In this concluding lesson for Joy Williams's "The Girls," we explored character relationships by labeling them either parasitic, commensalistic, or mutualistic - which is terminology you may recognize from your science class! In a brief vocabulary mini-lesson to follow-up yesterday's lesson, we covered the Greek element, "META," drawing it from Father Snow's repentance speech. We ground the Greek element in our textual analysis today, as well, because we look at the short story's animal metaphor. Moving on to the central focus of the lesson, we first matched text details to parasite traits and characterization components to understand how the girls' behavior resembled parasitism and how Williams used multiple components of characterization (i.e. character actions, what other characters say, etc.) to fully develop her portrayal of their parasitism. With several characters' characterization linked to a parallel cat food chain, we also mapped out the animal relationships at play in the short story to identify their metaphoric meaning. Lastly, we reread several scenes concerning the houseguests - Father Snow and Arleeen - to determine their relation to Mommy and Daddy, since they broke the traditional houseguest rotation in several notable ways: duration of this summer stay and the fact that they were repeat visitors. Due to Arleen's pink journal and Father Snow's occupation, we inferred their purpose to Mommy and Daddy. in light of the parents' past In a writing activity explaining the their proposed relationship with the parents, we also went back to the text to figure out another ambiguity: is their relationship to Mommy and Daddy commensalistic or mutualistic? Are either Arleen or Father Snow benefiting from the summer stay, also? And if so, to what extent and how do we know?
A Look at How to Translate Symbiosis to Humans: Zits Comic Strip Since you've discussed symbiotic relationships in your science class in a previous lesson, you've applied the three relationships - mutualistic, commensalistic, and parasitic - to animals and plants. To introduce the idea of transferring them to human relationships - and to see that by doing so, it illuminates and conveys the human relationship better - we looked at a comic strip, Zits, by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, that link a rhinoceros-bird relationship to a mother-son relationship. After reading the comic aloud - with different students for each character - we addressed three primary questions: What type of "symbiotic relationship" exists between the mother and son? Do you think that symbiotic relationship is valid for many mother-son relationships? Is that the type of symbiosis that really exists between the rhinoceros and the bird? |
Parasitic Relationship: Matching Activity
The Girls' Effect on Mommy/Daddy We caught our first glimpse of the girls' parasitic relationship with their parents through their parent's names: Mommy and Daddy. Usually associated with younger children - not two girls aged thirty-one and thirty-three - the labels "Mommy" and "Daddy" are often linked to the infantile, overdependent state of children. With the girls' still referring to their parents in this fashion, the character names suggest that the girls - despite their adulthood - still depend on their parents to the severe extent of babies....just like parasites depend on their hosts for survival. After brainstorming the various effects of parasites on their hosts, we linked text details about the girls to those parasitic traits (i.e. drain resources, weaken host, kill host, physically latch onto host, etc). We also classified the text detail according to the characterization component it portrayed (i.e. what the character says, narrator description, etc). This allowed us to see how Joy Williams developed the girls' parasitism. An example is provided on the worksheet. |
Vocabulary Greek Element: META-
Continuing our weekly work with Greek and Latin elements, we looked at the Greek prefix "META." By brainstorming example words that began with that prefix, we filled out the graphic organizer to the right. The chosen Greek element originates from our close reading yesterday. In Joy Williams's "The Girls," Father Snow dove into etymology during his analysis of the word, "repentance." Therefore, as a follow-up to our lesson yesterday, we explored the Greek prefix in more depth today. By briefly revising the passage, we reminded ourselves of how the prefix was grounded in short story. And by going back to the comic strip and later looking at an animal metaphor in "The Girls," we reinforced the Greek element again in this lesson.
META (Greek): Change, Beyond, Between, Transference.
"METAPHOR"
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Animal Food Chain: Parallel Text Structure Character and Animal Relationships After discussing and establishing the parasitic relationship between the girls and Mommy/Daddy, we explored the symbolism behind the parallel animal relationships that run alongside the character relationships in the story. By previously establishing that the girls were like parasites to their parents, this activity followed naturally in that Arleen's ashtray "bloodsuckers" were easily identifiable as symbolic of the girls - which, by default, meant that the cats were Mommy and Daddy. The cats' attack on the mockingbird - a symbol of innocence in and of itself - paired with the parent's hit-and-run on their engagement night. We then discussed how the girls' denial of the cats' predation parallels the parents' lack of accountability for their own murderous actions. |
Commensalism: a
close and long-term interaction between two organisms in which one organism
benefits and the other is unaffected.
Mutualism: a close and long-term
interaction between two organisms in which both individuals benefit.
Parasitism: a
close and long-term interaction between two species in which one organism (the
parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which two unlike, unrelated objects are compared without using like or as.
Characterization: the process by which an author develops a character. A character's personality is revealed through his/her
actions, thoughts, dialogue, narrator description, and
what others say/think about the character.
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The Purpose of the Houseguests: Commensalistic or Mutualistic Relationship with Mommy/Daddy? To finish up the character relationships, we looked at the houseguests: Arleen and Father Snow. Unconvinced that they were merely part of what seemed like a mundane - and thus purposeless - summer houseguest rotation, we went back to the text to dig deeper into the implications behind some scenes, like Arleen's "disgusting pink" journal and knowledge of Mommy's dreams, Arleen's self-description of herself as an "adviser," and Father Snow's repentance speech. Since this analysis followed a reminder of the parent's vehicular manslaughter (due to the bird-cat parallel), we now saw these houseguest actions in light of Mommy/Daddy's past. In a short writing activity, we inferred the relationship between the houseguests and Mommy/Daddy using text details. However, we also took their character relationship a step further and contemplated another question in our writing: Is the relationship mutualistic or commensalistic? Drawing from what we learned about those symbiotic relationships in science class, we found text details to support or invalidate the idea that Arleen and Father Snow were benefiting from the summer stay (i.e. Was it helping Father Snow's grief like Arleen claimed? Is there significance behind Father Snow's desire to forsake his parish to offer one-on-one counseling?). |