Unit One GPS 3

LABLRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

Basically, we need to be able to understand the history around a literary work. We need to be able to identify the history the story comes from, and more specifically the culture surrounding the story (or the culture of the person who wrote it and those around him/her).

Also, we need to be able to compare and contrast the story's history with current stories--or to compare it to now.

This can help us better understand the story and its meaning.

Unit One GPS 1

ELAALRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events and main ideas) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.

This just means: We need to know how to use literary skills when reading a variety of texts in order to understand and interpret them. These skills include but are not limited to: context clues (for example, used in old English texts when the language is old and difficult), finding evidence (finding important pieces from a text that, when put together, can tell you what the author intended the writing to mean), and identifying main ideas (in order to better understand a piece of literature or interpret what the author's message or intention is).

We also need to be able to understand and correctly use several vital literary terms: metaphors, symbols, similes, personifications, and others. These terms allow us to successfully interpret a text and its language.