Jasmine Unit Plan

Day 1: Into Activities

Stereotypes about India: The students watch a clip from the beginning of the movie,
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The students will watch the segment when
Indiana’s Indian hosts eat monkey brains, eyeballs, and snakes. After watching the clip,
the students silently construct a list of all of the prior knowledge or stereotypes they have
about India for 10 minutes. Then, students will share their lists. For each item shared by
a student, the class must decide whether the piece of information about India is a “fact”
or a “stereotype.” Students’ input will be listed on the board:

facts stereotypes
India is part of Asia Most Indians eat monkey brains
Hinduism is a major religion in India

Homework: Students will be broken up into groups. Each group is in charge of

researching one of the following topics regarding India’s history: colonial rule by Great
Britain, India’s independence movement, Gandhi, the Partition Riots, Hinduism. Each
student must conduct research either using the library or the Internet, and bring in
approximately half a page of notes.

Day 2-3: Into Activities

Facts about India: In their groups, students will share their facts regarding the history of
India. Each group will prepare a 5-minute presentation describing their findings. Each
group will also prepare at least two questions, based on their presentation, that will be
used on a quiz in Day 4.

Grading rubric:
You can earn up to 100 pts. 50 pts. will be based on your group’s presentation, and 50
pts. will be based on your individual performance.

Group grade:
 Group was prepared to present (no hesitation or stalling) – 20 pts
 Creativity and originality of the presentation – 15 pts
 Accuracy of the presentation (covers all the major events of the historical topic) – 15
pts

Individual grade:
 Worked diligently during class time allotted for presentation preparation (worked
cooperatively with other group members, worked quietly to respect other groups,
stayed on task) – 20 pts
 Presenter demonstrates proper public speaking skills (eye contact, pacing,
 enunciation, audible volume) – 10 pts
 Presenter was prepared (remembered all of her or his lines without hesitation) – 10
pts
 Presenter has a significant role in the presentation (sufficient talk time) – 10 pts.

Homework: Study for the quiz on Indian history on Day 4.

Day 4: Into Activities

Quiz: Indian history

Comparing and contrasting India and America: Students work in pairs to create Venn
diagrams comparing and contrasting India and America. Students share their diagrams
with the rest of the class.

Homework: Read Chapter 1 in Jasmine.

Days 5-7: Introduction to Jasmine

Journal: Looking into my crystal ball, I can tell the future. A large meteor will come
racing in from outer space, scorching through the earth’s stratosphere, race towards San
Francisco, and score a direct hit upon Phillip and Sala Burton High School. It will engulf
the entire world in a cosmic ball of hot blue flame, and you will all perish as the result of
this catostrophic collision in exactly… 24 hours. What will you do in this last 24 hours
of your life?

Discussion of the Journal: Students will share their journals. Some students will opt to
say goodbye to friends and family, while some students will inevitably try to find some
way to escape, whether by hijacking a space shuttle or building an underground bunker.
Tie the students responses into two major themes of Jasmine: fate and self-determination.
Define both terms and the class will discuss these terms.

Get Off the Fence: One side of the room will be designated as “Fate”, while the other
side is “Self-determination.” Depending upon whether they agree more with the idea of
fate or self-determination, they will stand on a side of the room. The students will then
have an opportunity to debate with each other and attempt to convince their peers to join
them on their side of the room.

Chapter 1: Establish the narrator and settings of the novel. Discuss the astrologer’s
prediction, which represents fate, and Jasmine’s response to fate. Is she accepting of it?
Which students, based upon their journal topics, is more like Jasmine? Those who
accepted their fate or those who tried to escape the meteor catastrophe?
Symbol #1: Jasmine gets a wound (which makes her weak) on her head, and her
sisters call it a scar (which makes her ugly). Jasmine calls it a star (which makes her
beautiful) and that it makes her a sage (which makes her powerful). Based on Jasmine’s
re-interpretation of the wound, would you say that Jasmine is optimistic and self-
empowering or pessimistic and self-defeating?
Symbol #2: Discuss the dead dog and water, and how Jasmine associates these
images, smells, and tastes with death.

Homework: Read Chapters 2-4 of Jasmine.

