This 170-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, daily quizzes, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!

Here are some highlights from the 170-page editable curriculum:

• Discussion Question Handouts (x9): Thirty-five pages of higher-order questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 9 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! Guaranteed to foster deep thinking and dynamic discussions! (35 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys (x9): The answer keys are informed by scholarly articles and books written by professors who specialize in African-American literature and the novels of Toni Morrison: Alice Walker, Susan Willis, Michael Awkward, Madhu Dubey, and others. Every answer is grounded in concrete textual evidence that gets submitted to careful analysis. While every section in this unit comes with an answer key, the keys for the discussion questions are distinguished by an extremely high level of detail. (35 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 12 vocabulary words for every reading assignment, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in The Bluest Eye. A total of over 100 words. (9 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 8 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 12 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (36 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the literary devices used in fifteen quotations from The Bluest Eye. The literary devices include metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, allusion, onomatopoeia, and more. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Morrison's novel — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer key included. (3 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 30 key quotations from The Bluest Eye. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Toni Morrison's wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of four thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

• Poetry Pairing: Deepen your engagement with the themes in The Bluest Eye by reading and discussing several poems that touch upon similar themes. Included are a cluster of complex poems by African-American poets Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. Discussion questions and answer keys are included. (30 pages)

This entire 170-page unit will come to you in two separate formats: Word doc *and* PDF. Because the Word doc is fully editable, you'll be able to CUSTOMIZE the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as a PDF — which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

If you have any questions while teaching The Bluest Eye, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I love hearing from teachers who share a passion for great literature. Wishing you an amazing experience with Morrison's powerful novel!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

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