The Great Gatsby - Chapter 4 Writing Competition

"The Great Gatsby" Chapter 4 from Lina Ell

Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby is certainly the rising action chapter of the novel. Gatsby takes Nick to the city and on the way he delivers his well rehearsed fake back story to Nick with total commitment and of course fantastic props. When the two gentlemen arrive at 'a well — fanned Forty-second Street cellar' they meet the fascinating Meyer Wolfsheim. His almost comedic support of Gatsby as 'an Oggsford man' with 'fine breeding' is eerily juxtaposed with the knowledge that he was the man that fixed the 1919 World series and wears human teeth as cufflinks. After Wolfsheim leaves, Nick spots Tom Buchanan and introduces him to Gatsby. In the midst of rather awkward conversation Gatsby simply disappears. Fitzgerald then suddenly jumps us forward to later in the day when Jordan meets Nick. This conversation of course gives both the reader and Nick an insightful look back to Daisy's state of mind just before she married Tom 'Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mine' and sets up the tea meeting at Nick's house between Gatsby and Daisy.

This week I set my 5th year class the challenge of filling in the narrative bridge in the middle of the chapter. I encouraged them to try and write in the style of Fitzgerald. We decided that they could: continue the conversation between Nick and Tom, start a new conversation between Nick and Gatsby or a mixture of both. Below I've included the entries I received from the class along with a poll to cast your vote for the winner (Learning of course being the real winner!). For your convenience, I've included the original text before and after where our entrants inserted their piece. Thanks for taking the time to read the entries and cast your vote!

Original Text

“This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.”

They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face.

“How’ve you been, anyhow?” demanded Tom of me. “How’d you happen to come up this far to eat?”

“I’ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.”

 I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.

 INSERT ENTRY HERE

One October day in nineteen-seventeen ——

(said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)

 — I was walking along from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white, and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT, in a disapproving way.

Entries 

Vote Now!

Ms Carey's Class: The Great Gatsby Flipagram

Please find below a Flipagram created by Ms Carey's Senior English class. The class had just finished studying the novel and decided to piece together key characters, themes and moments using PicCollage. The Flipagram below contains all their work.

Flappy Gatsby

Flappy 'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ---' flap our way to enough Gatsby dollars to beat your friend.

My first attempt to create a game using Scratch coding. Thanks to @DCallanIT on Twitter for the help.

Hold and release the spacebar to keep Gatsby's dream alive!

The Great Gatsby: Revision Quiz

This year I have been studying The Great Gatsby with my Fifth Year English class. They will be using it to answer questions in the Single Text section of their L.C. English exam in 2015. We really enjoyed our study of the novel as a class and feel like we really got to know the characters, their world and their motivations. We found the novel is packed with amazing moments, characters, descriptive writing and symbolism. This week we are creating some revision activities before we attempt some Single Text exam questions. One of our revision activities was to have a class quiz on the novel. Well done to the creatively named in-class winning team of 'Liam and the Other Two' . To keep the competitive action, learning, going I have created this online revision quiz that individual pupils, from anywhere, can attempt to win. You don't need an account to play for fun but you will need one if you want to have your score saved on the leader board. The best of luck to everyone!

The Great Gatsby: eduCanon Revision Activity

Last January I decided to change the colour template of the Blog. This year I decided to do the same and picked Gold/Yellow in honour of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The colour plays a significant symbolic role in the novel (see Nathan Wagman Prezi below).

I've also been experimenting with a web tool called eduCanon this week. The site allows you to take a video from YouTube, Vimeo or TeacherTube and create activities based on that video. It is free to set up a basic account and start making activities straight away. I've created a list of revision activities for LC English pupils based on John Green's Youtube Video 'Like Pale Gold'. I've created the task in such a way that pupils must actively listen to the video to answer an immediate question but also left a longer revision task to be completed in their copy. I hope teachers may find the site helpful and pupils may find the activity helpful.

(Click here to open in full screen- Recommended!)

The Great Gatsby- Chapter 4 Pre-Reading Descriptive Writing Task

Posted below is a descriptive writing response written by a 5th year pupil from Newbridge College. The pupils were asked to write a piece in the descriptive style of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The piece was completed before we read any of chapter 4. We have been closely following Fitzgerald's nuanced descriptions so far in novel. Pupils were given some prompts before they began but the rest was up to them.

