We’ll read Karen Russell’s short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” paying close attention to the author’s use of language. In the story, feral girls with werewolf parents attend a Jesuit boarding school founded to socialize the girls by teaching them “normal” human behaviors. Russell organizes the text according to five stages of development using epigraphs from an imaginary text, The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. Students analyze how Russell’s structural choices create tone in the story as well as contribute to the development of the characters and central ideas. The central ideas students discuss in their analysis of “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” include individual identity vs. group identification and the meaning of beauty. The End-of-Unit Assessment asks students to compose a formal, multi-paragraph response analyzing the narrator Claudette’s development in relation to the five stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock.
“They lived an outsider’s existence in caves at the edge of the forest, threatened by frost and pitchforks.” (p. 227)karen russell
Schedule Snapshot
- Your work will span 5 weeks, 4 lessons each week, with assignments outlined for each lesson.
- Check that you’ve completed all assignments using the weekly checklist and share your work as you go.
Lesson |
Subject |
|---|---|
| 1 | Students listen to a reading of the first section of Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” (Stage 1) before reading and analyzing the title and first epigraph, focusing on how Russell uses specific word choices to evoke a sense of place. |
| 2 | Students listen to a reading of the next two sections (Stage 2 and Stage 3) of the story, and then analyze the cumulative impact of Russell’s word choices on the tone of the main character and narrator, Claudette. |
| 3 | Students listen to a reading of the final two sections (Stages 4 and 5) of Russell’s short story before analyzing the interactions of the characters. Students also focus on developing speaking and listening skills by participating in a small-group collaborative discussion. |
| 4 | Students learn annotation skills as they reread the opening pages of the short story, and then work in small groups to analyze how Russell develops the pack as a character in itself. |
| 5 | Students learn to write an objective summary. They also continue to develop speaking and listening skills as they work in small groups to analyze how Russell introduces and develops the central idea of human identity versus wolf identification in this passage. |
| 6 | Students work in pairs to read, annotate, and discuss the lesson excerpt before participating in a jigsaw activity to analyze how Russell develops the characters of Mirabella and Jeanette. |
| 7 | Students learn to make a claim and write an introduction. They also work in small groups to analyze the character development of the story’s narrator, Claudette. |
| 8 | Students read and annotate the lesson excerpt before participating in a jigsaw activity to consider how Russell develops the character of Mirabella over the course of the first three stages. |
| 9 | Students work in pairs to read and annotate the lesson excerpt before participating in a whole-class discussion in which they identify a new central idea: the meaning of beauty. |
| 10 | Students complete the Mid-Unit Assessment by writing a multi-paragraph response to the following prompt: Choose and explain one epigraph. Analyze the relationship between that epigraph and the girls’ development in that stage.
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| 11 | Students work in pairs to read and analyze the lesson excerpt, focusing on how the author establishes tone through specific word choices. |
| 12 | Students work in small groups to analyze how the characters’ interactions in Stage 4 develop central ideas in the text. |
| 13 | Students read and analyze the conclusion of “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.” After a whole-class analysis of how the conclusion to the story develops Claudette’s character and refines central ideas, students work in small groups to begin an analysis of the author’s choice to structure the story using the five stages described in the epigraphs. |
| 14 | Students return to the small groups they established in Lesson 13. Students complete their analyses of a specific stage of culture shock and groups share their work with the class in short presentations. |
| 15 | Students participate in self-assessed small-group discussions in which they discuss the extent to which the main character of the story has adapted to human society. Each member of the group establishes a claim and supports that claim with text evidence. |
| 16 | Students prepare for the End-of-Unit Assessment by reviewing how to make a claim and write an introduction while analyzing the relationship between Claudette’s development and the five stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock. Students also learn how to write a conclusion. |
| 17 | End-of-Unit Assessment. |
Text Resources
TEXT:
- Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”
AUDIO:
Stage 1
https://youtu.be/Kr-9jRK4gg8
Stage 2
https://youtu.be/NqAkqg2fs24
Stage 3
https://youtu.be/cpQ1JQHw5n0
Stage 4-5
https://youtu.be/6IBr2ZMCrtM
video
Assessment
Rubric
- Short Response Rubric (includes checklist): use for notebook entries, paragraphs, short essays, and short answer responses on quizzes.