The objectives of this unit as well as the daily assessments are always based on the Bloom's taxonomy for the cognitive domain. This taxonomy is a scale to measure learning as development of intellectual skills and includes six levels of intellectual behavior connected to learning: knowledge (recall data or information), comprehension (understand the meaning), application (use a concept in a new area), analyze (break down concepts into components), evaluate (make judgments), and create (create a new product or point of view). I usually try to include all or most of the six steps of the taxonomy in each lesson plan just to guide the students in their thinking process.
Specifically, I want my students to understand how certain literary devices like setting, structure, imagery, syntax, and/or the narrator contribute to the characterization. At the same time, I expect them to understand how the selection of a specific genre affects the character too. In order to achieve this goal, the students determine a set of elements they use in the mind-reading of a person to apply to the interpretation of the character. They learn how to infer, discuss, synthesize, and evaluate structure, setting, imagery, symbols in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Macbeth, and how the writer/artist uses these devices to create the character. In studying the character in a fictional text and in a tragedy, they learn to evaluate the effect of certain devices and/or conventions imposed by the genre the author uses. The lower level students read the same literary texts but they analyze the above mentioned literary devices in selected excerpts. They conclude by writing a documented essay in which they discuss the characterization of Macbeth and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.