Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby

In this lesson, students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. During pre-reading activities, students first brainstorm other words for the color red, and then compare paint swatches to those color words. Students discuss the meaning of connotation and how word meanings can change based on circumstances. They work in groups to explore the cultural connotations of a particular color and present their findings to the class. Students then apply what they have learned to an analysis of the use of color in Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay." As students read The Great Gatsby, they track color imagery using a color log. After they have completed their reading, students review the observations in their color logs and use the information to write an analysis of one of the major characters in the novel.

Featured Resources

• Color Imagery Journal: Students use this chart to track the use of color imagery in The Great Gatsby.
• Character Analysis Assignment for The Great Gatsby: This handout explains the goals and requirements for a paper analyzing a character from The Great Gatsby based on one of the colors associated with that character.
• Rubric for Character Analysis Assignment: Use this rubric to assess students' Character Analysis papers.

From Theory to Practice

For many students, reading literature is like a scavenger hunt for "right" answers. From the perspective of these students, meaning is hidden and locked away, eventually to be revealed by the teacher. The students themselves typically believe that they do not know enough to unlock the meanings, so they wait for the teacher to reveal the secrets. This lesson plan models a process that shows students how to unlock such meaning on their own.

As Judith Burdan explains, we want students "to recognize the play of language with pleasure and to move forward into the analysis of literary conventions with a sense of understanding. As students learn to think about the rhetorical choices that an author makes and about the effect of those choices on them as readers, they become more perceptive and more confident as readers. They increasingly acknowledge themselves as part of the process of creating meaning through language, even the specialized language of literature, and learn to enjoy themselves along the way" (28).

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).