This is one of the ways you could interpret the [[independent reading]] assignment. Here’s an example: Start with [[all the Mentor Texts|one of the mentor texts]]. For this example, we’ll use [Bartleby the Scrivener](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11231/pg11231-images.html). Read it, reread it, internalize it. Find three (or more) texts that overlap with it in some way — thematically, structurally, tonally, etc. For this example, I’m choosing the following: 1. [“Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather](https://cather.unl.edu/writings/shortfiction/ss006) 2. [“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.ceremade.dauphine.fr/~ekeland/lectures/Mathematical%20Models%20in%20Social%20Sciences/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf) 3. [“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven) Read them, reread them, immerse yourself in them, enjoy life. Take your time. If someone tells you to get off your butt and do something, tell them YOU ARE! YOU’RE DOING YOUR HOMEWORK! Reflect on the nature of the common thread tying your chosen texts together. It may not be only one thing, and it definitely won’t be every thing. Perhaps your stories’ similarities will form chain of sorts. For example, I’m thinking “Paul’s Case” relates to “Bartleby” in that the titular character is somehow separated from “normal” or “acceptable” society by some seemingly impermeable membrane or unbridgeable gulf. For those who can’t see into their inner world, there’s just no way to make it make sense. That would be for example Paul’s family and the staff at the school in Cather’s story, and *everyone* in Melville’s. The reader can “hear” Paul’s thoughts but not Bartleby’s, so that’s obviously a point of contrast; but in both stories there is a blank wall of comprehension that we eventually butt up against — an unsolvable problem. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” also features an unsolvable problem, also raises uncomfortable questions about society and complicity, inclusion and exclusion, and what we can’t (or choose not to) see. Paul walks away; “the ones who walk away” walk away. For different reasons? Yes; nevertheless, both in response to an irreconcilable situation, invisible to those not in it. And could it be that the child in the final paragraphs of Le Guin’s story has some spiritual entanglement with the unseen entity that lives behind Bartleby’s unyielding refusal — or inability — to engage with the surficially “happy” world? Or — and I thought of this when I read each story again — is it *the ones who walk away* who are most aligned with the character of Bartleby? What then is “The Raven” doing in this hapless ensemble? It was the obvious part that came to mind first: *Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”* Like “Bartleby,” “The Raven” features a maddening refrain, whose origin or motivation is never revealed. Death is in the air here as well — though in the past, echoing, instead of impending as in “Paul’s Case” and “Bartleby,” or hanging suspended over consciousness, hiding in every corner just out of sight in “Omelas.” Here too we are denied a resolution. What is the point? Why are things like this? What happens next? What does it mean? We demand of these authors, *post hoc,* that they should offer up some answers, at least suggest a path to something like redemption — and each one, in his or her inscrutable, irrascible way, answers only, “I would prefer not to.” Write or record your thoughts about *your* chosen texts (or use these if you like and take a different angle on them). **BONUS:** To make this also a *writing* assignment, you could follow it up with your own writing, continuing the common thread in a *new* story, poem, etc. ---- <small>ASSOCIATED STANDARDS: R.11-12.2 Objectively and accurately summarize a complex text to determine two or more themes or central ideas and analyze their development, including how they emerge and are shaped and refined by specific details; W.11-12.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question).</small>