“''Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”

Prompts:

• Gatsby will soon enter a bar

• He will meet a colleague

• The new character is trying to impress Nick
• There's a short time while Gatsby  is away
• Gatsby returns to the table

Pupil's Answer:

We sidled up next to the curb to come to a gradual stop. I was momentarily exposed to the lazy mid-day heat that smothered the city as Gatsby escorted me the short distance from his car to the unremarkable, heavy set restaurant which blended seamlessly with the much higher building of which it served as a cornerstone. I escaped the background din of the incessant city as I plunged into a much cooler interior. Gatsby took a moment to call to the bartender and half the bar before leading on down two low steps towards the semi-private back. There, the murky outline of a man brooded, his dark suit blending quite well with the dark ambiance of the place. As we neared courtesy demanded that he rise, and so he reassuringly did, standing as if it were a chore to be hauling such excellence and importance up this early in day. His ambitious waistcoat strained and struggled with the paunch it tried to conceal. His shady persona was reinforced when he made to pull my hand off as he shook it, and he languidly explained that he was Mr. Britchens , an old friend and inspirational figure to, "our man", Gatsby. Gatsby himself let the comment be, and made some airy, vague excuse about seeing to getting us some drinks as he drifted away. I awkwardly took a seat as I attempted to fathom Mr. Britchens apparent ignorance in simple manners. He was staring right at me. "So what do you do?" He demanded, after an uncomfortable amount of time. "I'm in bonds". He gave a knowing, condescending smile, reminding me how many other young men were flogging the same  dead horse. At that moment his eyes flickered over my shoulder, and I turned to see Gatsby coming to my salvation, three sparkling concoctions in his hands.

The Great Gatsby -Youtube Revision Videos

Last year I created a Popplet presentation on The Great Gatsby that allowed my Leaving Cert pupils to submit work to me at anytime, through Edmodo.  This year I decided to try the same task using new videos, a new web app and a new collection system. In the Stormboard below you'll find six videos accompanied by six questions. The questions differ in length and difficulty and culminate with an essay on The Great Gatsby. You may even just find the videos a good starting point for a class conversation or to help generate opinions on the novel. Maybe even create your own questions. I hope teachers and pupils might find it a helpful revision tool once they complete the novel.

Be sure to plan question 6 really well before you begin!

STORMBOARD REVISION LINK
(FREE SIGN UP REQUIRED TO VIEW)

(I'm using OneNote with my senior English class this year to collect essay and class work. I hope to write a review later in the year on how well this worked!)

OneNote Folder System - Intuitive to use for both teachers and pupils.

The Great Gatsby Movie: Help or Hindrance?

Is this what you imagined the characters looked like?

Let me put my cards on the table straight away Leaving Cert. class of 2013: DON'T WATCH IT! This is not a film review ( I haven't even seen it yet!). It opens in Irish cinemas this weekend. I advised my sixth year class today not to watch. Not because I hate Leonardo DiCaprio, which I don't. Not because I can only hear Carey Mulligan's English accent every time she tries to feign an American one. And not because Tobey Maguire is generally annoying in movies, no comment.  I asked them not to watch it as it's not on the Leaving Cert. course this year. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald is. Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is not.

Pupils using details from the movie in a Leaving Cert. essay is the ultimate fear for a teacher. I'm not going to patronise the vast vast majority of Leaving Cert. pupils. They just wouldn't do that. I've already heard Luhrmann discuss in interviews why he didn't have a Gatsby funeral scene. There was a cartoon expulsion of coffee from my mouth when I heard there was no funeral scene initially.

No funeral!? Owl Eyes, Nick and Gatsby's dad will
 be even more heart broken!

So I listened to the rest of the interview and although I didn't agree with the director's choice I certainly understood it. The idea that an under prepared pupil might go see the movie and then criticise Fitzgerald in an essay for not giving Gatsby a good send off (those that have read the novel know he doesn't really get a decent one anyway) is an idea that would genuinely give me sleepless nights.

