Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Analyzing Characters

Questions to ask when analyzing  character,


  • What is the character´s motivation.
  • Consider the effects of the characters behavior on other characters in the story. 
  • Look for repeatedly used words or phrases that describe the character. 
  • What does the character think.
  • Pay attention to the characters ethics.




Tuesday, March 26, 2013

OVERDUE POST ....The Breadwinner - Deborah Ellis


7th grade Summer Reading Book - The Breadwinner







Marta B. Shares here response for the writing assesment.

Marta B.
7D
25/3/13
Writing Assessment 1-

As an old man helps Parvana plant flowers he says, “ They may look scraggly and dying now… but the roots are good. When the time is right these roots will support plants that are healthy and strong.” What is the old man trying to tell Parvana? Support your answer with evidence from the book.


     As the old man helps Parvana with the flowers, and says that phrase, I think he is trying to say that Afghanistan may look scraggly and dying now because of war. However, the roots are still good and someday Afghanistan will support with its healthy roots and will be as it once was. Something else I think that the old man was trying to say is that once they are very beautiful and have grown, the window woman will notice that Parvana is gone. Maybe, he is also trying to say that Nooria, Mother, Ali, and Maryam could be in the middle of war, but they will fight until they are free and Parvana will come to get them. Afghanistan has been in war for many years, so maybe the old man was encouraging Parvana not to give up until hopes are not hopes anymore, but actual dreams come true. A safe, nice, war free, gorgeous country. 2-In the fall of 2001, the Taliban was driven from most of Afghanistan. How was life before the Taliban? How is life now? Have women’s and children’s rights changed? If so how? Use the book and documentary Children of Conflict-Afghanistan to support your answer. Life before the Taliban was great in Afghanistan. They had light, water, food, homes, cars, and clothes. But now its all messed up. The Taliban has destroyed lots of houses, killed lots of people, took away everyone’s rights; that, is horrible. Children do not have playgrounds, toys, or clothes! They are most orphans because their parents can’t take care of them. Life with the Taliban around, is not very pleasant. There is not much food, no clean water, or any electricity. Women and children have been punished for nothing. Women’s rights are not the same. They can only go outside with a burqa , they can’t work, and can’t even show their faces out in the sun. Children can’t go to school, well, only boys, yet most of them can’t because they have to work to gain money for their families. In the documentary, you could see boys begging in the streets for money. Will Afghanistan ever change like the old man said? Children of Conflict Essay Afghanistan has been in war for several years now. People in Afghanistan have lived with this for many years. This essay will tell you a little bit about how much people and even tons of kids suffer and many times die for these wars and attacks to Afghanistan. The Taliban attack often, yet when they first came, they promised peace. Since there is war, the Taliban forbid women to go outside, even to school. Only 25% of boys go to school because most of them have to work for their families’ needs. Children suffer often, and there are at least 20 children in the hospital per month. These and every single child in Afghanistan think that war should stop. But, why? Why should it stop? Because children do not have shoes, toys, or nowhere to play! They become orphans, get sick, and die, because of war! I personally think like any Afghan child. I think that Taliban attacks are completely unnecessary. I think that Afghanistan should live in peace. Yet, they can’t; because they have no electricity or water systems, because they have no place to live or for children to have fun. A very important point is that they use the word if for everything. If I grow up, if I go to school, if my father comes back, if we eat tonight. I mean, no child should ever have to say the word if. Perhaps, someday lon from now, war will stop in Afghanistan. Attacks will stop, if will stop, hunger will stop… Someday. Maybe, people will rebuild homes, buildings, parks, and make Afghans happy like they should be. I hope that Afghanistan turns into a nice, peaceful, beautiful country. Someday…











An American Childhood - Annie Dillard


WORKSHOP

Narrating the Story

Whether focusing on a single event or a person, writers nearly always tell a story or several brief stories called anecdotes.  A well-told story draws readers in by arousing their curiosity and often keeps them reading by building suspense or drama, making them want to know what will happen next. Storytellers use a variety of techniques to dramatize events. One way is to speed up the action and heighten the tension. 

This activity will help you see how Dillard uses active verbs and other verb forms to make her story dramatic.
Analyze
1. Reread paragraphs 12 and 13 (lines 72- 89), underlining as many verbs as you can.  What can you get out of all the verbs, why so many? What is the sensation they provoke as you read?Write several sentences explaining what you have learned about Dillard's use of verbs and verbals to represent action and to make her narrative dramatic. Use examples from paragraphs 12 and 13 to support your explanation.



Presenting People

Often, one or two specific details about the way a person looks, dresses, talks, or acts will be sufficient to give readers a vivid impression of the person.
Look at paragraph 4. How does Dillard describe the boys. Notice that she gives each boy a brief descriptive tag. Write the tags. Create a visual image of the characters.
These characterizations or evaluations contribute not only to the impression we get of each boy but also to our understanding of his significance in the writer's life.



Fabiola A. 7C



Miguel A. 7C


Analyze
2. Reread paragraphs 10, 16, 18 and 21 describe how the man looks and sounds. 

Based on your analysis, write several sentences examining Dillard's use of descriptive details and characterizations to present the man. Use examples .




