Summary
Students will be able to perform the following: Understand character motivation. Translate character’s motivations from “The Gift of the Magi” into a written present-day situation.
Essential Question(s)
What motivates people to take action? How do we determine selfless actions?
Materials
MH Lesson Slides (attached)
MH Model and Guided Practice Paragraphs (attached; one per student)
The Gift of the Magi (attached; one per student)
Highlighters (one per student)
Pen (a color other than black; one per student)
Pencil
Projector
Anticipatory Set
Use the attached Lesson Slides to guide the instruction. Begin the lesson by displaying slide 2 and sharing the Animal Rescue video with your students.
When the video is over, have a class discussion over the following questions:
How did this make you feel?
What do you feel like you have to do next?
How did it motivate you?
Objective Purpose
Move to slides 3-4 and share the Essential Question and Learning Objectives with students to the extent you feel necessary.
Input
Display Slide 5 and hand out copies of the attached story, "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. Have students listen to the story. You can either read it aloud to them or play a read-aloud version of the story found here. Instruct students to highlight examples of character motivation within the story as they listen to the read aloud or read it themselves.
Before moving forward in the lesson, take a moment to check whether students have gained a sense of the Learning Objectives using some of the following questions:
What motivated you to come to class today?
What motivates you to go to your job? Spend time with your significant other?
Model
Move to slide 8 and share the instructional strategy What Are You Doing and Why? Let your students know that you are going to walk them through your thinking process as you rewrite a sentence from the story using more modern language.
Move to slide 9 and share the original paragraph from the story.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again—you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
What was the character's motivation?
How do you know?
Why were your clues?
Pass out the attached MH Model and Guided Practice Paragraphs handout to students and instruct them to make the revisions alongside you as you walk through how you might modify the sentence to make it match present day language. Use the attached MH Model Paragraph Teacher Guide as a sample of what you might say as you make the suggested revisions.
Take one more look at the original sentence and then move to slide 10 and share what the sentence looks like with all of the revisions. Provide your students with time to make revisions to their original sentence if they haven't done so already. Finally, move to slide 11 and share the final revised sentence with your students.
"Honey," she cried, "don't look at me like that. I had to sell my wedding ring. I just couldn't stand not getting you a present for Valentine's Day. We can get a silicone wedding band that's cheaper for now. It was too big of a ring for me anyway, so I just had to do it. Say, ‘Happy Valentine's Day!' Jim, and let's just enjoy our night. I can't wait to give you your gift."
Before moving forward in the lesson, take a moment to check if students have mastered the Learning Objectives using some of the following questions:
What was the character's motivation?
Did the character's motivation change when the sentence was rewritten?
How do you know the character's motivation did or didn't change?
Was any action changed by rewriting the text?
Guided Practice
Display slide 12, remind students of the instructional strategy What Are You Doing and Why? This time they're going to work with you to make the revisions.
Move to slide 13 and share the following paragraph from the text:
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. "Don't make any mistake, Della," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package, you may see why you had me going a while at first." White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
Use the attached MH Model and Guided Practice Paragraph handout to guide students through the revision process. Have the students make the suggestions for revision and make the revisions on your master handout. Instruct students to make revisions alongside you.
Once the class is happy with the revisions to the sentence, take a moment to pause and have a discussion together. Use the following questions to help guide your discussion:
How is the new translation similar to and different from the original?
What motivates people to take action?
How do we determine selfless actions?
What were the characters' motivations?
Did the characters' motivations change when the sentence was rewritten?
How do you know the characters' motivations did or did not change?
Was any action changed by rewriting the text?
Independent Practice
Display slide 14. Remind students of the instructional strategy What Are You Doing and Why? This time they're going to work independently to make the revisions. Instruct them to make the revisions to the final paragraph in their MH Model and Guided Practice Paragraphs handout and include their reasoning in the margins.
Original Paragraph:
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
Resources
Commonlit. (n.d.). The gift of the Magi. https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-gift-of-the-magi
Hollatronix. (2008). Sarah McLachlan, SPCA commercial. [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://youtu.be/IO9d2PpP7tQ.
K20 Center. (n.d.). What are you doing and why? Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/1872