Although that is the worst case scenario, this is not the reason pupils should not go see the movie. The reason you shouldn't see the movie is that these are Luhrmann's interpretations of the characters, not yours. I read the novel in college and in my mind's eye Gatsby is not Leonardo DiCaprio. Daisy is not Carey Mulligan and Tom Buchanan is certainly not Joel Edgerton. You've invested time and effort to learn about these characters. They should feel like people you know. Why? Well because if you know the characters (KNOW the characters as I bark to my pupils) it will give your Leaving Cert essay a vitality and honesty of effort that will make it rise above the rest. Yes question key words, PCLM and language range are all important but passion is quite often the x-factor between your essay being good and it being great. Seeing a movie adaptation of a literary work can irretrievably damage your love of a certain character. 

So if you genuinely feel like you can seperate the movie and the novel just weeks before the Leaving Cert., go for it. I'm sure the movie is great. I just strongly feel you are denying yourself of a possible strength your essay could and should have: your imagination. Until the exams are over you can console yourself with the fantastic soundtrack that accompanies the movie. I've taken, for me, the stand out song from the album Florence + The Machine's emotive Over the Love and created some revision questions to accompany it. Scant consolation I know but trust me, it'll be worth it!

Music Video Revision Questions

Q.1 Florence + The Machine make many literary referecnes to the novel in the song's lyrics. Choose two that you think are particularly effective in capturing the emotions of the novel. (10 Marks)
Q.2 'Now there's green light in my eyes'. The song's story is told from the perspective of Daisy. Would Daisy have made a better narrator than Nick? (10 Marks)
Q.3 'Cause you're a hard soul to save, with an ocean in the way' What do you think Florence + The Machine (speaking from Daisy's perspective) mean by this? (10 Marks)
Q.4 The song is called 'Over the Love'. 'The Great Gatsby is just a typical love story' Do you agree or disagree with this question? (10 Marks)

Now That's What I Call Learning! Vol.1 (Leaving Cert 2013)

What do all my Leaving Certificate pupils like? Music. Hhhm, how can they use that to their advantage I thought?

Are you are a leaving cert. pupil (or teacher for that matter) that has got that recent hit single stuck in your head? Then why not turn it to your advantage!? Take a current text that you are studying, pick a song you really like at the minute and mash up the lyrics! It's certainly not as productive as doing out all those revision notes or completing an extra exam question for your teacher to correct as both of which are just mandatory over the next couple of months. But mashing songs is something different that can give you a productive break from the revision marathon and might just give you that bit of help on the day of the exam.

Here are a few different ways it can work:

1. Summary - Having trouble remembering the main events/plot of a text? Mix the song with the major events of your text. See 'Macbethelmore' below.
2. Characters - Who are the main characters and why are they important? Mix a song you currently like with all the characters in a certain text. Even just try and fit them all into a verse or chorus.
3. Themes - What are the major themes of your text? Rich and Shakespeare deal with very different themes in their poetry. Could you link their themes to different songs?
4. Quotes - The dreaded quotes. They have to be there to support points and you can't just paraphrase! If there are ten quotes from a text you must know maybe at least half of them could fit in a song you currently like.
5. Key Moments -  'The Great Gatsby' has lots of different key moments for example. I've mixed Justin Timberlake's Mirrors to include the ultimate moment of the revelation of the character of Gatsby.

You can easily find the lyrics to all current songs online and then find the instrumental version of the song on Youtube. Nobody need know you have done it! But I've been changing songs for the last few weeks and found that the original lyrics are now a distant memory when I hear the song on the radio. It might help with your exams or it might just be the fifteen minute break for fun that you need during exam revision season. Either way, be careful you don't destroy a song you love forever!

Mirrors/Gatsby/Key Moment

Original Hook

Cause I don't wanna lose you now
I'm lookin' right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you hold
Show me how to fight for now
And I'll tell you baby, it was easy
Comin' back into you once I figured it out
You were right here all along
It's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn't get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it's clear as this promise
That we're making two reflections into one
Cause it's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me

 
Revision Hook

Fitzgerald's trying to tell us now
Gatsby can never really love Daisy
Resentment that he has in his heart
Is a space that Buchanan holds
He wants her to renounce him now
Daisy tells him it's just not that easy
Comin' back into you once she figured it out
You were right here all along
I love you now dear Gatsby
Is it not enough that you have me?
I couldn't be any clearer
Tom Buchanan will always be family
Don't get stuck in this moment
What you want is just unattainable
But I do love you now Gatsby
Please let go you have me, you have me

Macbethelmore/Characters 

(Mackelmore starts Thrift Shop by saying what what what what seven times, but I start by saying 'witch witch witch witch' three times to remind me of the importance of the number three in Macbeth. Edit your songs to remind yourself of the points you keep forgetting)

(Witch, witch, witch, witch x3)

I'm gonna steal the throne
Only got a bloody dagger in my pocket
Witches have me hunting, looking for Duncan
This play is bloody and gruesome

listen to ‘Macbethelmore Remix’ on Audioboo

Meyer Wofsheim: An important character?