Days 8-10: Character Analysis

Discussion: Why is this novel so confusing? The class discusses the leaps in time and
space (changes in setting) in the novel. The class brainstorms of list of settings we’ve
come across so far and of characters we’ve met so far.

Character Jigsaw: In groups, students will work on analyzing one character from the
novel. Each group will be assigned a different character. Teacher will guide each group
towards the following discoveries:

Bud “he’s not allowed to do impulsive things” (7), stable, unadventurous,

Ripplemeyer crippled. “my genuine foreignness frightens him” (26)
Darrel Lutz “looks lost these days, like a little boy, inside the double-wide, air-
conditioned cab of a monster tractor.” (7) doesn’t fit in farm country.
talks about leaving the farm to open a Radio Shack. Is fascinated with
Oriental foods and names. Also fascinated with technology.
Gene Lutz “choked to death on a piece of Mexican food. He was so heavy Carol
couldn’t lift him” (8). stagnant, corpulent American.
Carol Lutz moved to California only to marry another Iowan. Though physically in
California, her heart is still in Iowa.
Du Thien fascination with technology, survivor, inventive (29)
Vimla killed by tradition (15). clay pitcher symbol.

On a piece of paper, each group should draw a picture of their character. The group must
then add details from their character analysis, including the page numbers on which they
make their discoveries. The groups will then present their pictures and character analysis
to the rest of the class.

Homework: Read Chapters 5-7

Days 11

Chapter 5: Students read Bud and Jane/Jasmine’s love scene. Discuss the ending of the
chapter: “the farmers say you can practically hear the corn and beans ripping their way
through the soil. This night I feel torn open like the hot dry soil, parched.” (38). From
this mysterious ending, is Jasmine hinting that she was aroused or not aroused when
having sex with Bud? Make a prediction regarding the future of Bud and Jasmine’s
relationship.

Chapter 6: p.40: What did Jasmine’s mother try to do to her? Why was her mother
trying to kill her? Why would Wylie, an American, find this shocking? Discuss the
quote, “Wylie would overkill. My mother was a sniper.” Jasmine’s mother preferred to
kill just one of her daughters to ensure a better life for the surviving daughters.
pp.42-43: Discuss Pitaji. Someone who is stuck in the past, attached to tradition. How
does Jasmine feel about Pitaji’s nostalgia? “Only a fool would let it [the past] rule his
life.”

Chapter 7: p.44: How does Jasmine feel about technology?

p.49: the Khalsa Lions – Lions of Purity. Attached to tradition and rigid religious
morality, yet smuggled guns and rode scooters. They lived at the border, where purity is
impossible.

Homework: Read Chapters 8-9

Days 12:

Classwork: Contrast Jasmine’s defiance of death in Chapter 8 (by killing a wild animal)
with Pitaji’s death from behind in Chapter 9 (by being killed by a wild animal).

Chapter 9: Discuss Jasmine’s thoughts on fate, God, and the significance of man within
the grand scheme of the universe.

Homework: Read Chapters 10-13

Days 13-14

Chapter 10: Discuss Prakash and his involvement with technology.

p.67: “Prakash sounded more like a surgeon, a confident professional in starched white,
lifting microchips with wire forceps.” Prakash not only invents electronics, but also
helps re-invent Jasmine. Discuss Jasmine’s change in identity from Jyoti to Jasmine.

Chapter 11: “I couldn’t marry a man who didn’t speak English” (68).

Chapter 12: p.75: irony, Vimla’s hypocrisy

p.76: Vimla’s faith in fate
p.85: contrast w/Jasmine and Prakash’s attitude towards fate
Chapter 13: p.92: self-estrangement
p.94: Prakash killed. “Rosettes of blood bloomed” – signifies that Prakash’s death will
give birth to new life – a new life for Jasmine.

Review: Class will review the first 13 chapters of Jasmine for tomorrow’s test.

Homework: Study for tomorrow’s test

Day 15: Assessment

Test: Chapters 1-13

Homework: Read Chapters 14-16

Days 16-17: Technology, invention, and inventiveness

Wordstorm: Students brainstorm word associations with the word, “invention.” Discuss
exploration, technology, curiosity, creativity, and creation.

