ELA 9: Introduction to Literature—Semester B

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 5.02: Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to

Don't you eyeball us, young man.
(Source)

Have you ever experienced a character's eyes quite in the way London's narrator describes Spot's eyes? We know more about a character that can't even utter a word that we can understand simply by this intense and detailed description.

Awww. Doggies.

But seriously: So much can be determined about a person—or dog—simply by looking deeply into their eyes. This is much of why nine out of ten people say that the eyes are the most important feature of a potential mate.

(Okay, maybe we made that statistic up, but you have heard that "the eyes are the windows to the soul," right? Ole Willie [Shakespeare] really knew his stuff.)

Seriously though, we might not exactly get the perspective of this story from inside Spot's head, but we can tell a lot about this guy just by the narrator's telling. Looking ahead:  In a future lesson, we'll be getting a house's perspective in a story. But in this lesson, more puppy dog eyes.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 5.5.02: Whatchoo Lookin At?

The narrator in "That Spot" is, well…we don't know. He's some random dude who appears to know a whole lot about what's going on, including what the dog is thinking, seeing, and feeling. At some points, the story is very nearly focalized through the dog.

Sure, that's a big word. And, to be honest, it's kind of a big concept. Let's break it down. The key words here are narrative voice (or perspective) and focalization. You can think of narrative voice as being the speaker—we covered that earlier, in Semester A. But the person speaking isn't always the person we care about, or the person (or animal, or thing) whose ideas or perspective we're getting.

Huh? Let's rephrase it this way.

• If you ask "Who sees?" then you'll find out who the focalizer is.
• If you ask "What does the focalizer see?" you'll find out what is focalized.

Put those two together, and you get focalization.

So what? Stories' perspectives all comes down to the distance between the narrator and the focalizer. Is an omniscient, god-like narrator sitting up high casting some sort of judgment on the poor character, like in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"? Is the narrator sympathetic to the focalizer, like in "The Most Dangerous Game"? Or—as in most of the stories we've read so far—are the narrator and focalizer one and the same? The answer makes a difference in how we think about the story's themes.

Here's a handy list of questions to ask yourself as you're trying to figure out a story's focalizer:

• Do we get information from more than one character?
• Do we have access to what the character is thinking, or to what he's doing, or both?
• Do we get to look through a character's eyes?
• Do we watch from outside the action?
• Are we given access to the inner thoughts of lots of characters, or just one, or both?
• Do we see the same actions from different characters?
• Do we see things that a character wouldn't?

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 5.02: Man Bites Dog

Now that we proved ourselves masters of setting in the previous lesson, it's time to dive deeper into the whole focalization thing. We know, we know, you wanted a lesson based on collecting pictures of sled dogs—but we've got some narrative analysis to do.

Step One

Choose three events in the story. You heard us, any three events; we're not giving qualifiers here. Some examples? When the men start off for the Klondike, when the narrator confronts Steve for whipping Spot, and when Steve drops that Spot off with the narrator.

Step Two

Choose one or two quotations for each event in which the narrator explains the narrator's reaction. Yep: We're looking for situations where the narrator remarks on his own judgment. Check out our example here, from when the narrator confronts Steve: "I told Steve he was brutal with the animal, and we had some words—the first we'd ever had." (Line 144) The narrator is totally reflecting on his past. Deep, right?

Step Three

Now that you've discussed the focalizer, let's get into the focalized. Choose one or two quotations for each event in which the narrator explains the dog's reaction—you might have to get a bit creative here, but use what you've been given in the text for this one. Check out our example for that same confrontation:

"That Spot trembled and wobbled and cowered before ever I swung the lash, and with the first bite of it he howled like a lost soul. Next he lay down in the snow. I started the rest of the dogs, and they dragged him along, while I threw the whip into him. He rolled over on his back and bumped along, his four legs waving in the air, himself howling as though he was going through a sausage machine. Steve came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for what I'd said." (Lines 145 – 47)

Aww—Spot's scared!

Step Four

Bet you didn't see this coming: Use a graphic organizer to present the information, in whatever way you think is best. We know you're pros at this by now, but if you're out of ideas, you can borrow this template:

Step Five

When you're finished with your organizer, write a 200 – 250-word analysis of who the narrator is and who Spot is, based on your major plot events and the quotes you pulled.

(Ya see how plot can be used to establish character, too? Plot = awesomesauce.)

Our paragraph write-up might include details like:

The incident of the narrator confronting Steve for whipping Spot tells us about both the narrator and Spot, separately and collectively. The narrator feels as if his old friend is being too harsh on Spot, but when he encounters the dog himself, he finds that Spot would rather be beaten than produce any work. That is some serious stubbornness in a canine.

Get the gist? Upload your organizer and paragraph (they can be on the same or in two different documents) below when you're done.