Overview

The activities introduce the process (evaluate reliability, check facts of the situation, and apply knowledge of the world) and criteria (self-interest, experience, knowledge, morality, emotionality, & consistency) in order to determine narrator/character reliability. Students will understand the process they used to determine reliability could be applied to texts, and begin to negotiate the cues that help readers inform their notion of reliability. They practice annotation related to cues for unreliability and close reading, compare character’s (Mayella) reliability and worldview with the narrator’s (Scout), using the text, To Kill a Mockingbird, determine why authors use unreliable characters and its relation to thematic issues, and construct an argument around Mayella Ewell’s reliability.

Guiding Questions

  • How do you know when someone (character or narrator) is telling the truth?
  • What makes a character unreliable? What makes a narrator unreliable?
  • What does the truth telling of the character say about him/her (in terms of an individual, his/her world-view and human-nature)?

Texts/Materials

Activities

1. Ask students to read and annotate the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Then let students work in pairs to answer the following questions:

  • Does Calvin like Susie Derkins?
  • How do we know that Calvin doesn’t really want Susie to suffer a ‘debilitating brain aneurysm?’

Tell students to think about the warrants that they could use to explain their thinking as they discuss.

2. Introduce students to the criteria for determining a narrator/character’s unreliability. Tell students they can ask the following question to determine unreliability:

  • Does the narrator’s self interest make you suspicious of his/her reliability?
  • Is the narrator too emotional to be reliable?
  • Is the narrator sufficiently moral to be reliable?
  • Are the narrator’s actions inconsistent with his/her words to make you suspicious of his/her reliability?
  • Is the narrator sufficiently experienced to be reliable?
  • Is the narrator sufficiently knowledgeable to be reliable?

Play video-24-512 the Mac vs. PC commercials and ask students to think about whether or not they find the commercials to be reliable. They can use the Hints from the Text chart to record which category each commercial might fit into. Also, tell students to think about who the narrator and intended audience are for these commercials.

3. Give students the Boondocks cartoon. Ask them to read it and determine whether or not the narrator is reliable using the criteria developed and discussed in class.

4. Instruct students to answer the following question (5 minute quick write): Is it ever okay to lie? If so, in what situations?

5. Students will practice applying criteria for unreliability to a longer piece of text, Mayella’s testimony in To Kill a Mockingbird. After modeling the first two pages, and documenting the fact that the narrator is really driving the initial impression of Mayella, who quickly becomes overly emotional soon after she begins to speak, students can work independently to determine other areas where her reliability comes into question. Students can read and then complete the graphic organizers. Finally, they will draft an essay answering the following question:

  • Is Mayella Ewell a reliable character? Defend your answer with textual evidence and be sure to explain why Mayella acts the way she does.

6. After writing, lead a whole class discussion on the ‘so what.’ In other words, how does an understanding whether or not Mayella is reliable or not help us better understand the world? What does what we discovered about Mayella say about the larger world?

Assessment

The following are means of assessing students during activities so instruction can be adjusted and differentiated according to students’ needs.

  • Students’ completed annotations of the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, complete with responses to the two questions: Does Calvin like Susie Derkins? And
    how do we know that Calvin doesn’t really want Susie to suffer a ‘debilitating brain aneurysm?’
  • Students’ exit slip with appropriation of criteria used to determine reliability, in regards to Mac vs. PC commercial.
  • Students’ completed annotations of the Boondocks comic strip, and appropriation of criterion to determine reliability.
  • Text annotation
  • Completion of “Hint’s from the Text: Ways to Judge Whether a Character is Unreliable” Packet [Each category will have its own page].
  • Completion of argument determining character reliability.