Invention: Students will be divided into groups. Each group will be given a ziplock bag
full of random materials: tape, rubber bands, paper, index cards, cardboard, thumbtacks,
paper clips, feathers, popsicle sticks. Each group is in charge of taking their pile of
“junk” and make something “useful” out of that pile. Each group will present their
invention to the rest of the class.

Discussion: Technology and invention in Jasmine

 p. 24: Darrel’s inventiveness, confined to farming
 p. 29-30: Du’s inventiveness
 p. 67: Prakash the engineer
 p. 88: electronics as frontier
 p. 89: Jasmine as technological surgeon: Jasmine is reinventing herself!
 p. 107: explorer of America
 (pp. 154-156: Du again)
Just as Du took junk and invented something useful, students in the class took junk and
invented something using their creativity. To Jasmine, America and its high technology
represents the exciting potential for constant change and creation. It is the opportunity
for Jasmine to re-invent herself.
p.107: Immigrants are the new explorers of a virgin America. America, to
Jasmine, is “unexplored” and “unscratched.”

Homework: Read Chapter 17.

Day 18: Experiences in a New World

Journal: Imagine that you are an alien from outer space and that you are exploring planet
Earth. You land at Burton. Report your observations about earthlings, pretending you
have never seen a classroom, desk, or teacher before. (For example, you might describe a
classroom as a “big box”)

Journal share: Students share their journals. Then, introduce the term, “alienation.” In
this journal topic, students were required to “alienate” themselves from Burton, a place
that is normally familiar to them. In the same way, how does Jasmine “alienate” things
that are familiar to us on p.112? What is the “ball no larger than a cardamon pod” and the
“pair of shoes with the number 12 stamped on the back” (bowling shoes)? How is
Jasmine, an immigrant, re-discovering America for us?

Homework: Read Chapters 18-20. 2-page essay on the following topic: What does
America mean to Jasmine? Due in 1 week.

Days 19-20

 On board: “We murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the image of
dreams.” (p.29)
 Think back to what we discussed yesterday. Someone explain this quote to me.
 How was Jasmine reborn? several identities. re-inventing herself (think back to what
we did on Monday, show class an invention). What analogy does Jasmine make with
inventions? Inventing is like what? Surgery. Is surgery pleasant? Is reinventing
herself pleasant? Why did she choose the word, “murder”?
 She was reinvented or reborn in two instances throughout the story, so she has gotten
several identities. What was her first identity? Jyoti -> reborn by Prakash -> Jasmine
-> reborn by rape -> Jane.
Transition: Many of you have told me that you find this book confusing. This IS a
confusing book – what makes it so confusing? Discuss constant flashbacks, shifts in time,
shifts in setting. Why doesn’t the author just write it in time order? Read the epitaph
from the inside cover of the book: “The new geometry mirrors a universe that is rough,
not rounded, scabrous, not smooth. It is the geometry of the pitted, pocked, and broken
up, the twisted, tangled, and intertwined” Her memories are chaotic, tangled, intertwined.
What does “intertwined” mean? Not a smooth narrative – it’s all tangled up. The
universe, just like her memories and her narrative, are disorderly.
 start from p. 127
 Lillian Gordon, p. 131; have students read the paragraph
 deformity: who else was deformed? Half-Face. discuss Jasmine’s scar – point to the
picture on the bulletin board. deformity is a choice. your past can either deform you,
leaving you ugly and weak, or it can make you stronger and more beautiful.
 Riddle time: p. 133. America as the land of contradictions. America is strange –
remember the journaling topic? What was it? What was the point? sense of
adventure and exploration
 pp.145-146. in contrast, the Indians – no exploratory spirit.
Group work
 Let’s pick up the pieces and put everything back together. let’s untangle the story
setting people she knew important events
India (Hasnapur)
Florida
NYC
Iowa
Lesson closing
 p.127. needle that jumps tracks – disorderly. catalogue of her experiences – we
should be able to fit them into the chart/use the chart to place them physically and
temporally.

Homework: Read Chapters 21-22. Groups’ charts are due tomorrow.

Day 21: Order and Chaos

Contrast: In pairs, students will create a chart listing the differences between Profesorji
and Nirmala (Chapter 20) and Kate Gordon-Feldstein (Chapter 22).

