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50 min
Student Lesson
Lesson 26: Red, White, and Whole, Part 10: “The New Routine” to “School Daze”
Content
Students will analyze how Rajani LaRocca uses a key comparison (simile) to develop and contrast points of view about routines, ritual, and endurance across a group of poems.
Language
Students will explain contrast using comparative language, evidence-linking phrases, and terms such as simile, comparison, and point of view in discussion and writing.
Foundational Skills
Students will read free-verse lines fluently by phrasing across line breaks and attending to repeated words and punctuation.
What is culture, and how does it shape our identity and sense of belonging especially when we move between more than one world?
Knowledge-Building:
Students build understanding that routines and rituals can be emotional and cultural connections that help people endure stress.
Enduring Understanding:
Identity is shaped by biological, cultural, and emotional connections, and daily routines can reveal whether a person feels held together or pulled apart.
Future Lessons:
Students will next trace which people begin to act as “life rafts” in Reha’s life as family roles shift.
Unit Performance Task:
Today’s work prepares students to analyze how a poetic craft move (such as a simile) and a recurring image reveal an important connection in the novel.
| Lesson Flow | Purpose of Learning Experience |
|---|---|
Launch5 Minutes | Activate thinking about routines by connecting journal entries to the unit question about belonging and emotional connection. |
Literacy Lab10 Minutes | Teach how a simile in “School Daze” reveals Reha’s point of view toward school routines and emotional survival. |
Learning in Action30 Minutes | Part A: Reading the Life Raft Image (RL.7.6) Students will use the “life raft” simile to compare how Reha and the adults around her view routine in “School Daze” and a companion poem. Part B: Comfort or Survival? (RL.7.6) Students will use a chart to synthesize how routines and rituals across the poem set either hold Reha together or crack under pressure, applying key comparisons such as the “life raft” simile. |
Material List
Red, White, and Whole, “The New Routine”– “School Daze” (pp. 130–143)
Unit 4 Lesson 26 Student Edition
Homework Journals
Student journals
Routines
Think-Pair-Share
Language Study
Jigsaw Reading
Quick Write
Teacher Tip |
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These poems include stress, illness, and family strain. Keep the focus on literary analysis while also making space for students who may connect personally to routines around caregiving, hospitals, or loss. |
Have students take out their Homework Journals and sit with a shoulder partner.
Say: In the previous lesson, we tracked how the word two changed as Reha’s world felt divided in different ways. Today, we’ll look at what she holds on to when everything feels split: her routines, and how they help her manage that division. This matters because, for your Performance Task, you will need to explain how a writer uses one image or symbol to show an important connection.
Say these Directions: Open your Journal from last night’s reading. Partner A will share first for 30 seconds. Then Partner B will share for 30 seconds. After both partners share, discuss the following questions and be ready to name one idea your partner helped you notice.
Ask: Do routines bring you comfort, bore you, or something in between? Would you miss a routine if it suddenly disappeared?
I think routines are somewhere in between for me. Sometimes they feel boring because they happen every day, but if one disappeared, I would notice because routines make life feel predictable. That helps me understand why Reha might cling to one when everything else is changing.
Ask: What is one routine or ritual from the poems you read that already seems important to Reha?
One important routine is school because it gives Reha something familiar to hold on to. Even before we study the simile, the title “School Daze” suggests school is not just regular life anymore. It feels like a place she depends on.
Bring students back together and elicit a few ideas about routines in the poems.
Connection to Today's Learning:
Students are now ready to look closely at how one image in “School Daze” signals a routine as something much more significant.
Say these Directions: Sometimes one short comparison unlocks a whole poem. Examine the following simile in “School Daze” (p. 142) because it will help us explain Reha’s point of view about routine:
Display page 142 from the poem “School Daze” and read these lines aloud:
Target Lines:
“I hold on to school / to its familiar routines / like a life raft”
Say: Follow along as we read and break apart the sentence from the poem.
I will read the full sentence aloud.
Then, we will read the sentence together as a class.
Finally, we will read each chunk together.
Chunk | Meaning | Function |
|---|---|---|
I hold on to school | Reha is clinging to school | shows urgency, not just preference |
to its familiar routines | the repeated parts of school feel known and steady | identifies what feels safe to her |
like a life raft | school is compared to something that keeps a person afloat in danger | reveals how serious and unstable life feels right now |
Say: When I see the word like in a poem, I stop and ask whether the author is making a simile, which is a comparison between two unlike things.
Say: Here, Reha is not saying school is literally a raft; she is saying school routines help her stay afloat emotionally when her life feels unstable. A life raft is something you grab in an emergency, so this comparison shows that school is giving her safety and survival, not just structure.
