OVERVIEW.
The selections in this unit offer students the potential to consider religious, generational, and cultural conflicts, as well as the effects of modernization, political struggle, and other themes common to many literary works. Students should recognize that not all literary works make explicit political or cultural statements and that they must be approached on their own terms. In order to enrich their understanding, students investigate the historical background for selected works, as well as author biographies.
FOCUS STANDARDS.
- RL.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
- RL.9-10.3: Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
- RL.9-10.5: Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
- RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- RI.9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper).
- W.9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
- W.9-10.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
- W.9-10.10: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
- SL.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
OBJECTIVES
- Read works of Russian literature both for their intrinsic qualities and for their relation to the historical context.
- Analyze the motives, qualities, and contradictions of a character in Russian literature (including the narrator).
- Describe the effect of the narrative structure, pacing, and tone in a work of Russian literature.
- Analyze the role of utopian ideology in select works of Russian literature.
- Consider the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution and Communist rule on twentieth-century Russian writers and literature.
- Offer insightful inferences regarding the themes of the text.
- Offer insightful inferences regarding the themes of the text.
- Create a clear, original, specific thesis statement.
- Organize concrete evidence and supporting textual details to support a thesis statement.
- Use precise language, avoiding casual language and clichés.
- Write appropriate transitions to organize paragraphs.
- Apply new terminology to the texts.
- Analyze how historical events influence literature.
- Analyze how literary devices convey theme.
Barge Haulers on the Volga, Ilya Repin (1870)
LITERARY TEXTS
Novellas
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
- Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
- A Dead Man's Memoir by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
- The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
- "Dostoyevsky's Metaphor of the 'Underground'" by Monroe C. Beardsley
- Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s by Shelia Fitzpatrick (see chapters 1, 5, and 8)
- The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary investigation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Literary St. Petersburg: A Guide to the City and Its Writers by Elaine Blair
- My Pushkin by Maria Tsvetaeva
- Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and About Mayakovsky by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Michael Almerayda, ed.
- Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov (see chapter 1)
- Poets with History and Poets Without History by Marina Tsvetaeva
- The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara Tuchman (see chapter 2)
- Russia and the Soviet Union: A Historical Introduction from the Kievan State to the Present by John M. Thompson (see chapters 9 through 12)
- "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste" by Velimir Khebnikov, Alesksey Kruchenykh, and Vladimir Mayakovsky
ART, MUSIC, & MEDIA
Music
Music
- Dmitri Shostakovich, The Nose (1928)
- Wassily Kandinsky Biography and Art Collection
- Marc Chagall Online Collection hosted by the Guggenheim Foundation
IMAGE GALLERY: Russia
NATLIA OSIPOVA
Moscow-born Natalia Osipova is a multi-award winning ballerina who began dancing at the tender age of five. She trained with the Mikhail Lavrovsky Ballet School and has since danced with the world's leading companies, from the Boshoi to the Mikhailovsky to the Royal Ballet, where she became a Principal as recently as 2013. She is also a guest dancer with a number of prestigious companies including the American Ballet Theatre. Known for her flying leaps, which achieve astonishing height thanks to a natural lightness of form, Osipova's repertoire includes the lead roles in Romeo and Juliet, Coppelia, Swan Lake, and Giselle. She has won the award formBest Female Dancer three times, more than any other female star, most recently in 2013. |
CONTEMPORARY PAINTERS
Levitan, Shishkin, and Aivazovsky, among many others, are names known to every well-educated person in Russia and fine-arts enthusiant abroad. These artists are Russia's pride. Today, too, there is no shortage of talented Russian painters. Click on the artists' names below to view more of a modern Russian painter's works.
Levitan, Shishkin, and Aivazovsky, among many others, are names known to every well-educated person in Russia and fine-arts enthusiant abroad. These artists are Russia's pride. Today, too, there is no shortage of talented Russian painters. Click on the artists' names below to view more of a modern Russian painter's works.
Upstream, Alexey Chernigin
Ambulance, Vasily Shulzhenko
Little Igor's Summer, Dmitri Annenkov
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Russians Do Not Surrender, Mikhail Golubev
Olive Ground, Arush Votsmush
Provincial Casanova, Stanislav Plutenko
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