English 213 Junior English

JUNIOR ENGLISH 231 Name: WEBSITE: http://www.alanreinstein.com email: [email protected] NEWTON SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL MISSION STATEMENT Newton South High School, a community of students, parents, faculty, and staff (1) IS DEDICATED TO EQUALITY AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL; (2) EXPECTS INTEGRITY; RESPONSIBILITY; AND RESPECT FOR SELF, OTHERS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT; (3) CREATES A CLIMATE OF SAFETY AND KINDNESS; (4) ENCOURAGES COMMUNICATION AND PERSONAL CONNECTIONS; (5) NURTURES CURIOSITY, CREATIVITY, AND A PASSION FOR LEARNING; (6) FOSTERS SELF-CONFIDENCE AND SUCCESS FOR ALL LEARNERS.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby READING ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

Reading #1: Chapter 1

1. What is the narrator’s initial comment—from his father—about criticizing (or judging) others? Discuss briefly the significance of this statement in opening the story.

2. Describe/Paraphrase what Nick says is “gorgeous about him,” referring to Gatsby.

[OPTIONAL] Where is Nick from? How old is he when he arrives at the East?

3. How does Nick briefly describe the difference between West Egg and East Egg, both very close to each other on Long Island?

4. Give a revealing detail from Nick’s initial description of Tom Buchanan in the novel. Explain its significance.

5. Daisy’s face, as Nick introduces her, is “sad and lonely.” Write down either five more adjectives that Nick uses further in the chapter OR five actions or sentences of Daisy’s that reveal her character.

6. Find Nick’s description(s) of Jordan Baker and describe for yourself her character, using at least one specific detail (in quotation marks). 7. What is the “idea” of the book Tom is reading, The Rise of the Colored Empires?

[OPTIONAL] What is the news about Tom and Daisy’s relationship that Jordan reveals to Nick?

8. What does Daisy tell Nick she said to her little daughter when she was born? Give a brief response to this comment.

9. Provide two adjectives of Gatsby that are supported by the final paragraphs of the chapter. Give the support also.

10. As the chapter ends, what is “minute and faraway” that Nick describes?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

OR choose ONE phrase or sentence from the reading that interests you for ANY reason and that you want to discuss with a classmate, the teacher, or the entire class. Maybe it’s a line that you don’t understand. Write it down, along with the page number and the explanation for your choosing it. FILL THE GIVEN LINES BELOW.

Reading #2: Chapter 2

1. List two significant details of the "valley of ashes." Be prepared to discuss what this place—between Long Island and New York—may represent. Also, write down at least two adjectives used in its description.

2. Give your first impression of George Wilson and one textual detail that supports this. 3. Give your first impression of Myrtle Wilson and one textual detail that supports this.

4. What does Tom use as the apparent context for his visiting Wilson’s garage?

5. Describe the change that you see in Myrtle in New York (on the street and/or in the apartment).

6. What news is there about Gatsby in this chapter (we get it from Myrtle’s sister, Catherine)?

7. “Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie” (33). What does the reader infer from this information?

8. “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” Comment on Nick’s role as a narrator so far.

9. What social commentary does Fitzgerald/Nick seem to be making through the McKees’ presence at the party?

10. The chapter ends with a violent action. Describe it. Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #3: Chapter 3

1. “…and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names” (40). What are these parties of Gatsby’s like, according to Nick.

2. How do “two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts” respond when Nick wants to find Gatsby to announce his arrival?

3. What are two more rumors about Gatsby shared by one of the girls in the yellow dresses? 4. What surprises the man in “owl-eyed spectacles” (known later as Owl Eyes) about the books in Gatsby’s library? (Also, can you explain “didn’t cut the pages”?)

5. After “two finger-bowls full of champagne,” Nick says that the party scene changes. How does he express this change?

6. Finally, we meet Gatsby. (1) Where does Gatsby say he thinks he knows Nick from? And (2) List several significant words Nick uses in describing Gatsby’s smile. What is meant to be our first impression of him?

7. How is Gatsby’s loneliness presented as he listens to “The Jazz History of the World”?

8. What does Jordan whisper to Gatsby after her hour-long meeting with Gatsby?

9. List several details of the “bizarre and tumultuous scene” in the ditch at the end of Gatsby’s party.

10. What does Nick notice about Jordan in his account at the end of the chapter? (Also, how does she respond to him when he accuses her of not being a careful driver?)

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #4: Chapter 4

1. On what and on what date is written the many names of the attendees of Gatsby’s parties during that summer? (Also, can you notice the difference between the names of the old-wealth East Eggers and the new-wealth West Eggers who attended Gatsby’s parties?)

2. What are the first things Gatsby says about his background, and then what makes Nick understand “why Jordan Baker believed he (Gatsby) was lying”? And then what makes Nick believe he may be telling the truth?

