This lesson seeks to assist Language Arts learners in:
• Order sequences of events in texts at a satisfactory level
• Make inferences about plot/sequence of events, characters/people, settings, or ideas in texts at a satisfactory level
• Analyze relationships within texts, including how events are important in relation to plot or conflict; how people, ideas, or events are connected, developed, or distinguished; how events contribute to theme or relate to key idea; or how a setting or context shapes structure and meaning
• Analyze the roles that details play in complex literary or informational texts at a satisfactory level
Part 1: Anna Karenina
Using the opening paragraph from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, answer the below questions. After, review the correct answers (also below) and their related reasoning.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1399/1399-h/1399-h.htm
1. Why was the Oblonsky home in a state of chaos?
A. Everyone thought an inn would be a better place to live
B. The cook had left
C. The wife had discovered her husband had ‘intrigue’ in a French girl
D. The husband had been gone for three days
2. Using the logic presented in the introduction “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, what is required to produce a happy family?
A. The absence of unhappiness
B. Agreement
C. Time-spent together
D. Similar passions
3. How did everyone in the home feel about their coexistence/relationship in the home?
A. That they all remained friends
B. That there existed greater chemistry between random people at an inn
C. They wished to remain living together
Part 2: War and Peace
Using the following passage from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, answer the below questions. After, review the correct answers (also below) and their related reasoning.
Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not enter his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself. “Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!” thought he.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm#link2HCH0125
1. Why couldn’t Prince Andrew fall asleep?
A. He wouldn’t typically go to bed that early
B. He couldn’t stop thinking about his love for Natásha
C. He was mentally occupied in making happy plans for the future
2. What realization does Prince Andrew have when he says, “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?” Hint: Use outside context
A. He realizes the wider scope of possibility in his life (outside of his immediate frame of reference).
B. He realizes he must work harder
C. He realizes his home is far too small for his tastes
3. According to Prince Andrew & Pierre, what is required to be happy?
A. The belief that happiness is possible
B. Happy plans
C. Youth