Like Water for Chocolate novel guide

Presentation: Intro to Critical Lenses of Literature

Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism

​Put on your literary glasses, and get ready to do some critical thinking in the form of a critical lens analysis.

​Magical realism is the use of mythical or fantastic details side by side with utterly realistic details. Some elements include the following:
- Consciousness beyond death
- Circular story pattern
- Presentation of the fantastic as real

Check out the the Newsela article "Explainer: Magical Realism."

​Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." 

• How does Marquez use magical realism in the story?

• How does it offer new perspectives of reality?

Review and take notes on the presentation "Intro to Critical Lenses of Literature."

Jigsaw Activity: Digging into the lenses

First, read the Grimm Brother's "Little Red Riding Hood" and make annotations that will help support your lens.

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Then, read Roald Dahl's "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" and use your same lens to discuss and analyze this new spin on Red Riding Hood. What changes? How and why?

​Our novel, Like Water for Chocolate, is rife with imagery and figurative language. Before we begin looking at the figurative language in the text, we’ll start with some songs that have some thematic connections while practicing annotating a text. Get the details here!

We will use this presentation to guide our understanding of the beginning chapters of the novel. Chapter 1 focuses on magical realism, and chapters 2-5 are each dedicated to viewing the text through a different lens: formalist, feminist, psychological, archetypal. 

Lit circle groups - students grouped via lenses

Practice with lenses using this graphic organizer on quotes.