Nine Yardsticks of Value Guidelines for Evaluating and

Nine Yardsticks of Value Guidelines for Evaluating and Discussing Literature Critical Literacy: Multiple Approaches to Text and Media Anna J. Small Roseboro National Board Certified Teacher www. teachingenglishlanguagearts. com

What’s Good to YOU? Why may OTHERS disagree?

Structure of Presentation n n Why? What? How? Advantages and disadvantages Sample Assignment – Rating 1 -5

To become college and career ready, students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries. Such works offer profound insights into the human condition and serve as models for students’ own thinking and writing.

n Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Nine Yardsticks of Value Vocabulary for talking about texts.

Purpose of YARDSTICKS n n Move from quantitative qualitative Learn to articulate defensible response n Use a common set of yardsticks Nine yardsticks adapted from BETTER LITERATURE, textbook edited by Walter Blair and John Gerber, 1959.

A MONTH in an MOMENT

1. CLARITY UNDERSTANDING Careful reading

2. ESCAPE Forget self Forget circumstances

3. Reflection of Real Life Actuality = GOOD Distortion = BAD Character Setting? Motivation? Dialogue? Tough Decisions?

Yardsticks 1 -3 n n n CLARITY ESCAPE REFLECTION OF REAL LIFE

4. Artistry in Details language pattern calls to mind G N I EN BED T H EB G I L “… ERW KY. ” ID E S P S TH “Pleasure compensates for TIME spent”

Artistry measures Number of pleasurable moments Duration of pleasurable moments.

5. Internal Consistency Parts ORGANIC WHOLE

What books comes to mind?

6. Tone Attitude and personality of author

Avoid with confusion “mood”. Tone = expressed by author through words, grammar, structure Mood = experienced by reader as a result of setting or atmosphere of work

Yardsticks 4 -6 n n n Artistry in Details Internal Consistency Tone

7. Emotional Impact Emotional impact on READER! READER

7. Emotional Impact. Type and intensity Components Duration Universality

8. Personal Beliefs Ideas congenial to the reader. .

Personal Beliefs Ideas oppose reader’s judgements umorality ureligion upolitics and economics urole of government uliterary criticism

9. Significant Insight Literature repository of best thought and said

9. Significant Insight mirror window

* Psychological Insight n n mirror New and profound psychological perceptions More than reflection of life as reader knows it window

* Sociological Insight n n How humans operate under given circumstances Beyond general problems of individual

Sociological, con’t This yardstick discriminates n n n wise selection and interpretation from hit and miss reporting thoughtful analysis from flippancy sympathetic understanding from sensationalism

* Ethical Insight n Literature has dual role: u It must be pleasurable u It must be instructive (ennobling) n Effective blending = profound literature Weakness = narrowing of interests, dogmatism, intellectual absolutism

* Metaphysical Insight n n n the nature of being the fundamental causes or processes of things relationship of humans to Fnature Fcosmos FGod

What is life? Why am I here? * Metaphysical Insight What is His nature? Is there a God? Is there purpose to our universe? What is man’s eventual destiny?

What books comes to mind?

Books Taught for Years

Yardsticks 7 -9 7. Emotional Impact n 8. Personal Beliefs n 9. Significant Insight n

Putting Them Together Significant Insight Clarity Escape Personal Beliefs Emotional Impact Reflection Real Life Tone Artistry in Details Internal Consistency No WRONG answers, just unsubstantiated claims!

Use same yardsticks to ANALYZE literary criticism or personal response

Response to Reading Yardstick Clarity Escape Reflection Artistry Internal Consistency Tone Emotional Personal Significance 1 2 3 4 5

What is dominant value? Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz From Jake Morrissey - National Review {Mahfouz} has been called 'the Dickens of the Cairo cafes. ' Sadly, Palace Walk lacks the verve and structure that made Dickens so readable. . Mahfouz seems fascinated by the details of his characters' lives, at the expense of all else. . His vision is clear, his characters fully realized, his images lingering. What's lacking is a solid plot. . Clarity Escape Real Life Artistic Details Internal Consistency Tone Emotion Personal Beliefs Significant Insight How would Jake rate others?

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It’s YOUR TURN to MEASURE the Review

What is dominant value? Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz From Publisher's Weekly This first volume in the 1988 Nobel Prize winner's Cairo Trilogy describes the disintegrating family life of a tyrannical, prosperous merchant, his timid wife and their rebellious children in post-WW I Egypt. ``Mahfouz is a master at building up dramatic scenes and at portraying complex characters in depth, '' lauded PW. (Jan. ) Clarity Escape Real Life Artistic Details Tone Emotion Personal Beliefs Significant Insight Internal Consistency

Using Nine YARDSTICKS of Value Yardstick 1 2 3 4 5 Clarity Escape Reflection Artistry Internal Consistency Tone Emotional Personal Significance

Nobel Laureates Project to apply the Nine Yardsticks of Value Imre Kertész, NL for Lit 2002

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