Aim: How can active reading be applied to interpret writers’ choices that create a narrative voice?
Do Now: WHOLE CLASS DISCUSSION
What does it mean to you when you hear the phrase: “to come of age”?
At the beginning of the class, Mrs. Peterson asked us to describe what we thought when we hear the phrase “to come of age”. The answers were extremely varied, ranging from the idea of growing up and developing both physically and mentally to traditions in society and different cultures that commence when children become “of age”. One student mentioned mental development, and how your brain changes chemically when you age into becoming an adult. On the opposite spectrum of ideas, multiple students spoke about the Jewish customs of bar and bat mitzvahs, which are different for different genders and are also based on age. As a whole, the class decided that the phrase “to come of age” deals with maturity - however you choose to define that.
Review of Double-Entry Journals
After completing the class discussion based on the do now question, the class reviewed how to manage double-entry journals. The strategy of maintaining this type of journal is very important when reading texts because it allows you to accurately record relevant information about the text as well as any opinions you may have. Most importantly, it allows you to save ideas and thoughts about the writer’s choice of language and how they choose to portray the narrator of the text/story. Double-entry journals are composed of two sections - one side for direct quotes from the text, and the other side for your analysis of the quote you picked.
Narrative Voice
Before we moved on to the spirit reading section of the lesson, the class watched the following video on narrative voice and the different perspectives that a narrator can take in a text:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHl7mDZzfDw&ab_channel=mistersato411
This was mainly an overview of the three most points of view: first person, second person, and third person point of view. The video made sure to include the differences in pronouns used, which are outlined below:
First person: I, me, my, ours, we
Second person: you, yours
Third person: he, she, it, his, hers, theirs
When we completed the video, the class reinforced their knowledge on the three major ways a writer develops their voice which are syntax, imagery, and diction.
Syntax is the length (or lack of) of specific sentences. In short, syntax refers to how short or long a sentence is. This can also refer to how words are arranged in a sentence, and how complex the given arrangement of words within that sentence is.
Imagery refers to the kinds of words and phrases the author uses to plant images within the reader’s mind. This encompasses figurative language, which allows the writer to create these images in a new and interesting way.
Diction correlates with the word choice that the speaker in a given story uses. This is mostly used to compare speakers who use sophisticated versus simple language.
Here is some more enrichment review on these three concepts:
Syntax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw62E9v9DnU
Imagery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX413tALG7Q
Diction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mf1mr5wtdA
After this short review, we began a spirit reading session of an excerpt from the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Students were then instructed to highlight specific portions of the text that they felt represented one of the three topics given above (syntax, imagery, or diction). After the reading concluded, we broke off into our given breakout rooms and followed the given instructions.
From Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
1 I found my locker after social studies. The lock sticks a little, but I open it. I dive into the stream of
fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall to the cafeteria.
2 I know enough not to bring lunch on the first day of high school. There is no way of telling what the
acceptable fashion will be. Brown bags—humble testament to suburbia, or terminal geek gear? Insulated lunch bags—hip way to save the planet, or sign of an over involved mother? Buying is the only solution. And it gives me time to scan the cafeteria for a friendly face or an inconspicuous corner.
3 The hot lunch is turkey with reconstituted dried mashed potatoes and gravy, a damp green vegetable, and a
cookie. I’m not sure how to order anything else, so I just slide my tray along and let the lunch drones fill it. This eight-foot senior in front of me somehow gets three cheeseburgers, French fries, and two Ho-Hos without saying a word. Some sort of Morse code with his eyes, maybe. Must study this further. I follow the Basketball Pole into the cafeteria.
4 I see a few friends—people I used to think were my friends—but they look away. Think fast, think fast.
There’s that new girl, Heather, reading by the window. I could sit across from her. Or I could crawl behind a trash can. Or maybe I could dump my lunch straight into the trash and keep moving right on out the door.
5 The Basketball Pole waves to a table of friends. Of course. The basketball team. They all swear at him—a
bizarre greeting practiced by athletic boys with zits. He smiles and throws a Ho-Ho. I try to scoot around him.
