LESSON PLAN: Music from a Place Called Half Moon by Jerrie Oughton
Created by Phyllis Schlich, Teacher, Georgetown, KY
TARGETED ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS: 1.2, 2.16
CORE CONTENT: 1.2 - Students make sense of the variety of materials they read.
OBJECTIVE: Students will strengthen reading comprehension and interpretative skills through analysis of literary elements and themes presented in this adolescent fiction novel.
PROCEDURE:
*Approximately 10 days prior to this class students are assigned to independently read Music from a Place Called Half Moon by Jerrie Oughton.
*To hold students accountable for this reading, give a "reading quiz" to begin class. This test should be content based, not interpretative. There is a sample reading quiz attached.
1) Recap the action that occurs in the assigned chapters.
2) Identify any literary elements observed in these chapters. For example, metaphor, foreshadowing, irony, imagery.
3) Give a title to the assigned chapters and support why you chose that title.
4) Tell students after their preparation you will have questions about that section. (Refer to Teacher’s Discussion Guide attached.)
ASSESSMENT: Students are scored on the accuracy and delivery of their presentations. The point value for the group presentations is the teacher’s decision.
QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, OBSERVATIONS TO DIRECT STUDENT DISCUSSION OF JERRIE OUGHTON’S MUSIC FROM A PLACE CALLED HALF MOON
Chapter 1
-How is the relationship between Indians and Whites of Half Moon set up?
- ". . . when the French Broad River was on the rise, two Indians drowned. That left three hundred and fifteen, not that anybody noticed . . ." (2)
-What are Edie Jo’s fears?
Chapter 2
-Grandma’s house burns. What does the reader know about the event at first?
- At this point ask students if darkness is symbolic because it is mentioned again on pg. 13.
- inner darkness is a comfort — like ignorance — what you don’t know or can’t see won’t hurt you.
Chapter 3
-How do you see someone you know — or have known — for the "first time"? (16/17)
- Edie Jo sees her grandma’s sorrow for the first time when she walks in when she is crying.
- After "seeing her grandma" Edie Jo begins to be more sympathetic.
-What was "the place where she was"? (18)
- A place beyond the physical, a place where you can join another person and truly understand their suffering. When Edie Jo says, "I had begun to join Grandma in that place where she had gone to. That place made Gerber Baby Food boxes for socks and underwear seem unimportant. . ." (19), she is maturing. Before, Edie Jo only saw how the fire affected her; now she understands how it’s affected her Grandma.
-Does Edie Jo understand her dad’s actions regarding the integration of the church’s Bible School?
- No. In fact she is angry that her father’s fight has now involved her directly. At school a boy asks if she loves "half-breeds" like her father does. (27)
- Ask students if they have ever been unintentionally dragged into a dispute — simply by association with another party.
Chapter
- Music has been introduced into the novel. Ask students to note any instances they recall.
- Ch. 3 - Grandma misses her Irving Berlin records.
- Ch. 4 - Edie Jo watches Cherokee Fish play the harmonica.
- Also note that Mama not only "changes her tune," but, her "whole song." (34) in regards to the integration of Vacation Bible School.
- Ask students if they consider music a form of communication.
- The sounds of music are universal and understood by all people. Notes of music seem to have a life of their own.
- Call student attention to Edie Jo’s thoughts as she watches Cherokee Fish at the sawmill. What is her first reaction when he pulls something from his pocket?
- Since she has been raised to suspect the worst from "half-breeds." Edie Jo thinks Cherokee has a gun.
- Her preconceived ideas continue as she speculates how a "half-breed could come to know such songs."
Chapter 5
- What does Edie Jo mean when she tells Mary Grady, "You get in the mode of fighting and it’s hard to let go"? (43)
- Mary Grady relates how an Indian stole her bike. She believes all Indians to be thieves. What does Edie Jo tell her?
- "But it was only one person who took it. One Indian. That don’t mean all of them are thieves . . ." (44) ask students if they have examples of how an entire race pays for the sins of a few.
Chapter 6
- In this chapter Edie Jo and her brother Jonah are attacked when their car stalls in Davis Bottoms, domain of Indians and half-breeds. Does she now have a rational reason on which to base her fear of these people? Why or why not?
- If Edie Jo believes her own reasoning, she should not condemn an entire race for the actions of a few.
