This week we're introducing a new lesson plan format we're calling Text to Text. In each lesson, we match a Times article, past or present, with often-taught literary, cultural, historical, scientific or mathematical material. On Tuesday, we published a Text to Text for social studies teachers, and we followed it on Wednesday with one for science teachers. We plan to publish at least one a month, and you can find them all by clicking Text to Text. "The Scarlet Letter" and "Sexism and the Single Murderess" Background: "The Scarlet Letter" is full of famous passages that probe themes like sin, redemption, guilt, revenge, resilience and hypocrisy, and we could have found Times articles that were interesting matches for all of those topics. In fact, in Text to Text editions to come, we just might. Below, however, we chose to start with a pairing that invites discussion on the theme of social mores about female sexuality - both because students are likely to see real-world connections of their own and because hardly a week goes by that there isn't something in the news that resonates with our key question about double standards. As always, please preview the content to make sure it is appropriate for your students. Key Question: To what extent is there still a sexual double standard, and how does that double standard play out in contemporary culture? Activity Sheets: As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or both of the graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for this feature: Excerpt 1: "The Scarlet Letter" From Chapter 2, The Market-Place, which begins with a crowd at the prison door talking about Hester Prynne as they wait for her to emerge. "Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not! "People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation." "The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch, - that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she, - the naughty baggage, - little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like, heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever! "Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart." "What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray! "Mercy on us, goodwife," exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, gossips; for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself. The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free-will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. When the young woman - the mother of this child - stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. Read all of Chapter 2  Excerpt 2: Op-Ed: Sex and the Single Murderess From The New York Times, May 5, 2013, by Frank Bruni "Sex game gone wrong," "sex game gone awry," "sex-mad flatmate," "sex-crazed killer." That's from just the first three minutes of the ABC News special on Amanda Knox last week, a veritable drumbeat of sexual shaming that leaves no doubt about what elevated a college student accused of murder into an object of international fascination, titillation and scorn. It wasn't the crime itself. It was the supposed conspiracy of her libido, cast as proof that she was out of control, up to no good, lost, wicked, dangerous. A girl this intent on randy fun was a girl who couldn't be trusted and got what was coming to her, even if it was prison and even if there was plenty of reason - as the eventual reversal of her initial conviction made clear - to believe that she might not belong there. ... Men get passes, women get reputations, and real, lasting humiliation travels only one way. The size and scope of that mortification, despite many decades of happy talk about dawning gender equality, are suggested by recent news stories of one teenage girl in California and another in Nova Scotia who hanged themselves after tales or cellphone pictures of their sexual violation circulated among peers. It's impossible not to wonder if shame drove them to suicide, and it's impossible not to ask what sort of world allows the victims of such assaults to feel more irredeemably branded - more eternally damned - than their accused assailants by all appearances do. I'll tell you what sort: a world in which there's a cornucopia of synonyms for whore and slut and no comparably pejorative vocabulary for promiscuous or sexually rapacious men. ... When we chart and lament the persistence of sexism in society, we look to the United States Congress, where women are still woefully underrepresented. We look to corporate boardrooms, where the glass ceiling hasn't really shattered. But we needn't look any further than how perversely censorious of women's sex lives we remain, and how short the path from siren to slut and from angel to she-devil can be. Read the full Op-Ed article  For Writing or Discussion What can you learn about Hester Prynne from this first description? What lines or words give you that information? What can you infer about the town and its people just from these few paragraphs? Read both the chapter and the Op-Ed article in full. What parallels do you see between the two? How are they different? Are there any lines from one that seem to echo or "talk back to" lines from the other? What relationship might the world of Puritan New England have to your world today? Do you agree with the Op-Ed article that we, as a society, remain "perversely censorious of women's sex lives"? If so, why do you think that is? Do you think that a sexual double standard affects the ability of women to advance in the world? What evidence can you offer from your own reading or experiences to defend your opinion about the extent to which there is still a double standard in society? Where else, whether in literature, history, pop culture or on Facebook, have you seen it? Going Further Many have seen parallels between "The Scarlet Letter" and so-called slut shaming in our current culture. The embedded Radio Rookies piece from NPR, below, the movie "Easy A" and the article "Slut Shaming: A New Social Media Phenomenon," written by a high school student for a San Diego school newspaper, are just three that draw lines between the two. How familiar is the slut-shaming phenomenon to you? Why do you think it happens? How do you think these kinds of attitudes could be changed? A recent Times article headlined "Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too" suggests that the double standard may be giving way a bit - at least in some places and for a certain kind of ambitious young woman: It is by now pretty well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by "hooking up" - an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse - without the emotional entanglement of a relationship. Until recently, those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men, and that women were reluctant participants, more interested in romance than in casual sexual encounters. But there is an increasing realization that young women are propelling it, too. Read the full article, and some of the more than 700 reader comments, and decide what you think. Are you persuaded that attitudes may be changing? Do you find the hookup culture described here more freeing and empowering for young women, or do you think it is somehow dangerous, as some in the article describe it? More Resources CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.4 Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.6 Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10 Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.