Introduction
“The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte, published in 1869, is set in the fictitious California
mining town of Poker Flat in 1850. It’s the story of four law-breakers, ousted from the mining town of
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Poker Flat, on their ill-fated journey to relocate in Sandy Bar, a mining town over a steep mountain range.
At first glance, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” might appear inaccessible to most high school
students because of Harte’s rather overdressed and dated writing style and the narrator’s difficult and
arcane word choices. However, careful reading and rereading reveals a wonderfully cinematic telling of a
western tale. Once the language is sufficiently deciphered, Harte’s vivid characters and scenes almost
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jump off the page from under a cloak of mysterious verbiage. Additionally, the setting, characters, conflict,
and theme are so tightly connected in this story that “Poker Flats” provides an excellent vehicle for
furthering students’ knowledge of these literary concepts.
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This SRE
unit is designed to maximize students’ appreciation, enjoyment, and understanding of
the story by addressing the difficulty of language and capitalizing on Harte’s cinematic writing style. To
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achieve this goal, students are provided with strong pre-, during-, and post-reading support. For prereading, in addition to activating and building background knowledge, the activities focus on strategies for
unlocking word meaning and the strategy of visualization or imaging—conjuring up mental pictures of
Harte’s scenes and characters. During-reading guides and questioning activities provide opportunities for
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students to engage in higher order thinking—making inferences, drawing conclusions, and evaluating.
Post-reading activities also offer opportunities for continued high level thinking—analyzing the
interconnectedness of setting, character, conflict, and theme, as well as reimagining the story through
© 2003 - 2009 Seward Incorporated
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drama, art, and writing.
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Objectives
To foster student appreciation, enjoyment, and understanding of Harte’s entertaining story
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To help develop strategies for unlocking word meaning and to foster word consciousness
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To emphasize visualization as a comprehension strategy
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To review and highlight the literary elements of setting, character, conflict, and theme.
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To provide opportunities for engaging in higher order thinking skills
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Higher Order Thinking Skills
Understanding—Constructing meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written, and
graphic communications
Analyzing—Breaking material into its constituent parts and determining how the parts relate to one
another and to an overall structure or purpose
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Creating—Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole, reorganizing elements
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into a new pattern or structure.
© 2003 - 2009 Seward Incorporated
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