Describing Places 

Writers make a remembered place vivid by naming memorable objects they want readers to see there and by detailing these objects. For examples of naming and detailing, look at paragraph 3, where Dillard describes what it looked like on that particular morning after Christ­ mas. Notice that Dillard uses naming to point out the snow, Reynolds Street, and the cars. She also adds details that give information about these objects: "six inches of new snow," "trafficked Reynolds Street," "cars traveled ... slowly and evenly."
To make her description evocative as well as vivid, Dillard adds a third describing strategy: comparing. In paragraph 5, for example, she describes the trail made by car tires in the snow as being "like crenellated castle walls." The word like makes the comparison explicit and identifies it as a simile. Dillard also uses implicit comparisons, called metaphors, such as when she calls the cars "tar­ gets all but wrapped in red ribbons, cream puffs" (paragraph 3).

Analyze
3. Examine how Dillard uses naming and detailing to describe the "perfect ice­ ball" in paragraph 6. What does she name it, and what details does she add to specify the qualities that make an iceball "perfect"? 


Conveying the Autobiographical Significance


Autobiographers convey the significance of an event or a person in two ways: by showing and by telling. Through your analyses of how Dillard narrates the story, presents people, and describes places, you have looked at some of the ways she shows the event's significance. This activity focuses on what Dillard tells.

"You thought up a new strategy for every play and whispered it to the others. You went out for a pass, fooling everyone:' 

To determine the autobiographical significance of the remembered event or person, then, readers need to pay attention to what Dillard tells about the significance-both her remembered feelings and thoughts and her present perspective. 

Analyze
4. Explain what have you learned from Dillard's autobiography and the importance of this event in her life.









Monday, March 25, 2013

An American Childhood

-Anne Dillard




Vocabulary
improvise, perfunctorily, redundant, revert, righteous, simultaneously, spherical, translucent


Reading Skill - Cause and Effect




Identify cause and effect in the following examples:


  • The house was cold because the air conditioner was set at 68 degrees.
  • He didn't get his allowance because he didn't do his chores.
  • Dad mowed the lawn because the grass got too high.


  • Wednesday, March 20, 2013

    Rikki-Tikki-Tavi


    Vocabulary words
    valiant, revive, cunningly, cower, fledgling, consolation, singe, gait, veranda, mourning, scuttle, flinch,  lept, devour

    Reading skills: Suspense, foreshadowing, and prediction.

    Review as necessary the definitions used in the lessons:
    • Setting: the time and place in which the events of the story happen
    • Fact: a piece of information that can be proved
    • Fiction: people, places, things, or events that are invented or "made-up"
    • Personification: giving an animal or object human qualities
    • Internal Conflict: conflict within a character's mind or heart
    • External Conflict: takes place between a one character and another (Man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs society, etc)



    Predicting

    Watch the following clip with that and the cover of the book predict what the story will be about.



    Rikki Tikki Tavi Movie







    Discussion Questions

    1. Throught out the story, Nagaina is implied to be "wicked". Do you agree with this characterization? Why or why not? Support with evidence from the story.
    2. Rikki as the protagonist of the story demonstrate positive qualities. But even heroes have negative qualities. Which would you consider negative qualities in Rikki. Support with evidence from the story.
    3. Suspense is given several times in the story. give an example of suspense in the story.
    4. Describe the different types of conflict in the story. Rikki vs. snakes, Darzee and his wife vs. Nag and Nagiana.
    5. Why isn't Rikki sympathetic to Nagaina's plea to spare her last egg?
    6. Which of Rikki's battle took the most courage?
    7. What do Darzee's wife, Nagaina and Teddy's mother all have in common?
    8. Who exhibited bullying behaviors?



    MINI-LESSON


    Anthropomorphism in literature


    Anthropomorphism in literature most commonly occurs when human characteristics are attributed to animals. As a literary device, anthropomorphism is strongly associated with art and storytelling with most cultures possessing a long-standing fable tradition with anthropomorphised animals as characters that can stand as commonly recognised types of human behaviour. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) and The Jungle Book (1894) by Rudyard Kipling are good examples of 19th century literature that all employed anthropomorphic elements. Notable examples of more modern times are Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908), A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) and William Horwood's Duncton Wood (1980).
















    Anthropomorphism in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi




    The Jungle Book

    Elements of Fiction


    -Setting

    -Characters

    -Plot is the series of events in the story. Usually, it centers itself around a conflict. (A conflict is a a struggle between different forces. It fuels the action, moving the plot forward.)

    Types of Conflict




    Plot, Conflict and Setting

    Objective: Identify the stages of plot and analyze its development.

    Activity
    Write a nursery rhyme ex. Jack and Jill

    Jack and Jill went up the hill,
    to fetch a pail of water
    Jack fell down and broke his crown 
    and Jill came tumbling after.

    Identify the different parts of plot
    Exposition "Jack and Jill went up the hill" you get to know the characters and the setting.
    Rising Action they are going up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
    Climax Jack fell down
    Falling Action "And broke his crown" consequence of the climax.
    Resolution "and Jill came tumbling after"

    Humpty Dumpty


    The Three Little Pigs


    Videos

    Flocabulary - five Things (Elements of a Short Story)


    Links