My Antonia Lesson Plan

Landscape and Description

Kind of Activity:

Artistic Response

Objective:

Students will be able to engage with Cather's descriptive writing through another form

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.7

Structure:

In many ways, My Ántonia is a book about landscape. Much of the book, and particularly this part, is spent describing Jimmy's visual and physical experience of the plains, of his grandparents' home and the Shimerdas', and of his physical experience in the weather, indoors and out. Read a couple of passages out loud (for example, the description of the prairie-dog town in Chapter IV, or the description of the first snowfall...