Common Core Standards Initiative - Sample Performance Tasks for Stories, Drama, and Poetry (Grades 11–CCR) lyrics

Students an*lyze the first impressions given of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in the opening chapter of Pride and Prejudice based on the setting and how the characters are introduced. By comparing these first impressions with their later understanding based on how the action is ordered and the characters develop over the course of the novel, students understand the impact of Jane Austen's choices in relating elements of a story. [RL.11–12.3] Students compare and contrast how the protagonists of Herman Melville's Billy Budd and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter maintain their integrity when confronting authority, and they relate their an*lysis of that theme to other portrayals in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature they have read. [RL.11–12.9] Students an*lyze how Anton Chekhov's choice of structuring his story “Home” by beginning in “midstream” shapes the meaning of the text and contributes to its overall narrative arc. [RL.11–12.5] Students provide an objective summary of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby wherein they an*lyze how over the course of the text different characters try to escape the worlds they come from, including whose help they get and whether anybody succeeds in escaping. [RL.11–12.2] Students an*lyze Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote and Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière's Tartuffe for how what is directly stated in a text differs from what is really meant, comparing and contrasting the point of view adopted by the protagonist in each work. [RL.11–12.6] Students compare two or more recorded or live productions of Arthur Miller's d**h of a Salesman to the written text, evaluating how each version interprets the source text and debating which aspects of the enacted interpretations of the play best capture a particular character, scene, or theme. [RL.11–12.7] Students compare and contrast the figurative and connotative meanings as well as specific word choices in John Donne's “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” and Emily Dickinson's “Because I Would [sic] Not Stop for d**h” in order to determine how the metaphors of the carriage and the compa** shape the meaning and tone of each poem. Students an*lyze the ways both poets use language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful to convey the multiple meanings regarding d**h contained in each poem. [RL.11–12.4] Students cite strong and thorough textual evidence from John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” to support their an*lysis of what the poem says explicitly about the urn as well as what can be inferred about the urn from evidence in the poem. Based on their close reading, students draw inferences from the text regarding what meanings the figures decorating the urn convey as well as noting where the poem leaves matters about the urn and its decoration uncertain. [RL.11–12.1]