Narrative Description (for faculty)

This in-class small group assignment is designed to address several areas that ENA 101 students often find challenging: close reading, reading comprehension, student engagement and interaction, and a sense of ownership during class activities.  Students are asked to delve into a short quotation from an ENG 101 assigned reading, modeling and enhancing close reading skills and their understanding of the text.  They will already have read, discussed, and responded to an Informal Writing question about the text with the ENG 101class.  This activity is designed to build on that more general discussion.  For this example, the text being discussed is “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples.  Sample quotations for analysis are provided on the student handout, below.

The activity’s goal is to practice the following skills: 

Reading comprehension: Asking students to spend time focusing on a short passage, identifying and defining key words, and discussing how the passage helps express the text’s larger meaning models and allows ENA students to practice close reading and reading comprehension skills.  

Student interaction: Doing this activity in small groups encourages student interaction, allowing students to get to know each other better and create a stronger sense of community and connection within the class.  It also provides a more comfortable space to share ideas, especially for students too shy or unsure to raise their hands during a large group discussion.  In addition to in-person interaction, the activity also encourages online interaction using Blackboard’s Discussions board.

Engagement/sense of ownership: Assigning specifics tasks to each group member ensures that all students engage fully in group work.  A sense of ownership is also created since each role has a specific goal, whether it be facilitating, reporting, submitting, or responding.  To ensure that each student practices each role, assignments will be rotated during future activities (so today’s reporter will be next week’s responder) until every student has fulfilled each of the four roles.

Timing: 

The activity is scheduled to take 15 minutes of class time for small group work plus an additional 20 minutes or so to report on results and ask questions.  Time will also be required outside of class for those posting on Blackboard’s Discussion board and/or reviewing and responding to the posts of others.  

Activity Handout (for students)

Close Reading Exercise: Quotation Analysis

Instructions: You will be placed into small groups and assigned a brief quotation from “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples to discuss in further detail.  

Start by introducing yourselves and designating one person to fulfill each of the following roles (5 minutes):

Facilitator: manage the discussion, make sure you answer all the questions listed below, and give everyone a chance to share their ideas;

Reporter: share your findings with and take questions from the rest of the class in a large group discussion;

Submitter: create and post a document that shares your group’s work on Blackboard, including a list of who fulfilled which role;

Responder: review the submissions posted on Blackboard and respond to at least one group that is not your own.

As a group, review your assigned quotation carefully and do the following (10 minutes): 

1. Note at least three key words that stand out to you in the quotation.  Define each word and discuss why you think each is important;

2. Describe, in your own words, the main idea of the quotation (the point you think Staples is trying to make in your assigned passage);

3. Discuss how the quotation’s main idea relates to the text as a whole.  What is the essay’s overall thesis?  How does this particular passage help convey the essay’s thesis?  

4. Note any part of your assigned quotation that is confusing or could be made clearer.  

During class today, each facilitator will manage the discussion, ensure that all questions are answered, and encourage every group member to contribute to the conversation.  Once we rejoin the larger group, each reporter will share their group’s work and take questions from the class.

After class today: each submitter will create a list of students assigned to each role, summarize their group’s responses, and post their report as a Discussion thread by 5 p.m. today.  Each responder will review what’s been posted and respond in writing to at least one other group by tomorrow at 12 noon.  A response can ask questions, agree or disagree with the group’s findings, share new ideas, and/or expand on what’s been written.

Sample quotations: 

“My first victim was a woman – white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance” (Staples).

“It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into – the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers” (Staples).

“And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet–and they often do in urban America–there is always the possibility of death” (Staples).

“Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans” (Staples).