*This post includes a free high school literature teaching unit on The Great Gatsby. *
Two lines of literature that I was required to read in high school have stuck with me until today…many years later. The first: “In the room the women come and go / talking of Michelangelo,” from T. S. Eliot’s classic modernist poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” It’s the reason I decided to become an English major. But that’s a subject for another essay.
But then there was: “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” I didn’t know that polysyndeton was a literary device, but I knew how this sentence made me feel — mesmerized and dreamy. Reading The Great Gatsby, I had a feeling of being swept away by the world that F. Scott Fitzgerald created. I wanted to stand in those gardens and watch these fascinating people.
This book is classic American fiction. It must be included in any discussion about “the great American novel.” It captures the decadence and vapidity of the upper class in the 1920s with concise wit and — although this is a term generally used with the fantasy genre — masterful world building.
Fitzgerald’s brilliance lies in creating a narrator who is skeptical of this whole world he’s found himself in, yet so friendly and agreeable that it doesn’t come across as a constant critique. Yet we clearly see the flaws in these people. And there are plenty of flaws. This book will be a jumping off point for lively discussions with your students.
The curriculum I’ve written for my students includes: homework questions for students to complete each week while they read, a five-question quiz, and an answer key to both. I use the homework packet to guide discussion, and there are plenty of notes in the teacher version to help you go deeper than the surface-level questions take the students on their own.
Our co-op meets once a week, so I’ve organized this into a 3-week unit since the book also falls neatly into three parts. I also like to bring some sort of treat on the last day we discuss a book, and for this book I’d recommend individual lemon cakes, which Nick served Daisy and Gatsby when they reunited at Nick’s house.
Week 1:
Students read chapters 1-3
Student homework questions
Quiz
Homework answer key
Quiz answer key
Week 2:
Students read chapters 4-6
Student homework questions
Quiz
Homework answer key
Quiz answer key
Week 3:
Students read chapters 7-9
Student homework questions
Quiz
Homework answer key
Quiz answer key
And if you’re wondering about showing the Baz Luhrmann adaptation of The Great Gatsby (PG-13) to your students, or even just recommending they watch at home, this comparison between the book and the movie at Slate does a good job showing the major differences.
Spilled Milk 