Please find below an answer from one of our sixth year pupils, Mark Shanahan, on Meyer Wolfsheim. Despite having only a fleeting presence in the novel, we posed the question:

Would you describe Meyer Wolfsheim as an important character in ‘The Great Gatsby? Explain your view.

'Everything about Wolfsheim creates sinister and suspicious connotations, from his lackluster enunciation, to his ‘cuff buttons’ made from ‘human molars’.' -M. Shanahan

Despite Meyer Wolfsheim’s limited presence in the novel, he’s quite an important character in my opinion. Wolfsheim is a strong symbol of crime and underhandedness in ‘The Great Gatsby’. Being the person that allegedly fixed the World Series in 1919, Wolfsheim represents what happens when one crosses the line of greed and corruption that every character in the novel flirts with so readily. Everything about Wolfsheim creates sinister and suspicious connotations, from his lacklustre enunciation, to his ‘cuff buttons’ made from ‘human molars’.  He’s the epitome of crime and corruption in the novel. Wolfsheim also offers the reader a new perspective of what seemed to be an un-biased narrator. Something of the up-most importance in understanding both Nick and the novel. While Nick tries to have a lack of bias, he clearly takes an immediate dislike to Meyer Wolfsheim. His description of Wolfsheim as a ‘flat-nosed Jew’ with ‘tiny eyes’ highlights an immediate dislike of Wolfsheim as well as providing an ugly stereotype, at a time when anti-Semitism in the USA was at an all-time high.

Wolfsheim’s presence in the novel therefore forces the reader to ask questions about Nick. But it creates even more questions about Gatsby. Wolfsheim is a portentous symbol of Gatsby’s sinister side and shady affairs. In Wolfsheim we get a brief glimpse of what’s behind the mystery phone-calls and money. For the first time in the novel, the reader has to seriously ask questions about the eponymous protagonist. These questions had been building throughout, but Gatsby’s association with a man like Wolfsheim brings them crashing to the fore. It’s the lack of guilt or excuses about Wolfsheim that highlights the looseness of Gatsby’s morals in this regard.  He even conveys a sense of admiration for Wolfsheim’s success, explaining that he isn’t in jail, because ‘he’s a smart man.’ At this point in the novel, the reader grasps how Gatsby made his new money and begins to understand the depth of his false persona. From this point on, Gatsby isn’t the same; the new questions that plague the reader remain with him to the very end. While it mightn’t affect the reader’s overall opinion of Gatsby, he isn’t seen in quite the same light. In this, we find the importance of Meyer Wolfsheim.  For, despite his limited presence, he forces us to ask questions of Nick and Gatsby, as well as, of ourselves. For representing an awakening to the corruption and greed in the novel, I found Meyer Wolfsheim to be a very important character.

The Great Gatsby: Trailer Analysis

This an analysis of  Baz Luhrman's movie trailer for his on screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'. It was completed by Newbridge College sixth year pupil Akvile Kovanate. The movie was due for release at Christmas of this year but has now been put back to early 2013.









Research the names of the two songs Luhrman uses in the trailer. Discuss why you think he used these songs and how accurate is the trailer?

The trailer begins with the song “No Church in the Wild” by Kanye West & Jay-Z. From the first notes we hear, the reasons for Luhrman’s choice of soundtrack becomes apparent. The first beats of the song instill a sense of anticipation, with its blend of dark undertones creating a sense of building tension and ‘the restlessness” that “approached hysteria” as pointed out by the voice of Nick Carraway.  The song’s agitated rhythm compliments the extraneous party taking place, and the lyrics are an accurate reflection of the main concepts of the novel. The song portrays the lack of depth within the Roaring Twenties, questioning the significance of the superficial wealth for those “Who don't believe in anything?” The song’s references to the church and its religious connotations consolidate with the novel’s portrayal of the reverence that wealth held in that time, and the veneration that it seemed to procure. Luhrman’s ingenious choice of a contemporary song relates these concepts to a modern audience and applies the criticisms by F Scott Fitzgerald of the society that he lived in, to the world we live in today.

