#20 - Prosperity Broken — Job 1–3

Objective

Students will analyze Job 1–3:

1. Contrasting the earthly plot with the heavenly council

2. Defining integrity under pressure in 1:20–22 and 2:9–10

3. Marking lament craft in chapter 3

4. Writing a paired claim that compares Job’s first response to loss with Dickinson’s speaker (using one quotation from each text)

Notes

Keep the narrator, Job, Satan, and the Lord distinct as speakers.

The 6-Step Prompt Attack

1. LIST the task verb. What must you do intellectually? (analyze / compare / explain / evaluate)

2. LIST the topic. What idea is in play? (death, memory, honor, language, the living…)

3. LIST the required texts or elements. Both texts? Devices? (metaphor, irony, characterization, etc.)

4. REWRITE the prompt as a question you can answer in one sentence.

5. LIST the must-haves. If you omit one, the essay is off-prompt. (ATT, text evidence, commentary, elaboration, embedded, etc.) 

6. ANSWER the question = working thesis. Then choose evidence that actually proves that answer.

Assignment

Step 1 - Guided reading of ch. 1–2: Two-column notes:

1. Left = what happens on earth (wealth, messengers, sores, friends’ silence)

2. Right = what is said in the heavenly council (hedge, the test, “without cause”). 

Step 2 - Integrity under pressure: 

1. Close-read 

   1. Job 1:20–22

   2. 2:9–10. 

2. Define integrity in context. 

3. Wife’s line as character foil

4. Answer - Is silence a form of resilience, or the pause before a cry?

Step 3 - Chapter 3 as poetry of lament (passionate expression of deep sadness, grief, and regret): 

1. Annotate the following verses for various authors craft: anaphora, imagery, and the concept of time

   1. 3:1-4

   2. 3:11

   3. 3:20-23

   4. 3:25-26

2. Contrast the difference between Job's and Dickinson’s chronology

Step 4 - Complete Prompt Analysis: NO SUMMARY

WE DO

Six Step Prompt Analysis: (1) Verb, (2) Topic, (3) Elements/Devices, (4) Rewrite, (5) Requirements, and (6) Answer

1. Compare how Dickinson and Job (chapters 1–3) each answer the first shock of mortality or loss. Cite each text.

   1. (1) Verb: Compare

   2. (2) Topic: Each speaker’s first answer to the shock of death or loss

   3. (3) Elements/devices: Tone (courtesy vs. blessing/curse); chronology (ride that still moves vs. birthday Job wants undone); personification of Death

   4. (4) Rewrite: Show how Dickinson’s first move and Job’s first move are alike when loss hits.

   5. (5) Requirements:

      1. Tone

         1. Dickinson: “He kindly stopped for me” / “For His Civility” = courteous, unhurried, not terrified.

         2. Dickinson (shift): “The Dews drew quivering and Chill” = courtesy gives way to cold.

         3. Job: “the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21) = restrained, worshipful.

         4. Job: he “cursed his day” (3:1); “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (3:3) = lament, bitter, undone.

      2. Chronology

         1. Dickinson: “We passed the School… Fields of Gazing Grain… the Setting Sun” = a life still moving in order.

         2. Dickinson: “Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet / Feels shorter than the Day” = time collapses after the grave.

         3. Job: four messengers in sequence, then seven days of silence (2:13), then “After this opened Job his mouth” (3:1) = loss in order, cry delayed.

         4. Job: “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (3:3) = he tries to erase the starting point of time.

      3. Personification

         1. Dickinson: “Death… He kindly stopped for me” = Death as a polite gentleman caller.

         2. Dickinson: “The Carriage held but just Ourselves – / And Immortality” = Immortality as a third passenger.

         3. Dickinson: “He knew no haste” = Death as a driver who will not rush.

         4. Job 1–3: little true personification. The Lord and the Accuser are speakers in the council, not objects turned into people. If you need a stretch: the “wind” that “smote the four corners of the house” (1:19) acts with force, but the stronger craft in Job here is voice and lament, not personification.

   6. (6) Answer: In the poem “Because I could not stop for death,” the author Emily Dickinson utilizes the speaker to answer the shock by yielding to a civil ride while in the poem Job, Job addresses the initial shock by openly displaying his faith.  

YOU DO

Six Step Prompt Analysis: (1) Verb, (2) Topic, (3) Elements/Devices, (4) Rewrite, (5) Requirements, and (6) Answer

Choose One

2. Explain how companions shape each speaker’s first response to loss: contrast Death and Immortality in the carriage with Job’s wife. Cite each text.

OR

3. Identify how each text clothes the suffering body, then explain what that clothing (or its ruin) reveals about the human spirit under pressure. Cite each text.