Assignment task:
An eleventh-grade English class is reading portions of a translation of Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo. To stimulate some preliminary discussion about Hugo's choices of point of view and figurative language, the teacher posts the following excerpt for a close reading exercise. The teacher asks students to write one sentence responding to the excerpt in whatever way they choose before they discuss it as a class. (1) Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him -he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. (2) And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory. (3) One of these two straight lines excluded the other. (4) Which of the two was the true one? (5) His situation was beyond words. Richard offers his response first when the teacher asks for volunteers to open the discussion. "I felt like this when I was trying to decide whether to play football or golf?
As the teacher reads the excerpt aloud, which of the following should students practice to promote comprehension of the figurative language in the excerpt?
- Visualizing
- Predicting
- Sequencing the events
- Asking questions