Chapter 7
- What do you think about Edie Jo and Cherokee’s first direct encounter at the sawmill? Did she have any cause to be fearful? Was Cherokee in any way threatening?
- What does Cherokee mean when he says, "You are so far from where I am . . ."? (69)
- The starting points in life for Edie Jo and Cherokee are miles apart. He is the product of poverty. Just getting to leave the community of Half Moon will mean he is successful. Edie Jo talks of going to college, something that is unimaginable to Cherokee.
- Cherokee leaves an impression on Edie Jo. After he goes, she says, "His words were everywhere, all inside my head and inside the saw mill camp." (70)
Chapter 8
- When Mr. Truitt dies, Mrs. Houp bakes a cake to take to his wife even though they have been unkind to her lately. Does this seem hypocritical to you? How does Mrs. Houp explain this to Edie Jo?
- "Death changes things and you are willing to be more charitable." (73)
Point out that this is actually sad because — wouldn’t it make more sense to be charitable while a person is living? Sad that it takes something traumatic, like death, to bring someone to their senses. This foreshadows events to come.
- How does Mr. Houp explain his action at the church to Edie Jo?
- "When that doorway opens, you gotta go through it or be forever looking back, wishing you had." (76) Discuss this with students. Standing up for a new idea takes bravery. With the torment around the Houp Family because of Mr. Houp’s actions, do you think he regrets those actions?
Chapter 9
- What significance is there to Gramma’s taking up her crocheting again?
She says she is "starting out fresh" and "beginning again." (81) Refer to this when Gramma discusses crocheting in Chapter 15. Crocheting is used metaphorically to symbolize what a person can make out of a tragedy.
- Edie Jo and Cherokee have a meaningful encounter. They share their special gifts with one another. Edie Jo shares a poem and Cherokee plays his harmonica for her.
- Call student attention to Edie Jo’s poem, "Fog," on page 87. Fog is used metaphorically, creating the message that what one deems harmful may be found to be gentle. No matter how hard you try to lock it out, fog will take over the world. Compare to this moment with Cherokee, a half-breed Edie Jo has been told to fear, to block out of her life. Now that she has met him she can no easier lock him out than she could the fog.
- This same message appears at the end of the Chapter (92) when Edie Jo tells Cherokee she won’t drink the spring water because she’s been told it was bad. Cherokee laughs at her about being afraid of "something as gentle as spring water," an obvious reference by him to her poem. Being told all your life that something is bad leads you to the assumption that it is truly bad. Yet we fail to find out for ourselves and we could be missing an opportunity to get to know a very nice person or drink from a refreshing mountain spring.
- Call student attention to what Cherokee says about living with a label, like half-breed (91) and the sadness Edie Jo detects. Ask students what labels they are living with.
Chapter 10
- The Houp House seems to be turned inside out over a "philosophy" — an idea that was never put into practice. Mr. Houp finally puts into words the injustice of the entire town. Read page 98 and ask students to respond.
- The sheriff comes to report finding a jacket near Gramma’s house. It has a parking ticket in it. The ticket has been identified with Sierra Fish. After the sheriff leaves, Mrs. Houp makes generalized statements about half-breeds. Mr. Houp becomes terribly angry and says, "Look what you are teaching your children . . ." and " . . . where the hell do you come off thinking we, of all people, are better?"
Chapter 11
- Can you unlearn a fear?
- When Edie Jo confides that she is afraid of the dark and that her brother was responsible, Cherokee asks, " . . . you think you could unlearn it, being afraid of the dark?" When Edie Jo responds with a negative, he says, "You can’t learn what you don’t want to learn." (103/104)
- Apply this willingness to unlearn prejudice.
- What does Cherokee give Edie Jo at the sawmill that day? An arrowhead. (Foreshadowing of
the actual shape of the poem at end of book.)
- Edie Jo finds out that Sierra is Cherokee’s brother.
Chapter 12
- Edie Jo writes a poem about night to share with Cherokee. She says that the music "flowed naturally from" Cherokee Fish, but she was not able to "give up her writing easy." Why does she think this? (108)
- Cherokee reads the poem and observes "a poem isn’t a poem till it’s read out loud, no more than a song is till it’s sung." (109)
- Night has come to the sawmill and Edie Jo has hardly noticed. Isn’t afraid. Cherokee says, ". . . the dark . . . it’s a habit you teach yourself every day." How might that relate to prejudice? (111)
- Read page 111. Edie Jo realizes she hasn’t been born "missing." Her feelings had been waiting for Cherokee Fish. How would such a relationship be accepted in 1956?