Say: That one simile helps us see that routine can be a comfort, but it can also become a survival tool. It reveals Reha’s perspective as increasingly more urgent and fragile.
Ask: What two things are being compared in this simile?
The poem compares school routines to a life raft. Reha is saying the familiar parts of school are helping her stay afloat when everything else feels unstable.
Ask: Why does the image of a life raft fit better than the image of an anchor?
A life raft fits better because it suggests rescue and survival. An anchor would make school seem like something that keeps Reha stuck, but the poem makes school feel like the thing helping her keep going.
Ask: How does this simile help us understand how Reha is managing being in “two worlds”?
The simile shows that Reha uses school routines to stay steady when her life feels divided. It helps her manage the feeling of being in two worlds because school gives her something stable.
Check for Understanding (RL.7.4) | |
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In one or two sentences, explain what the simile in “School Daze” shows about how Reha feels about school routines. |
Teacher Tip |
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If students need support, guide them to use this pattern: “The poem compares ___ to ___. This shows Reha feels ___ because ___.” |
Connection to Today's Learning:
Students will now use this simile as a lens for reading the rest of the poem set: when does routine feel like comfort, and when does it feel like survival?
Students begin in pairs for a focused comparison and then move into small jigsaw groups to trace patterns across the poem set.
Say these Directions: Reread “School Daze” and then skim back to “The New Routine.” As you talk with your partner, use the simile “like a life raft” (p. 142) to explain Reha’s point of view. Then compare how Reha and the adults seem to view routine differently.
As you talk with your partner, consider how holding on to routines helps Reha manage feeling “in two worlds.” Use the words simile, comparison, or point of view in your explanation.
Say: A strong point-of-view response does more than say what Reha feels. It also notices what other characters seem to need from the same routine. In the poem, “School Daze,” Reha openly tells us school routines feel lifesaving. In a poem like “The New Routine,” adults may not say their feelings directly, so we infer their point of view from what they keep doing, repeating, or expecting.
Say: That means we ask: who is this routine helping, and how? If Reha clings to a routine for comfort while an adult uses routine to manage chaos, those are contrasting points of view. Naming that contrast is how we move from noticing an image to analyzing the poem.
Prompt students to connect routines to the stress and division introduced in the previous lesson, when Reha’s life began to feel split into two.
Ask: In “School Daze,” how does the life raft simile develop Reha’s perspective toward school?
In “School Daze,” the life raft simile shows that Reha sees school as something that keeps her afloat. Her point of view is not that school is just normal or even fun. She sees its familiar routine as emotional support when home feels unstable.
Ask: When you compare “School Daze” with “The New Routine,” what contrast do you notice between Reha’s perspective and the adults’ perspective about routine?
Reha’s point of view is that routine can feel comforting because it gives her something familiar to hold on to. In “The New Routine,” the adults seem to treat routine more like a system they have to keep running so life does not fall apart. That contrast makes routine feel warm for Reha but heavy and necessary for the adults.
Pulse Check (RL.7.6) |
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Which statement best explains how LaRocca develops contrasting perspectives about routine in this poem set? A. Reha and the adults all see routine as equally comforting, so the poems mainly show agreement.
B. Reha sees some routines, especially school, as a way to stay emotionally afloat, while the adults often seem to rely on routine as a way to manage crises and keep life moving.
C. The poems show that routines are always boring and meaningless because they repeat every day.
D. The poems prove that school is the only routine that matters in Reha’s life.
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Connection to Today's Learning:
Students will now broaden the lens from one simile to the whole cluster of poems and decide where routine feels like comfort, ritual, or plain endurance.
Guide students in analyzing routines across poem pairs using the jigsaw reading routine.
Say these Directions: In your small group, use the chart in your journal to track how routines, rituals, or repeated actions work in your assigned poem pair. Be ready to explain Reha’s point of view, another character’s or group’s point of view, and whether the routine feels more like comfort, ritual, endurance, or just survival and explain your reasoning.
Find at least one moment where the routine holds Reha together and one where it begins to feel like survival.
Use the simile “like a life raft” (p. 142) and at least one other detail from your poems in your explanation.
Assign poem pairs:
Group 1: “The New Routine” (p. 130–131) and “Two Weeks” (p. 134)
Group 2: “Mustard Seeds, Part 2” (pp. 132–133) and “Won’t Make Her Come Home” (p. 135)
Group 3: “Please”(pp. 136–137) and “The Color of Virtue” (p. 138)
Group 4: “Wednesday” (pp.139–140) and “School Daze” (141–143)
Say: When I fill in a jigsaw note, I do not start with a summary. I start with a textual pattern, like where a character repeats an action or particular language.