3. Why does Gatsby bring up Jordan Baker to Nick?

4. How does Gatsby avoid a speeding ticket from the motorcycle policeman who stops them?

5. On Meyer Wolfsheim, “a small, flat-nosed Jew.” One, What are Mr. Wolfsheim’s cufflinks made of? Two, “Who is he, anyhow,” asks Nick—an actor? a dentist? How does Gatsby respond? 6. Describe Gatsby’s brief interaction with Tom Buchanon, whom Nick sees at the same restaurant.

Jordan’s story of Gatsby and Daisy 7. What year and where did Jordan first see Daisy with Gatsby? In what “way” does Jordan recall Gatsby looking at Daisy when she came upon them sitting in Daisy’s white roadster?

8. Describe how Jordan, a bridesmaid at Daisy’s wedding to Tom, find Daisy, in “her room half an hour before the bridal dinner.” Then what happened the “[n]ext day at five o’clock”?

9. How did first Daisy learn that Gatsby was living in West Egg?

10. What does Jordan mean when she says to Nick, “But it wasn’t a coincidence at all” that Gatsby and Daisy are now living so close together? And what does Gatsby (through Jordan’s request) want from Nick?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #5: Chapter 5 1. When Nick arrives home late at night, he sees Gatsby’s mansion with lights on in all the rooms, “lit from tower to cellar.” When Gatsby responds to Nick, “I have been glancing into some rooms,” what should the reader infer is his reason? And the irony of his line a moment later, “Oh, that’s all right…I don’t want to put you to any trouble”?

2. Describe the conversation Nick is referring to when he says, “I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life.” And why does Nick reject Gatsby’s offer?

3. “The day agreed upon was pouring rain” (83). Make a note below of the pages in which the weather is mentioned in this chapter and whether it is raining or the rain has stopped.

4. How does Nick describe Daisy’s voice when he greets her for the tea?

5. On the bottom of page 91, Nick says that Gatsby “had passed through three states and was entering a third.” a. Describe his first state, just before and when he initially sees Daisy.

b. Then, on page 89, what is the “change in Gatsby that was simply confounding”? c. Finally, what’s the third state, expressed on the very top of page 92?

6. Just as Gatsby meets Daisy, “with his hands in his pockets,” his head is leaning “against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock.” Describe what happens to the clock. (And then be ready in class to discuss the role of time in this chapter.)

7. How does Daisy respond to Gatsby’s throwing has many dress shirts on the table in his room?

8. What is the “colossal significance of that light” and why has it “vanished forever”?

9. Two photographs: Describe the subjects of the large photograph hanging above Gatsby’s desk and the small one, “on the bureau.”

10. What does Nick suggest is behind the “expression of bewilderment” that he sees in Gatsby’s face near the end of the chapter? And then at the very end, what is it that, for Gatsby, “couldn’t be overdreamed”?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #6: Chapter 6 1. The middle paragraph on page 98 gives an indication of James Gatz’s desire to “invent” “Jay Gatsby.” What do you see?

2. Give several important details of his meeting and then living with Dan Cody. (One detail may be what Gatsby learns about the use of alcohol.)

3. What does Nick tell the reader is his reason for revealing this information about Gatsby now in his account? What might this suggest about Nick’s role as a reliable narrator? (Is he on Gatsby’s side?) [Ms. Martin’s question]

4. Describe the invitation to dinner Gatsby receives when Tom—with “a man named Sloane and a pretty young woman”— visits Gatsby’s house. Why does Gatsby look at Nick “questioningly”? What does this suggest about the relationship between East Egg (old money) and West Egg (new money)?

5. Describe how Daisy (on page 107) responds to the West Egg she sees at Gatsby’s Saturday party. 6. What does Daisy say is the source of Gatsby’s income, when Tom says he’s interested in “who he is and what he does,” saying he’ll “make a point of find out” (108)?

7. Gatsby is disappointed by the party (“She didn’t like it…She didn’t have a good time” (109)). What is it he “wanted nothing less of” happening?

8. How does Gatsby respond to Nick’s consolation to him that he shouldn’t “ask too much of her…You can’t repeat the past”? Discuss briefly the significance of this response.

9. Describe Gatsby’s first kiss with Daisy five years earlier.

10. What is Nick reminded of, in closing the chapter, as he recalls Daisy and Gatsby’s early romance?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #7: Chapter 7 1. What is the “rather harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden” (114)? This refers to Gatsby’s conversation with Nick at the end of Chapter 6. Go look at the bottom of page 109 to see what Gatsby plans.

2. What does Daisy’s little girl, Pammy say when looking at Gatsby? What is a possible meaning of Daisy’s comment that her daughter does not look like Tom? (And what are we to make of Daisy’s parenting of this child?)