- She says it would be "beyond disaster." She shut the door on this knowledge and in her mind lived in "rooms full of sunshine, full of Cherokee Fish."
- The sheriff brings news of questioning the Fish Family. Gramma remembers a day when an Indian stopped to ask for work. She latched the door while speaking to him. Edie Jo turns on the porch light early that night. She felt she "needed it" to "keep the dark from coming". What literary technique is being used here?
- Foreshadowing.
Chapter 13
- How does Edie Jo come to discover Cherokee and Sierra arguing in the woods?
She and Mary Grady are out exploring. They hear an argument and she discovers Cherokee and two others fighting about arson.
- What do Edie Jo and Mary Grady witness?
- Cherokee is attacked by his brother and killed.
- What is Edie Jo’s family reaction to her grief at Cherokee’s death?
- They are startled, but seem to recognize the agony as real.
Chapter 14
- What did Edie Jo remove from Cherokee’s pocket before they took him away?
- His mouth organ.
- Did Edie Jo go to Cherokee’s funeral?
- Yes; her father took her. Look at page 130, the description of walking through the cemetery and passing over the roots of trees. Why was she "careful of the roots" in the cemetery"
- What does the pound cake her mother is baking mean? How is her mother changing her "tune"? (132)
- Her mother is beginning to empathize with Mrs. Fish because she has lost her son. And that hurts whether you are white or Indian.
- What is Edie Jo’s reaction to her mother’s gesture?
- She says she sees what her mother is "made of". (134) Her mother says the visit was a "step" but Edie Jo feels defeated. She asks if it will make any "difference" in the "waterfall of prejudice that flowed through Half Moon."
Chapter 15
- What do you make of the statement that Gramma makes about crocheting — that it is how you work around the holes that make it pretty? Think in terms of a metaphor.
Chapter 16
- Edie Jo lets her grief erupt when telling the judge the whole story of what happened. Her father is the one who she confides the whole story to. Why her dad? Why not her mother, Gramma, or Mary Grady?
- Who was the face at the window?
- It was Jonah.
- Why is Edie Jo angry with Jonah? (147)
- He was the one who taught her to be afraid. He had snuck around, made his family afraid and let it go on.
Chapter 17
- p. 151. Edie Jo realizes that her mama sometimes "falls in the ditch with everybody else, going by the rules of prejudice" but she was trying to "climb out." What had she done?
- She speaks to Mrs. Fish on the street.
- Edie Jo does something and says she feels she has "crossed over". What does she do?
- She gives Cherokee’s mouth organ to Leona, his sister.
- Read last paragraph on page 155. Edie Jo realizes the rules of prejudice have to be broken one day at a time.
Chapter 18
Discuss the images of music in the last chapter
READING QUIZ - 15 POINTS
Students take the quiz on their own paper.
The answer to the following will be: Edie Jo, Jonah, Cherokee Fish, Mr. Houp, Mrs. Houp, Grandma or Mary Grady.
1. This person taught Edie Jo to be afraid of the dark. Jonah
2. Because this person’s house burns, Edie Jo must move out of her bedroom and sleep in the front room. Gramma
3. This person believes the church Vacation Bible School should be integrated. Mr. Houp.
4. Edie Jo and this person are "attacked" in Davis Bottoms when their car stalls. Jonah
5. Cherokee Fish meets this person several times at the sawmill. Edie Jo
6. This person accompanies Edie Jo when she takes a cake to the Fish Family in their time of sorrow. Mrs. Houp
7. This person holds a grudge against Indians and half-breeds because a bike was stolen by one. Mary Grady
8. This person plays the harmonica. Cherokee Fish
9. This character crochets and listens to Irving Berlin music in the novel. Gramma
10. This character dies in the novel. Cherokee Fish
Short answer
11. Who is Leona? Cherokee’s sister
12. And 13. What are the two cases of arson that occur in this novel? Gramma’s house & Truitt’s store
14. True or False — Edie Jo’s family knew about her relationship with Cherokee Fish.
FALSE
15. True or False — Half Moon is the name of the creek that runs by the sawmill.
FALSE
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