Raymond's Run:

Students, during the next several learning days, we are going to work with two short stories--

1) "Raymond's Run," by Toni Cade Bambara's

2) and Charles Baxter's "Gryphon."

Our work with these stories is designed to help us develop an understanding of what it means to do "interpretive work" with texts.

Interpretive vs Comprehension

Comprehension leads to interpretations.

For this reason, our work today will be devoted to getting oriented to "Raymond's Run."

In other words, before we make interpretations about "Raymond's Run," today we focus on "comprehension."

Comprehension Questions

• Who are the characters in the story?
• What are the important things we learn about each of them in the story?
• What happens in the story? In other words, what are the big events in the story and in what order do they happen?

As I read aloud...

• I encourage you to use the comprehension questions to guide your listening.
• I also encourage you to make notes in the margins of your student readers.

Untitled Slide

After the Story...

• You will have time to work on the three questions with a partner/trio

In short

• Goal: Comprehend
• Read Aloud
• Follow along and Annotate
• Small Group Comprehension Work

Comprehension Questions

• Who are the characters in the story?
• What are the important things we learn about each of them in the story?
• What happens in the story? In other words, what are the big events in the story and in what order do they happen?

Interpretive Assignment #1

For this assignment, you will write a response to a question. The questions will ask you to make a particular kind of response: an interpretation.

This response is a draft, so don’t worry about punctuation, grammar, structure, etc; you will have time to edit your response later and can worry about these issues then.

Here’s the question:

What is the author's message in "Raymond's Run"?

Important to note: Before you fully commit to your response, you will have an opportunity to discuss the question in a small group and then, later, with the whole class.

Members of the groups do not have to agree on an interpretations.

The purpose of these discussions is to...

1) give you a chance to “try out” responses before writing

2) hear other readers’ reactions to those responses

3) and to help each other identify examples or moments to support and/or otherwise refine those responses.

Be sure to take good notes during these discussions. These notes will make your interpretive writing better and easier.

Be sure to bring your notes and a copy of “Raymond’s Run” to these discussions, as you will need these to find important passages in the story.

To sum up: today we start our work of drafting, discussing, and taking notes about our interpretations.

Whole Class Interpretation

Students, today you will have a discussion about the author's message.

Along these lines, I am not going to participate in this discussion.

Instead, I will be taking notes to keep track of who says what so that I can keep track of your effort.

I encourage you to have an "adult conversation."

An adult conversation?

Simply put, this means I encourage you to talk in a manner which doesn't require you to raise your hand.

To do this you'll need to wait for the right moment to jump into the discussion to make a point.

You'll also need to support ideas with page numbers, lines or quotations.

Conversations, of course, should stay on topic.

Please disagree without being disagreeable--in other words, don't get upset when you don't see eye to eye with someone.

Lastly, it's very important ya'll don't interrupt someone while they are speaking or make unnecessary noise/side conversations.

If you have a hard time joining the discussion, please use the following sentence stems to help you articulate your thoughts.

Discussion Stems

• I agree/disagree with ___ because..
• I don't understand...
• Can you please explain...
• Can you tell me more about...
• What if...
• What you said makes me think/wonder...

Questions?

Discussion Stems

• I agree/disagree with ___ because..
• I don't understand...
• Can you please explain...
• Can you tell me more about...
• What if...
• What you said makes me think/wonder...

"Step-Back"

• What did you learn about the text that you didn't know before the discussion?
• How is forming an interpretation different from responding to a comprehension question?

Drafting Interpretations

What is the author's message in "Raymond's Run"?

As you answer this question in writing, remember, while there can be lots of different interpretations, good interpretations must have the following things:

Interpretations have...

• A clear interpretive position
• Textual evidence that supports the claim.
• A compelling explanation why your evidence is relevant.

I know this is our first attempt at interpretive writing.

Along these lines, your goal today is to do the best you can.

The interpretive pieces of writing that grow out of this first assignment will be examined later.

Why will we be studying these drafts later?

Essentially, we'll be analyzing today's writing in the future so that we can get a better sense of what a really good interpretive response looks like.

You should know, as you work, feel free to refer to your copy of "Raymond's Run."

You can also consult any notes you've written from past learning sessions.

Questions?

Debrief

• What success did you have today when writing your paper?
• Were you able to form a claim?
• Were you able to locate textual evidence to support your claim?
• Were you able to craft a satisfying explanation?