3. What does Gatsby say about Daisy’s voice? How does Nick respond to this?

4. Who goes in which cars to New York City?

5. Why does Wilson feel sick? Explain what is happening to Myrtle, as she assumes that Jordan is Daisy? And what is the cause of Tom “feeling the hot whips of panic”? 6. Describe with several details Gatsby’s confrontation with Tom over the love of Daisy. (What more do we learn about Gatsby’s business through Tom’s accusations and investigation?) And what role does Daisy play in choosing one over the other?

7. On pages 136-37, we get the description of what happens to Myrtle from the Wilson’s neighbor, Greek coffee joint owner Michaelis. Describe the event.

8. How does Nick respond to Jordan’s request that he “come in” to Tom and Daisy’s?

9. Briefly describe the scene between Daisy and Tom that Nick can see through the window on the final page of the chapter.

10. And where is Gatsby at the end of this chapter? What is he doing and what does this tell us about what he has/has not learned?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #8: Chapter 8

1. Why won’t Gatsby leave town? (What does his response make the reader think of him?) What does Nick’s recommendation that Gatsby’s leave reveal about Nick?

2. What are the “false pretenses” under which Gatsby courted Daisy when they had first met in Louisville before Gatsby went off to war?

3. What was the effect/result of the “complication or misunderstanding [that] sent Gatsby of Oxford” on his and Daisy’s relationship? (Follow this answer through to the end of the page, 151.)

4. On page 153, what does Nick notice about the change in the weather? Right after this, what does Gatsby tell the servant to hold off from doing?

5. What does Nick say to Gatsby just before he leaves him, “the only compliment I ever gave him”? Who’s “they” likely to be?

6. Explain the nature of the conversation between Nick and Jordan on page 155. Why is it strained? 7. On page 157, when the topic of religion comes up in Michaelis’s conversation with George Wilson, how does Wilson initially respond? Then, on 159-60, what is the nature of Wilson’s comments on God?

8. Report the significant details that come at the end of the chapter. a. Nick reports on Gatsby: “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared.” What’s it in this quotation?

b. Who is the “ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees”?

c. What is the “accidental burden” in the following: “A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden”?

d. What does the gardener see “a little way off” that completes the “holocaust”?

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

Reading #9: Chapter 9

1. How is Nick’s dilemma expressed by Gatsby’s imaginary protest, “Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to try hard. I can’t go through this alone”? How is this Gatsby’s dilemma too? a. Where is Daisy (and Tom)?

b. What is Wolfsheim’s excuse for not attending the funeral?

c. And Klipspringer, the boarder—why does he call up? (169)

2. What is Gatsby’s father’s—Henry Gatz’s—reason for not wanting to return Gatsby’s body to Minnesota, in the Midwest?

3. When Nick goes to see Wolfsheim to personally invite him to the funeral, what is Wolfsheim’s philosophical statement (172) about friendship that ends his conversation with Nick?

4. What is the significance of the subject of the photo that Gatsby’s father proudly shows Nick?

5. Describe the contents of the book that Mr. Gatz shows Nick. What does it reveal about Gatsby?

6. On page 176, what does Nick say that “this has been a story of…after all”? Briefly explore what he means.

7. Near the end, Nick sees Jordan, who reminds him of a conversation they “had once about driving a car.” What is the significant message she has for Nick? And how does he respond?

8. Briefly give some details of Nick’s encounter with Tom on Fifth Avenue in New York City in the novel’s penultimate scene. 9. Nick judges Tom and Daisy: “They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness…and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” Why does Nick judge them so harshly?

10. What does the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock finally come to symbolize for Nick at the novel’s end? (Does the novel finish with optimism or pessimism?)

Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

OPTIONAL Reading Assignment Response (You may use this template for ANY reading assignment.) Name of Book: Chapter(s) and Pages Read:

Remember the common reading strategies among strong readers:  QUESTION: ASK QUESTIONS WHILE YOU READ—to check your  SUMMARIZE: Check that you can RESTATE WHAT YOU’RE READING understanding, or to further it. IN YOUR OWN WORDS.  CONNECT: CONNECT TO WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW—about yourself,  INFER: DRAW A CONCLUSION about the story based on what you other books, the world. read—EVEN IF IT’S NOT SPECIFIED.  VISUALIZE: Imagine the scenes you’re reading about; MAKE  REPAIR: Don’t be afraid to STOP IF YOU DON’T GET SOMETHING and MOVIES IN YOUR MIND. try to figure out why you don’t. 1. Summarize List key moments while reading (in bullet points); then choose your top five to make questions about. b. Reading Notes

2. 2. Question Write five plot-oriented/literal-level questions, with answers, that cover the whole of the reading that cover what you think are the essential moments/events (or key pieces of information, in the case of non-fiction) of the reading.

3. Infer Write three inferential/analytical questions that ask for closer reading and deeper thinking on the part of the reader. Choose significant moments or difficult passages to ask readers to go beyond merely a literal- level response.

4. Visualize Draw a memorable scene from the reading (stick figures are fine) with a caption below that summarizes the action.

In this scene…

5. Passage of Interest Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.