Lesson 8: Red, White, and Whole, Part 3: “Courtly Love” to “Mustard Seeds”

Have students take out their homework annotations from the poem set they read before this lesson. Place students in pairs.

Think-Pair-Share

• Say these Directions: In the previous lesson, we explained how blood could be both literal and symbolic. Today we shift from the symbol of blood to the theme of voice. We look at moments when Reha knows what she wants to say but stays silent. Structure helps us notice that gap between inner thought and spoken response. Turn to a partner and discuss the following question.

• Ask: Which moment from your homework reading felt hardest for Reha, and what specifically made it hard?

  • A hard moment for Reha was in “Do You Speak Indian?” when she gets asked a question that should have a simple answer, but it is not simple for her at all. It felt hard because she has a lot she wants to explain, but she says only one word, which shows the effects of social pressure.

Connection to Today’s Learning:

Students have already noticed that these poems hold more than one feeling at once; now they will study how LaRocca builds that complexity inside a single series of poetic lines.

Guide students in analyzing sentence structure to understand meaning and tone. Support discussion on how long and short sentences reveal what Reha feels versus what she says aloud.

Syntax & Sentence Deconstruction

• Say these Directions: Today you are going to zoom in on three lines from the poem,“Do You Speak Indian” (p. 32): two long and one short. This structure can tell us something important about the difference between what Reha wants to say and what she can actually say aloud.

Display page 32 and direct students to read the passage beginning with “I want to tell her…” and ending with “…I just say No.”

Target Lines

I want to tell her I’ve never studied Tamil and Kannada, the languages my parents speak.

And when I do try to talk my accent is wrong, wronger than my parents’ accents when they speak English.

Instead, I just say No.

Teach: How Clauses Reveal Hidden Meaning

• Say: I notice that LaRocca does not begin with the answer to the question, “Do you speak Indian?” She first lets us hear what’s happening inside Reha’s head. Let’s look at the first line:

• Say: Read the line:

“I want to tell her I’ve never studied Tamil and Kannada, the languages my parents speak.” (p. 32)

• Say: Let’s focus on that last phrase; “the languages my parents speak.” This phrase is an appositive. It renames Tamil and Kannada, giving us one more piece of information: these are her parents’ languages.

• Ask: What does the appositive phrase add to the sentence?

  • The appositive tells us these are her parents’ languages, which is why someone might expect her to speak them, or she might think she should be able to speak them.

• Say: I can paraphrase this sentence: I want to explain that there are multiple languages spoken in India.

  • Here is a paraphrase: “Even though my parents speak two languages from India, I don’t speak any.”

Connection to Today’s Learning:

Now, students are ready to track what gets lost and what gets protected when Reha’s full thought collapses into one word.

Part A: Mapping the Gap Between Thought and Speech (RL.7.5) (15 minutes)

Keep students in pairs. Direct them to “Do You Speak Indian?” and the other poems within the day’s reading assignment.

Close Read & Annotation

• Say these Directions: With your partner, use the 3-column chart to map one key moment from the poem, “Do You Speak Indian?”

• In the first column, write what Reha wants to say.

• In the second, write what she actually says or does.

• In the third, explain what that gap shows about what silence costs her and what it protects her from. Write 1–2 sentences per column.

Teach: Turning Structure into Analysis

• Say: When I fill in this chart, I do not want to stop at the last line, “she says no” because that is only the surface.

  • First, I ask what the poem lets me hear inside her head before that answer.

  • Next, I compare the size of the inner response to the size of the spoken response.

  • Then I ask what disappears when the long explanation gets cut down to one word.

• Say: That is where the analysis lives: in the gap between the full thought and the tiny answer. Structure helps me see that gap clearly.

• Ask: What belongs in each column for the moment when Reha answers “No”?

• Ask: Why does LaRocca let readers hear Reha’s longer inner explanation before the short spoken answer?

  • LaRocca puts the longer explanation first so readers can feel how much Reha is holding back. That structure makes the silence feel heavy, because we know the truth is bigger than the word “No.”

Learning in Action Part B: Comparing Hard Moments Across the Poem Set (RL.7.5) (15 minutes)

Keep pairs together, then combine two pairs into groups of four. Each pair should bring one homework quote from “Courtly Love”–“Mustard Seeds.”

Teach: Looking Across Poems for a Pattern

• Say: One hard moment can teach us a lot, but a poem set can show us a pattern. As I listen to different quotes, I am asking myself whether Reha’s silence comes from embarrassment, pressure, love, fear, or some mix of those feelings. I also want to notice whether the poems keep placing her between what she wants for herself and what other people expect from her. When a writer repeats that kind of conflict across several poems, the sequence starts to shape a bigger meaning about identity. So in this part, we are not only choosing a strong quote. We are deciding what these hard moments add up to.

Group Accountability Share

• Say these Directions: In your small group, each of you will read one homework quote aloud and explain why it shows a hard moment for Reha. Then your group will agree on one idea: What does silence seem to cost Reha across these poems, and what does it protect her from? Each group member should be ready to explain the group’s thinking. Begin with Student 1.

• Ask: Which poem did your group choose as the strongest example of a hard moment, and why?

  • Our group chose “Do You Speak Indian?” as the strongest example because the poem lets us hear everything Reha wants to explain, but then she says only “No.” That makes the hard moment feel sharp and public, and it shows how fast she has to protect herself.

• Ask: What does silence cost Reha across these poems, and what does it protect her from? Use evidence from at least two poems.

  • Across these poems, Reha keeps running into expectations about who she should be and how she should act. The bigger conflict is that she wants to be known as herself, but she also wants to avoid disappointing people or being judged.

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Transition students to reflection by reminding them that strong readers connect craft to meaning and, when appropriate, to lived experience.

Quick Write

• Say these Directions: Include at least one vocabulary word: contrast, clause, expectation, or silence. Write one paragraph.

• Ask: Which two details from today’s poems show what silence costs Reha or protects her from, and how can you connect this idea to a time you stayed silent or a moment you can imagine staying silent?

  • In “Do You Speak Indian?” Reha has a full explanation in her mind about never studying Tamil and Kannada, but she only says “No.” The poem also shows that she thinks her accent sounds “wrong, wronger,” which makes her silence feel like protection from more embarrassment. I remember a time when I wanted to correct someone’s wrong idea about me but stayed quiet because I did not want more attention. That silence felt safe for a second, but afterward it felt heavy because I was not really known.

Instruct students to read “Pop Music,” “Grandparents, Part 1,” “Everywhere,” “Expectations,” “Hero,” “Separate,” “Grandparents, Part 2,” and “After School” in Red, White, and Whole (pp. 46–57) and respond to the following questions in their Journal:

• What does Reha want for herself?

• What do her parents want for her?