6 Thwap! A lump of potatoes and gravy hits me square in the center of my chest. All conversation stops as the
the entire lunchroom gawks, my face burning into their retinas. I will be forever known as “that girl who got nailed by potatoes the first day.” The Basketball Pole apologizes and says something else, but four hundred people explode in laughter and I can’t read lips. I ditch my tray and bolt for the door.
7 I motor so fast out of the lunchroom the track coach would draft me for varsity if he were around. But no,
Mr. Neck has cafeteria duty. And Mr. Neck has no use for girls who can run the one hundred in under ten seconds, unless they’re willing to do it while holding onto a football.
8 Mr. Neck: “We meet again.”
9 Me:
10 Would he listen to “I need to go home and change,” or “Did you see what that bozo did”? Not a chance. I keep
my mouth shut.
11 Mr. Neck: “Where do you think you’re going?”
12 Me:
13 It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about
communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.
14 Mr. Neck makes a note in his book. “I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you. I’ve taught here for
twenty-four years and I can tell what’s going on in a kid’s head just by looking in their eyes. No more warnings. You just earned a demerit for wandering the halls without a pass.”
Think/Pair/Share Breakout Rooms:
Students were instructed to choose four of the highlighted quotes, trying their best to choose a variety of pieces of text. Organizing these quotes into the given graphic organizer, we were then instructed to react and respond to each quote we chose. Once the independent portion of the assignment was completed, students then shared their document with other students in their groups and reacted to each other’s responses. This could have been an agreement with the original analysis, or a response showing a different viewpoint.
During this lesson Mrs. Peterson taught us about the meaning of “Ohana” or family. This became evident within the breakout rooms, as we were required to share our documents with a partner and have someone share their document with us. My breakout room had an odd number of students within it, so we decided to swap documents following the alphabetical list. This led to every student getting a document from a different person than the one they shared their document with.
As a personal side note: the spirit of “Ohana” was very prevalent in my room through all of my technological issues. My WiFi crashed on multiple occasions, and documents were not property accessed due to my connection. As a result, much of the group work was done outside of this class, and don’t encompass my particular blog - since most of the time spent in breakout rooms was trying to fix my connectivity issues. However, through effective collaboration and communication outside of class, my fellow students and I were able to complete the assignment in its entirety before the end of the day.
As you can see, my partner and I had similar reactions to the quotes that I chose. However, it’s obvious that Nikolas had some differing opinions, and I think that it was an important component of this lesson to show how even people in the same breakout rooms with similar personality types can have differing opinions on the same topic.
Individual Activity
When breakout rooms closed and the class came back together, we briefly discussed the quotes that we chose and how our fellow students responded to our given quotes. A common theme was that many students chose the same or similar sections of the text as the person they partnered up with, and yet they had completely differing perspectives on essentially the same grouping of words.
We spent the last section of class responding to the individual portion of the document, which had students analyzing Anderson’s writing as a teenager and whether or not Melinda’s sarcastic inner commentary is authentic and “true” to a teenager. In general, I found Melinda’s sarcastic commentary very refreshing and relatable - I think Anderson does a great job at painting an accurate picture of what it’s like to be a teenager in today’s society.
Reflection:
In today’s lesson, I learned about many things. Today was a day to discuss perspective within groups of people, how to set up a double-entry journal, and how to apply what we learned in the previous class to what we’re learning now. Using syntax, imagery, and diction to create narrative voice and perspective is an important skill to have because it allows you to world-build effectively and tell captivating stories in the future, whether in professional or informal settings. It’s also important to be able to tell apart these different ways a writer develops their voice, because in the future this skill can be applied to analyzing multiple different kinds of texts. Using Speak for this was a good choice because it’s a text that’s simple to understand and relatable to the readers, which allowed us to focus more on the author’s language and writer’s techniques. However, I think the most important thing that I learned was the importance of communication and respect between me and my group members. Without keeping “Ohana” in mind and being able to productively communicate with those in my group, it’s possible that I would not be able to even write this blog. Therefore, I will firmly stay by my opinion that this lesson’s most important takeaway was one of knowing how to work with those around you to manage your time and work to the best of your ability.
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