Drawing and discussion: Students will quickly sketch what they think Kate’s room
would look like. Why does Kate’s messiness refresh Jasmine? Does Jasmine favor chaos
or order? How does chaos represent freedom and American-ness to Jasmine?

Homework: Finish reading Jasmine. Complete contrast chart, if not finished in class.

Days 22-23

plot catchup
 Taylor, Wylie, Duff. Jasmine as Duff’s day mummy.
Taylor
 p. 166 “Taylor had teeth as crooked as mine – the first crooked teeth I’d seen in
America – with a gap between his front teeth wide enough to hold a matchstick.”
 top of p. 176
Jasmine
 p. 178-179. Jasmine’s positive empowering perspective.
 p. 185: “To bunker oneself inside nostalgia, to sheathe the heart in a bulletproof vest,
was to be a coward.”
America
 p. 179: “America may be fluid and built on flimsy invisible lines of weak gravity, but
I was a dense object, I had landed and was getting rooted.”
 first paragraph of p. 181
 what’s happening at the bottom of the page? weak gravity – the family is flying
apart, transforming
 p.184, “Every day I made discoveries about the city, and in the evenings, when I
listed my discoveries to Taylor he listened carefully, as though I were describing an
unmapped, exotic metropolis.” Jasmine as the explorer of America. We are like
Taylor – rediscovering the wonders of America.

Jasmine, pp. 212-225

 Bud: “pillar of Baden” – stationary
 Du called a “phantom Columbus” (Du leaves on pp.222-223)
 p. 214. Darrel a little crazy.
 pp.216-217. Darrel again. looking for something exotic. connect to Bud’s exoticism
(pp. 199-200). and Taylor (p. 198, “I am leading Taylor to a bed as wide as a
subcontinent”).

Jasmine, pp. 226-end

 bottom of p. 228. guilt, tradition, MORALS. morals hold you down.
 go back to p. 221. Du didn’t like morality hold him down and restrict his freedom.
 p. 229. release Darrel, touched with the same virus, madness
 p. 233-235 – Darrel’s suicide, astronaut, Tahiti
 p.239, Taylor says, “New York’s over. We’re heading west.” window’s caulking
giving way, borders breaking down
 p.240-241, the end.

Homework: begin studying for the cumulative test.

Day 24: Character Review

Character Review:
Duff Taylor’s daughter. Jasmine was her babysitter.
Du Thien went to California, doesn’t let guilt hold him back, explorer, inventor,
adopted by Jasmine and Bud
Mother Bud’s mother, lives in the past
Ripplemeyer
Pitaji lives in the past, killed by bull, Jasmine’s father
Karin Bud’s ex-wife, neat, can’t leave Iowa
Sukhwinder a Khalsa Lion, traditional, killed Prakash
Kate messy, Lillian’s daughter, exciting, chaotic
Gordon
Lillian saves Jasmine, hates nostalgia
Gordon
Masterji Jasmine’s English teacher
Mitaji Jasmine’s mom, beat by Pitaji, tried to kill Jasmine, wanted Jasmine to
 stay in school
Harlan farmer that shot Bud
Kroner
Half-Face rapist, deformed
Profesorji clean, orderly, attached to memories of India
Gene Lutz
Vimla killed herself, wealthy
Prakash first husband, engineer
Du Thien
Darrell Lutz
Taylor goofy, messy, goes to California w/Jasmine
Wylie Taylor’s wife

Meet and Greet Party:

 Using index cards, teacher randomly assigns each student a different character from
the novel. Students have several minutes to review the character, after which they
will be expected to act like the character.
 Students get up from their seats and must shake hands with at least 2 other characters
that they think they would get along with. Several students will then be asked to
identify who they shook hands with, and why they chose that character.
 Students will repeat this activity, this time seeking out characters that they think they
would not get along with.
 Finally, the teacher will guide the class in splitting all the characters into two
opposing groups. The class will discuss how the various themes of the novels are
embodied in these opposing types of characters.

Day 25: Themes Review

Jasmine likes Jasmine dislikes

America nostalgia
technology tradition
change order
chaos stability
self-determination fate
exotic the past
exploration
discovery

Day 26: Assessment

Test: cumulative Jasmine test