The Virgin Suicides Lesson Plan

Jaclyn Marta
CI 401- Lesson Plan 2
10/24/12

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Plot Summary: This is the story of middle America in the 1970s. A group of men look back on five girls, the Lisbon sisters, who they are obsessed with. The story starts with the youngest Lisbon sister committing suicide. The parents, trying to maintain control and order, start to enforce more rules and regulations. When Lux, the wildest of the daughters, disobeys the rules, the Lisbon parents isolate them from the world, forcing them to stay in all of the time. The local boys try to reach out and communicate with them. When they finally get together with the sisters, it is too late; they can longer handle life and the sister’s kill themselves. The boys end the novel never knowing exactly why the Lisbon sisters did what they did, forever controlling their minds.

- Introduction:. As this is a novel that makes a point to create characters of mystery, the students will explore either the group of unnamed male narrators or the mysterious Lisbon sisters by forming an in depth back story, more than the novel gives. They will fill out a background sheet that explores who the character they chose really is. Once they have established what the
character is like, they will write journal articles to explore the impact key events in the novel have on them and their story arc as a whole.
o RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
o RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

- Opening (15 minutes)
o Hand out the 2 worksheets for the class period
 Back Story Worksheet
 Journal Article Worksheet
o Go over what a back story is
 Define: a history of the background of a character, important key facts about who they are, what they have gone through
 Answer the questions for back story as a class, filling in  worksheet questions using information for Mrs. Lisbon, the mother in the story
o Explain assignment in detail
 First they will pick a character in the novel, their choices being either one of the Lisbon sisters or one of the narrators of the text, and fill out that back story sheet
 Once this is finished, they will start writing two journal articles for this character. They are free to pick any of their own choice, though examples are provided on the worksheet. They will have to explore what events happened in this scene, what their character went through emotionally, and how it impacted them.

- In Class Work time (20 minutes)
o Students will work by themselves, at first, to explore their character and develop a back story.
 To help them in this process, they will be free to use their text for help and any notes they have taken in class, since some of this information might be located in the text
o I will be walking around, checking up on students. This is not just to monitor class behavior, but help give inspiration for those that are having difficulty with the creative writing aspect of this assignment and answer any questions they have on the assignment
o Once students have finished the back story sheet, they can start on the journal articles

- Group Time (20 minutes)
o Students will pair up with those who chose the same character ( the narrator or the Lisbon sisters) they did and discuss the back story worksheet
 They will talk about what questions where difficult to answer, what they felt they could not figure out, etc.
 If someone is the only one who picked a character, they will talk with those that either don’t have a partner or with me, if it is only one student
o The lesson will finish with asking the class on the whole if they have any questions on the assignment as whole

- Progression of Assignment
o Now that the students have a sense of the character, they can focus more deeply on the journal articles.
o They will start working on them with those that have the same character as them. They will write rough drafts of one journal article together and in turn them in. The next article will be written by themselves and also turned in as a rough draft.
o After receiving feedback the students will revise and turn in a final copy of their articles
o I will then put together all the students journal articles and make copies of the journals for each character.  They will be bound and hung up in the classroom and able to be used in future years of teaching the novel.

- RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
o By writing journal articles about the impact of key scenes in the text through a main character, they will be studying the change the characters have.  As they write in their journal, they will study not only how the novel advances, they will get more involved in a character. This will provide them with a deeper characterization  of the key characters in the text.
- RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
o As the students fill out a background sheet, they will have to study the text to find answers. Since some of this information will not be directly answered in the text, students will have to also use inferences. The information on the worksheet will need to connect with the text, hence they will need a strong analysis of the text.