pass out copies of the Collaborative
Style: Short Quotations handout.
- Present and explore the information about Hawthorne's and Hemingway's style, using the notes on the handout. As you discuss the types of language that make Hawthorne's and Hemingway's styles distinctive, encourage students to find short examples in their textbooks and to read them aloud to the class.
- Explain the assignment that students will complete. Using the information about Hawthorne's and Hemingway's styles, collaborative groups will "translate" the content of one writer into the style of the other. The second page of the handout includes both the quotations to translate and a place for students to write their translations.
- Answer any questions pertaining to the example or the assignment.
- Divide students into small groups and give them the remainder of the class to work on their translations. Circulate among students as they work, offering support and feedback.
Session Two
- Review the activity with students and answer any questions. Give students
another 15 to 20 minutes to complete their exploration of the passage.
- Circulate among students as they work, offering support and feedback.
- After you're satisfied that students have had a chance to translate all
of the passages on the handout, assemble as a class and share translations
and related observations about Hawthorne's and Hemingway's styles. The following
questions can generate discussion:
- What did you notice about Hemingway's or Hawthorne's writing that you didn't
see before?
- What differences did you notice about the kinds of words that the author
used?
- What differences did you notice about the kind of sentence patterns that the
author used?
- Overall, how would you describe each author's style?
- In the process of the discussion, refer to the lists of features of the
authors' styles from the handout, and encourage students to make any additions
or
changes
to the
lists
based
on their translations. Work toward creating a list of features that has been
customized by your students.
- Pass out the Collaborative
Style: Fables handout, and explain the activity. Connect the translation
project to the customized list of features by suggesting that students refer
to the list as they work on translating the fables to Hawthorne's or Hemingway's
style. If you've completed the Style:
Defining and Exploring an Author's Stylistic Choices lesson plan, you might
give students the option to translate a fable into Zora Neale
Hurston's style.
- Answer any questions pertaining to the assignment before having students
return to their groups.
- Give them the remainder of the class
to work on their translations. Circulate among students as they work, offering
support and feedback.
- When students have finished writing, have them share their revised fables and revisit their list of features to customize it further based on their experience.
Extension
Many students become fairly adept with Hawthorne's style and enjoy re-creating
it. Once you finish reading The Scarlet Letter, you might give students
the option of applying what they've learned about Hawthorne's style in this
lesson plan to their reading of the novel by assigning the Adopting Hawthorne's Style activity, which asks
students to write from the perspective of someone interacting with Hawthorne's
novel in
1660.
You might begin the project with the lesson plan Become
a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective, which asks
students to adopt the traits of a character in the novel. With the background
on character traits and their effect on perspective and their examination of
Hawthorne's style, students should be well prepared to respond
to the challenge of sustaining a style similar to Hawthorne in this writing
activity.
Web Resources
- Aesop's Fables, from the Gutenberg Project
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=34669
- If you'd like to choose additional fables for students to translate, choose one of the links to a 1910 version of Aesop's work.
- Checklist: Elements of Literary Style
http://teachers.lakesideschool.org/us/english/ErikChristensen/WRITING%20STRATEGIES/LiteraryStyles.htm
- This fifteen-point checklist includes questions that help students analyze
literary works for such stylistic choices as pace, tone, and figures of speech.
Using this checklist, you can extend this lesson by asking students to consider
the checklist and draw conclusions about the style of the author whom they
have examined.
- The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954: Ernest Hemingway
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1954/index.html
- Celebrating Hemingway's literary achievement, the Nobel Prize site includes a biography on Hemingway, critical essays, and text of his acceptance speech.
- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure
http://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/index.html
- The companion site to the PBS series Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure follows the travels of Palin as he visits the many places Hemingway lived and featured in this fiction and essays.
- The
Transcendentalists: Nathaniel Hawthorne
http://www.transcendentalists.com/nathaniel_hawthorne.htm
- This collection of links is an excellent resource for additional information on Hawthorne, including information on specific texts, Hawthorne's home, and biographical details.
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| Student Assessment/Reflections |
As students translate the passages and fables, circulate among groups, observing students' identification of the various techniques employed in the passage. Provide support and feedback as you move from group to group.
After the class discussion about author's style, ask them to consider their translation activities for their own language use. Ask students to write in their journals or in a freewrite on the following reflective prompt:
Think of a time when you had to translate something that you said or wrote from one style to another. It might have been a time when you said something to a friend that an adult overheard and didn't understand, or it could be a time when you used technical jargon to talk about something you were doing in a class or at work and then you had to translate the description for someone who didn't have the same technical knowledge that you do.
How did the translation of your own words in that situation compare to translating Hemingway's and Hawthorne's styles? What did you notice about the way that people use language? What surprised you the most about the translating from one style to another, and why?
Read the pieces and comment on the self-reflections, noting important observations that students make and asking provoking questions where they need to think more deeply. |
3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
9 - Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
11 - Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
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