Aim: How can the use of annotations aid in analyzing the figurative language, tone and conflict in “My Name,” by Sandra Ciseneros?
Do Now: What does your name mean? If you don’t know, look it up. Do you feel any connection to this meaning?
Mrs.Peterson started off the lesson by allowing us a few minutes to search up what some of our names meant. Most of us didn’t feel an attachment to the actual meaning of our names.
E.g. Karis shared that her name meant grace and she often felt graceful.
E.g. Zihan said that his name meant knowledge and he personally didn’t identify with it.
I personally do not know much about the origin of my name, nor have any personal attachment or connection to it. I couldn’t find anything that consistently related back to the meaning of my name.
Annotating:
Mrs.Peterson reintroduces us to the somewhat familiar topic of annotating and acknowledges that most of us dislike doing it or don’t do it at all. I particularly related to this sentiment as I have always despised annotating and avoided doing it. I never properly utilized annotating correctly in a way that would make a helpful impact on my reading. Therefore, I have never found a useful purpose for annotating and tended to avoid doing it at all.
In this section, Mrs.Peterson also links us to a youtube video
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Mz4nwciWc) that explains the benefits of annotating as well as elaborating on some key strategies.
Benefits of Annotating:
The most important reason for annotating is gaining a deeper understanding of the material
It keeps you awake and fully engaged
It helps you process what you are reading as you are reading it
It slows down your reading which helps increase your comprehension and retention of the material
Annotating also acts as a bookmark when you go back to the text so you can find key information quickly
Annotation Techniques:
Circle any unfamiliar words of your reading and write them down and look up their definitions
Use question marks throughout the text to indicate areas of certainty and uncertainty
Use stars to indicate any important information such as themes or symbols
Use exclamation points to indicate anything dramatic or key turning points
Circle character names when they are introduced the first time in a book
Keep a list of all the characters and their traits
Write your notes somewhere accessible such as a book, post-its, or a separate notebook
Paraphrase each chapter’s important takeaway points
Write down questions that you have about the text
Color-code your notes so you can differentiate them whether they are definitions, questions, thoughts, etc.
Words of Caution:
If you’re new to annotating, you might start off slowly and only mark things here and there
If you’re really into annotating, be careful that you don’t mark the entire text or nothing will stand out
After our class finished watching the entirety of the video, we went into further discussion of what to keep in mind while annotating and some applications of it. Mrs.Peterson talked about the concept of POV (point of view) and stated that every text we read is from a point of view. For example, if we were reading a nonfiction article about the increase of animals at animal shelters, we have to keep in mind what the author is trying to convey to the audience and the author’s attitude towards the subject of the article.
Mrs.Peterson also gave us real-life examples of how annotating would be beneficial. Whether it is tedious legal documents or mortgage papers, annotating them would give us a simplified summary so that we wouldn’t have to continuously read through them each time.
Team Discussion: Do you know why your parents chose your name? Who chose it? Were you named after a particular person? Why were you named after him or her?
We split off into our designated breakout rooms and discussed what each of us knew about our names. Most of us somewhat knew where our names came from but weren’t strongly attached to the meaning of our names.
Our entire class then reconvened back to the main zoom room and shared out what their groupmate’s name’s origin or meaning was.
E.g. Kaitlyn mentioned that one of the groupmates, Serena, got her name from her parents wanting her to be tranquil or serene
Spirit Reading
After we finished our class discussion, we went into spirit reading of Chapter 1 of The House on Mango Street. While reading, we were to annotate and pay attention to the figurative language, diction, syntax, tone, etc.
Team Work:
After reading and dissecting the text, we went back into our breakout rooms and shared our thoughts to help each other answer the questions for 15 minutes.
Some key takeaways we took from the text were:
The speaker leaves much of the text up for interpretation rather than directly telling us. This is evident in just the first few lines, “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.” This constant comparison to abstract concepts leaves much of it up to the reader to interpret.
The speaker has trouble connecting with her name because of her great-grandmother’s unfortunate incident. Her great-grandmother was once a free woman until she was forced to marry and lost much of her independence and freedom. Esperanza makes it clear that she doesn’t want to end up like her in the last line of the 4th paragraph, “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.”
Her disconnect from her name is only further exacerbated by the sheer difficulty of other people pronouncing it properly. In the 5th paragraph, she mentions that her sister has an easier name that she can use, “Nenny”, but she is always stuck with her name.
Esperanza struggles with identifying with her name because of her great-grandmother and having a foreign name in an American school. This is evident throughout the last paragraph where she wishes she could change her name and even comes up with a couple of choices: “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.”
Individual Activity:
After our 15 minutes were up, we all went back to the main zoom room to complete the last part of our lesson. We all just had to simply write about our names.
Now it’s your turn to write about your name. Using the text as a model, write a paragraph about your name. You can try to mimic Cisneros’ style and voice. Think about the following questions as you write and be sure to include use of:
What is your whole name?
What does your name mean? Share what your name actually means and define what it means to you by using figurative language.
Are you named after someone? Who are they and how do you feel about them?
What does your name remind you of?
Does your name reflect who you are?
Do you wish you had a different name/have you ever wanted to change your name?
This was my answer:
My whole name is Ying Ye Deng. If translated back into Chinese, it doesn’t mean anything and isn’t named after anyone. My name is unique to me and doesn’t remind me of anyone else. For a time, I have wanted to change my name to fit in more seeing as I am from a foreign country. I have always dreaded other people trying to pronounce my name or simply asking what my name was because it was so hard for them to pronounce as it was unfamiliar. Now I have realized that my name is a huge part of my identity and who I am.
Reflection:
Overall, today’s lesson went in depth of properly annotating the figurative language, diction, syntax, tone and conflict of “My Name” allowing us to become more insightful and comprehensive readers. We also went into the analysis of our names, something that is a huge part of us but we often don’t think about. I improved on annotating the text to analyze specifically figurative language and how it relates back to the text.
I realized the importance of annotating properly and how it can immensely help alter your comprehension and help you analyze the text in a more insightful manner. Analyzing today’s “My Name” particularly helped me improve upon this skill. I had many important takeaways from the text that otherwise would haven’t been available if I hadn’t annotated and analyzed the text.
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