A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Grade Levels

Excerpt

Before A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Subject Area: Language Arts Grade level: 7-8 Time: One class period

Objectives

• The students will rewrite the plot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” in their own words.
• The students will judge the effectiveness of Marquez's use of magical realism in enhancing the plot.
• The students will justify their opinions of Marquez's story.

Suggested Procedures

• I will present visual artistic representations of the story from <http://www.stickman-studio.com/garcia.htm>. What do you think this is a painting of?
• The class will read the story out-loud. I will call on students randomly to ensure that they continue to read along. This will take approximately 27 minutes.
• I will instruct the class to write a summary of the story on their own. They will have five to ten minutes to write the summary.
• The students will break up into groups. Each column of desks will be one group.
• Each group will pick a recorder and answer the following questions as a group. I will write the questions on the white board as I ask them.
• Have everybody in your group read their summary out loud to the rest of the group. What do you think about the story, not Marquez's writing, just the story? Do you think that the plot is an interesting plot on its own? Do you think it really happened?
• How does Marquez make this story interesting? How does he make it true even though it didn't really happen? How is Marquez's story different from all of the other stories we've read in this class? What works and what does not work about magical realism?
• I will collect the group answers.
• Homework will be to find one story to analyze in comparison to “A Very Old Man”.

Evaluation

• I will collect and grade the one page assignment
• I will collect and check off the in-class plot write-up.
• I will monitor small group discussion and collect written reactions to magical realism in the story, and student opinions of the story.

After A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Subject Area: Language Arts Grade level: 7-8 Time: One class period

Objectives

• The students will write a one page paper on Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Latin American literary movement called “The Boom.”
• The students will rewrite the plot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” in their own words.
• The students will judge the effectiveness of Marquez's use of magical realism in enhancing the plot.
• The students will justify their opinions of Marquez's story.

Suggested Procedures

• I will present visual artistic representations of the story from < http://www.stickman-studio.com/garcia.htm >. What do you think this is a painting of?
• Ask the students questions such as; Where was Marquez from? What was his culture like? Who was Marquez's audience? What is magical realism? Can you tell me what you know about 'the boom'?
• I will collect the one page homework assignment from the night before.
• The class will read the story out-loud. I will call on students randomly to ensure that they continue to read along. This will take approximately 27 minutes.
• I will instruct the class to write a summary of the story on their own. They will have five to ten minutes to write the summary.

About

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