Blog 121214 - My signature passage

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky page 58

This passage when Rachel describes the first black Miss America is one of my favorite passages. Rachel is saying how white-looking the woman is, and how non-white-looking black women are happy about her being Miss America because she's black even though they look nothing like her. Rachel and the first black Miss America both have blue eyes, and Rachel feels like she could look pretty like her. Rachel cuts off her hair so that she doesn't have nappy hair to feel beautiful. Rachel tries to change herself to "look less black" to be pretty.

Blog 120314 - Freewriting on The Road

I do like the book. I loved it because it was very different and kind of scary. I loved the imagery. It was amazing. I think the book was good, but I am not sure what the meaning of the work is. I liked that it was dark though. I like dark stuff. The darkness was very appropriate and effective because the story has to do with cannibalism and loneliness and isolation and desperation and not knowing if you'll survive. The motifs I noticed were darkness, loneliness, fire, light, gloominess, barren lands. I think the author might have wrote this book to explore how life would be like after an apocalypse, and the book has to do with hope. I think the boy was the man's hope. I think possible main topics and themes are protection, innocence, hope, and survival. I wonder what could cause a world like the setting in the book. I really enjoyed the imagery.

Blog 111814 - The Road Poetry Explication

Word bank:
flowstone, granitic, without cease, great stone room, black and ancient lake, rimstone pool, eyes dead white and sightless, eggs of spiders, crouching, pale and naked and translucent, alabaster bones, shadow, pulsed, dull glass bell, low moan, lurched away, soundlessly, dark

        A beast of fear is at home in isolation, darkness, and silence. The narrator talks about a gave with flowstone walls that houses a granitic beast. The cave is dark and there in no sound. This beast is grotesque and animalistic. The imagery of the cave depicts a large, cold stone chamber. There is a "black and ancient lake", and the beast is lying on the far shore. The beast is pale and translucent, which is scary. It "crouches", showing that it is like an animal. It has no intelligence, hence "eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders". It is a pure creature. The beast is alive though, with a heart that pulses in a "dull glass bell". This depicts that the beast has no emotions. And it's "alabaster bones" show how scary it is. It has a "low moan" and it "lurches" silently in to the dark. These words and their imagery show how creature-like and brutal the beast is and how isolated it is. The cave and the beast fit each other.

Blog 111414 - Persepolis Freewriting

Part I: What happened in Persepolis?

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is about Marji's childhood growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane and all the other girls had to go to all-girls school and wear a veil. There are protests in Iran to overthrow the Shah. The Shah is a dictator who was very violent and cruel and spent the country's money on himself like it was his own. The Shah was put there by Great Britain because Britain wanted oil from Iran. Britain took down the Shah's father who was a good ruler. 

Part II: What did you think and feel about Persepolis?

I do like the graphic novel. I think it is good and interesting and insightful. But don't like communism at all, and Marji is communist. I think the drawing are not very detailed, but that is okay, it is just the style. I like the drawings pretty good. I like what the story is about and I think it is interesting. I don't know if this graphic novel totally engrosses me though, like Night did. 

Wearing the veil, Iran/Tehran, family, school, and Islam are things in Marjane's surroundings that affected Marjane's beliefs, thoughts, and moral values.

Themes in Black Boy

Richard and his friends are very ignorant and this makes them hateful.
Throughout the book Richard struggles with believing in God. Richard doesn't believe or want to believe in God.
Richard feels unlucky and underprivileged.
Richard isn't well-behaved.
Richard is extremely racist, The people around him are extremely racist. They are intolerant sometimes. Richard and his friends got into fights with white boys for just the reason that they weren't black.
Richard is resilient and though he has a hard, unfortunate life
Richard doesn't trust authority figures because his dad, one of the biggest authority figures in his life, left his mom for cheating on her. And he doesn't really trust people because he thinks they might be dishonest or hurtful like his dad.

TWIST - Using Literary Devuces

TWIST helps you get to R's:
How literary devices enhance themes

• Tone/Mood
• Word choice - metaphors, simile, connotation, personification
• Imagery - senses, especially sound
• Style - punctuation, syntax, etc.
• Theme

TWIST Practice Passages:

• "There was" statements, pp.7-8 or pp. 45-46
• Sign up for one sentence to TWIST with your partner

Writing CERs

• C = Claim = theme, author's intent, main idea -- your point about an idea
• E = Evidence = direct quotation that proves your point  -- your illustration
• R = Reasoning = further information to prove your point Explain how a literary device enhances the theme addressed in your point. The R is also known as your explanation.

"There was the aura of limitless freedom distilled from the rolling sweep of tall green grass swaying and glinting in the wind and sun" (Wright 45).

T: nostalgic, serene, carefree

W: personification "swaying and glinting"; connotation "limitless freedom" very positive

I: shows the wind's effect on the grass with the words "rolling sweep"; expresses the brightness of the day with "glinting" and "sun"; there is an "aura of freedom" so it feels free; gives the sense of wind, relates to the sound of whooshing

S: sentence rolls similarly to the way the grass does by the way it's long and rolling

T: freedom and beauty to easily to those are let go

C: the author is expressing how the grass looked beautiful and free while being rolled down by the wind and glinting in the sun

E: the imagery and tones of nostalgia, serenity, and freedom

R: the connotation of those words prove it's true

A to Z Literary Devices Blog Post

A Allusion - reference to history or another text; alliteration - repetition of a consonant sound; asonance; allegory - hidden meaning, extended metaphor; analogy - comparison between two pairs; antithesis - two opposites; anaphora - a rhetorical (literary) device that involves the repetition of the first words of a clause or sentence

B 

C connotation - a relation between a word, characterization
D dialogue - conversation between characters

E

F Foreshadowing - hinting what will happen later; flashback - vivid memory or reference to the past; foil - opposite of main character

G genre - type of text, a literary topic

H hyperbole - exaggeration; haiku - 3 lines with specific syllables 

I Irony - not expected; imagery - evokes a mental image 5 senses

J juxtaposition - author places contrast on two things

K

L

M Metaphor - comparison without 'like' or 'as'; motif - repeated symbol; mood - emotion of the reader; monologue - one character talking by himself

N

O Onomatopoeia - a word that is a sound (spelled how it sounds); oxymoron - contradicts each other and doesn't make sense

P personification - nonhuman things get human qualities; paradox - contradicts itself; pun - a play on words

Q
R Repetition - using a word or idea more than once; rhyme - sounds the same; rhythm - beat of the line, stress unstress
S Simile - comparing things with 'like' or 'as'; symbolism represents something; stanza - poetic paragraph or rhyme scheme; satire - making fun; static character - character that doesn't change; suspense - building up; syntax - arrangement of words; soliloquy - one character talks by himself
T theme - central message; tone - author's style
U
V voice - who's saying it
W
X
Y
Z