Subsequent to a few well timed moments of anticipatory silence, the trailer launches into the song "Love Is Blindness”, the u2 cover by Jack White. Its gradual start is a perfect introduction to another aspect of the novel – the tragic love story between Daisy and Gatsby. The opening chords of the song are sudden and uncertain, much like the meeting between Daisy and Gatsby that it illustrates – the awkward reunion of two lovers that have nothing and yet five years of unexpressed words to say to each other. The song is permeated with emotion that heightens along with the events in the trailer, augmenting the impact the sequence of scenes has on the audience. Luhrman’s choice of this song serves to not only amplify the atmosphere throughout the trailer, but like the preceding “No Church in the Wild”, hints at the themes of the novel within its lyrics. The lyrics “Love is blindness, I don’t want to see” are a synopsis of Gatsby’s and Daisy’s relationship towards each other. Both are transfixed by the supercilious façade of glamorous luxury of each other, and are blind, or unable to see the true person beneath the appearance. Gatsby fails to see Daisy as a person beneath the unattainable but so desirable aura of prestige that she projects, and Daisy falls in love with the idea Gatsby being a man that she could truly love, someone unaffected by the lavish extravagance around him, but still part of it. To both of them, unable to see the respective truths, as in the lyrics of the song “love is drowning”

Films are more often, more than inaccurate representations of the novel they are trying to depict. Luhrman’s attempts to portray the atmosphere of “The Great Gatsby” are particularly valid in the scene where Gatsby is throwing his collection of shirts towards Daisy. Not only is this a precise representation of the same scene in the book, it is a scene that summarizes the idea behind the novel – the overwhelming emphasis on extravagance with no regards for consequences or repercussions. The scene in the novel represents everything that was wrong with the American Dream, the idolization of wealth in the “shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high”. It portrays the decaying void that is thinly veiled by the supercilious attempts to counterfeit class – the complete belittlement, yet glorification of aristocracy. Daisy’s reaction to this overt show of wealth is an insight into her true character, her extreme materialism. Her tears show her attitude towards love, or perhaps her inability to love - because Gatsby can now afford an assortment of lavish shirts, he is more worthy to be loved than what he was five years ago, a man with nothing.

 

The Great Gatsby: Revision Popplet

Please find below a Popplet revision task on The Great Gatsby. Each video has questions that can be answered and submitted to your teacher on Edmodo for correction. Some questions are for fun but others could form an important part of your revision process. They don't have to be done all at once. Keep coming back throughout the year to complete them as you wish.

Resource Pack: The Great Gatsby



Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing the role of the iconic Gatsby
 in an up-coming Baz Luhrman movie adaptation. (Trailer)



1. The entire text of the novel by ebooks@adelaide.
2. Analysis of the novel through a series of ShowMes by SCC English.
3. Resources on The Great Gatsby from TES English.
4. Sparknotes video summary of the novel.
5. Collection of lesson plans for The Great Gatsby.
6. Compilation of resources from Classic Literature.
7. Cornell University New Student Reading Project.

8.

Ciara Conaty on The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald's take on 'The American Dream'.

Book Review

5th Year pupil Ciara Conaty shares with us her review of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ciara recently finished the novel as part of her Leaving Cert. course. Read the full review here.


The Great Gatsby – Book Review

There are many boxes that a novel has to tick in order to be considered a truly great novel, an enthralling plot, sensuous description and absorbing characters to name but a few. The Great Gatsby, for me, more than achieves this feat. In what is considered to be one of the most amazing novels of the twentieth century, F. Scott Fitzgerald manages to create the perfect blend of enthralling plot twists, extravagant events and stimulating characters. The book, as a whole, explores dreams and the idea of pursuing your dreams but, on a more interesting level, also takes an in depth look at human nature.  Every single character, although some try to give off an aura of perfection, has a flaw or multiple flaws. This idea formulated by Fitzgerald of nobody's perfect makes the novel and the events that take place within instantly more relatable to the reader.