The Gift of the Magi Digital Close Read – Distance Learning

Engage your students in digital close reading and literary analysis! This digital close reading assignment for “The Gift of the Magi” is aligned with the common core state standards (reading literature and writing) and requires students to go back to selected passages from the text to read and closely analyze literary elements in the story.

With an emphasis placed on close reading, students will gain a better understanding of O. Henry’s short story, as well as increase their understanding of the conflict. Students will then be able to write a one-paragraph literary response that includes quotations and analysis for each literary element: characterization, tone, and theme.

In this assignment, students will complete these tasks:

Read the short story

Go back and closely read selected passages

Annotate the short story and/or the selected passages

Find and cite evidence of a specified literary element

Write a literary analysis paragraph

This assignment includes:

Teacher instructions for assigning this file via Google Classroom

A link to the short story

A 16-slide Google Slides presentation for student work

A suggested answer key

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