The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
Goals/Standards:
Students will understand that literature is influenced by history. An
analysis of the historical period reveals dimensions of characters and
plot that enrich the study of literature.
Pre-assessment: Students will be grouped based on readiness based on a
formative assessment of content in the first 4 chapters of The Great
Gatsby. A sample formative assessment would be to give each student an
index card and have students answer the following question: What has
happened in Chapters 1-4? Teachers will sort these based on student
understanding of major characters and events.
ELACC11-12RL9: Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenthand early twentieth-century foundational works of American literature,
including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar
themes or topics.
Introduction: Students have read the first four chapters of The Great Gatsby for this lesson.
Version 1: Knowledge/Comprehension
Version 2: Analysis
Version 3: Synthesis/Evaluation
Students in this group will need to ensure
that they understand the events of the first 4
chapters of the novel. They will answer
comprehension questions. They can either
work in groups of 4 to discuss/answer or they
can work independently and then discuss
their answers together. All answers need to
be supported by textual evidence.
Students in this group will focus on the
following questions involving comparison and
contrast. They may use a Venn Diagram for
several of the questions. They can either
work in groups of 4 to discuss/answer or they
can work independently and then discuss
their answers together. All answers need to
be supported by textual evidence.
Students in this group will focus on the
following questions. In addition to examining
The Great Gatsby, they will read and make
connections with a T.S. Eliot poem as well as
other historical information relating to the
time period. They can either work in groups
of 4 to discuss/answer or they can work
independently and then discuss their answers
together. All answers need to be supported
by textual evidence.
Closure: Each group has worked on the same text but in different ways. After groups have finished working, they should share their work with the
rest of the class through whole-group discussion and sharing. Another option would be to have students write a journal entry from the perspective of
Nick Carraway or another character concerning one of the events discussed in the group.
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
Version 1 Questions:
What do you learn about Nick Carraway in Chapter 1?
What has influenced Nick to go to New York?
What does his father warn him about as a Midwesterner going east?
How is East Egg described?
How is West Egg described?
What about the Valley of Ashes seems interesting?
How does Nick Carraway know Tom and Daisy Buchanan?
What does Tom do for a living?
What is his relationship with Myrtle?
Who is Jordan Baker?
What does she doe?
List as many ways as you can that Nick is different from the other characters.
What mention of mob activity do you see in the first four chapters?
Back to Top
Version 2 Questions:
Using a Venn Diagram, compare and contrast East and West Egg?
Compare and contrast Daisy and Myrtle as the two women in Tom’s life?
How does the era of the 1920’s provide a suitable backdrop fro the actions of this novel?
What do you think that F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to say about people during this era?
Compare Gatsby’s party to Tom and Myrtle’s apartment party.
Analyze the first part of the novel according to “shady dealings” that are evident in the text. What historical events of the 20’s are alluded to in this
portion of the novel?
Back to Top
Version 3
How are Nick Carraway and Dr. T.J. Eckleburg similar? What role do these two seem to play in the novel?
Why is the land in between the Eggs called the “Valley of Ashes”? What is the significance?
Read a T.S. Eliot poem (e.g. “The Hollow Men” or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 708 in Prentice Hall Elements of Literature). What similarities do
you find in T.S. Eliot poetry and The Great Gatsby?
What other historical or philosophical influences are evident in allusions in this novel?
How does a person create his/her “own persona”? Why would Jay Gatsby choose not to be James Gatz in the 1920’s? What social influences would
provide impetus to change?
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearerNot that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Author Notes
1. Mistah Kurtz: a character in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."
2. A...Old Guy: a cry of English children on the streets on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, when they carry straw effigies of Guy Fawkes and beg for money
for fireworks to celebrate the day. Fawkes was a traitor who attempted with conspirators to blow up both houses of Parliament in 1605; the "gunpowder
plot" failed.
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009
The Great Gatsby Tiered Activity
3. Those...Kingdom: Those who have represented something positive and direct are blessed in Paradise. The reference is to Dante's "Paradiso".
4. Eyes: eyes of those in eternity who had faith and confidence and were a force that acted and were not paralyzed.
5. crossed stave: refers to scarecrows
6. tumid river: swollen river. The River Acheron in Hell in Dante's "Inferno". The damned must cross this river to get to the land of the dead.
7. Multifoliate rose: in dante's "Divine Comedy" paradise is described as a rose of many leaves.
8. prickly pear: cactus
9. Between...act: a reference to "Julius Caesar" "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a
hideous dream."
10. For...Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer.
© T S Eliot. All rights reserved
Adapted from Jessica Hockett, 2009