Then I ask what that repeated action means to Reha and what it seems to mean to someone else.
A ritual is a routine that carries meaning or belief, not just repetition. If Reha clings to a routine because it calms her but another character keeps the routine because the family must function, that is a contrast in point of view.
After that, I make a judgment: is this routine still comforting, or has it become mostly endurance or survival?
Across the poem pair, notice if the same routine shifts from comfort to survival depending on who experiences it.
Say: That shift helps us see how pressure builds across the poems.
Create the following table in your journals.
Poem pair | Reha’s point of view | Another character’s or group’s point of view | Comfort, ritual, endurance, or survival? |
|---|---|---|---|
Completed sample notes for one poem pair:
Poem pair | Reha’s point of view | Another character’s or group’s point of view | Comfort, ritual, endurance, or survival? |
|---|---|---|---|
“Wednesday” and “School Daze” | Reha sees familiar school routines as something she can cling to when the week feels overwhelming. | The adults around her seem to keep the week moving because responsibilities continue whether anyone is ready or not. | It begins as comfort for Reha, but the larger weekly routine also feels like endurance and survival. |
Ask: In your poem pair, what evidence shows a routine or ritual that is helping Reha?
In “School Daze,” the strongest evidence is the section where Reha says she holds on to school like a life raft (p. 142). In “Mustard Seeds, Part 2,” the ritual language suggests that repeated actions and beliefs give structure when things feel uncertain. Together, those details show routine can still steady her.
Ask: In your poem pair, what evidence shows a routine that is more difficult to keep up or becoming just a means of survival?
In “Two Weeks,” the repeated time marker makes the routine feel stretched and exhausting instead of comforting. In “Please,” the requests and pressure suggest people are still following expected behavior, but it feels strained. That makes the routine seem less like comfort and more like a means of survival.
Ask: What is the difference between a routine that comforts and a routine that is just a means of survival?
A comforting routine gives a person steadiness and maybe even a sense of belonging. A survival routine still helps someone get through the day, but it feels thinner and more desperate, like they are doing it because they have to rather than because it truly restores them.
Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.
Reflection (RL.7.6) | |
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Use the Reflection routine to reflect on your ability to explain how LaRocca contrasts Reha’s point of view with another character’s or group’s point of view about routine, using evidence from at least two poems. | |
Modeling:If I had one strong poem detail but was not yet comparing two points of view clearly, I would rate myself a 3. If I could say, “Reha sees school as a life raft, while the adults treat routine as a way to keep life moving,” I would be closer to a 4 or 5. My next step would be to add one more text landmark from my poem pair. |
Connection to Today's Learning:
Students have now gathered enough evidence to write a short explanation about how routine reveals both belonging and strain in Reha’s world.
Say these Directions: Consider the idea of routines as a comfort or as a way to survive. Choose one poem we studied today and contrast two characters’ perspectives on a given routine. Write 2–4 sentences.
How do the two characters’ perspectives compare? Explain whether the routine feels more like a comfort or a means of survival. Use at least two specific details from the poem, and the word simile, comparison, or perspective in your response.
Optional Sentence Starter:
In ___, Reha sees routine as ___, while ___ seems to see it as ___.
In “School Daze,” Reha’s father leaves work early every day to pick her up from school. She says that this routine makes him “tired” and “worried” and that she is “being pulled under.” At the end of the poem, when Daddy and Mrs. Brown suggest that Reha go to Pete’s house in the afternoons, Reha and her father are relieved that they will both be getting a break. This shows that from their perspectives, this routine was a means of survival, but changing it might bring comfort.
The Performance Task Bridge
Say: Today you used one craft move and a pattern across several poems to explain a deeper idea about connection. That is the same kind of thinking you will need for your literary analysis Performance Task. When you write about imagery or symbolism later in the unit, you will need to show not just what the image is, but what it reveals.
Ask: Which phrase or tool helped you most today: life raft, point of view, comfort versus survival, or text landmark? Explain why.
The tool that helped me most was text landmark because it kept me from just giving a summary. Saying “In ‘School Daze,’ where Reha compares school to a life raft” made my evidence more clear.
Instruct students to read “Afternoons,” “True,” “The Promise,” “Rapids,” “The Arrival,” “Another Surprise,” “My Mother’s Sister,” and “Roommates,” and respond to the following prompt in their Journals:
In this set of poems, what characters are like life rafts in Reha’s life?