Blogger #6 - Anton Ianachi - Period 1 - 2/23/21 - Day A

Aim: How can active reading be applied to interpret writers' choices that 

create a narrative voice?

Do Now: What does it mean to you when you hear the phrase: "to come of age"?

For the do now the whole class had a discussion about coming of age and what they would define it when they hear it. Most of the class said something along the lines of how you become mature and old enough to do certain things that you could not have done if you are a little kid.

We then discussed what a double-entry journal is. A double-entry journal allows you to slow down when reading something, instead of trying to take in all the information in quick succession you are forced to think more about the diction, imagery, tone, and syntax of the reading. This will be used later in the lesson.

Review of Double-Entry Journals

“Text” (The book says...)	Analysis/Question/Opinion (I say...)
	If you are having trouble thinking of what to write, try using these stems:  I really like / dislike this part because…  I wonder why… ?  The diction / imagery creates a tone of…  This quote shows the narrator's / character’s voice by…  I predict that…  This reminds me of the time when I…  If it was me, I would… Wow! I can’t believe...

Narrative voice:

The class then watched a youtube video on narrative writing. This video recapped first person and third person narration, how to identify them, and the pronouns used with them.

After the video on narrative voice, we had a scene from Speak which we had to annotate and spirit read. Below are my annotations. Diction is highlighted

green, imagery is highlighted purple, and syntax is blue.

From Speak

by Laurie Halse Anderson

1   I find 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 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 on to 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.”

Breakout Rooms:

The class then went into breakout rooms, we chose 4 quotes

for use in the double-entry journal. After this, we had to share

our document with a partner who would comment on our entries. 

Below is an example of how this process worked in my group. 

The book says…	I say… (Anton Ianachi)	Comments from your partner Partner’s Name: John Lee
“ I dive into the stream of  fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall “	The diction gives us a feeling that the narrator does not have control over where she is going.	I too see that the narrator is lost and confused as they seem like a small fish in a big ocean.

After we came out of breakout rooms there was a discussion on how our

group mates (and to an extend classmates) had similar quotes to each

other due to how it might have been relatable to us. Like the quote

“I dive into the stream of fourth-period lunch student and swim down

the hall”, many of us could have related to this. 

Individual Activity:

For the final activity of the class, we had to select 3 quotes from the passage that we thought were authentic to how a teenager would think and act, we also had to refer back to the aim to fully answer this. After that, we had to answer two questions based on the quotes we selected. The questions are as follows.

• Does Melinda’s sarcastic interior monologue seem authentic?

• Why or why not? 

• What inferences can students draw based on her voice?

• From her voicelessness?

Below is my response to this prompt. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“This eight-foot senior in front of me somehow gets three cheeseburgers, French fries, and two Ho-Hos without saying a word. ”


“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.”


“ 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.”

These quotes accurately describe how a teenager would think and describe their surroundings. For example, “Or I could crawl behind a trash can.”, describes how people can sometimes feel due to something that is overwhelming for them. “This eight-foot senior in front of me…”, we know that no normal person is 8 foot tall but due to the senior towering over the narrator she describes him that way, this seems authentic to how, to give an example, I would describe my first days at high school.

Students can inference that the narrator is lonely due to her wandering around the cafeteria to try to find someone friendly to sit with. Her voicelessness shows us that she is very quiet and does not want to say anything to other people.

Reflection:

Throughout the lesson, I learned many useful strategies for reading that would give me a different perspective on how I interpret passages and texts. Double-entry journals were very interesting to learn about and do with a partner. I learned this so that I could easily digest a book or novel by taking the information in slowly and catching all the intricate imagery and diction. This will become very useful to me in this class as we start to read larger excerpts of books that are more complex in their structure.