Blogger #9, Justin Chen, Period 2, 2/26/21, Day A

Aim: How can the use of annotations aid in analyzing the figurative language, tone, and conflict in “My Name,” by Sandra Cisneros? 

 

Do Now: (class discussion) What does your name mean? If you don’t know, look it up.  Do you feel any connection to this meaning?

In class today, we analyzed the text “My Name” and we were asked what our names meant. My name, a derivative of Justinus a Latin name, which means ‘just,’ ‘fair,’ ‘righteous,’ etc. Some people thought that they connected to the meaning of their name, while others did not. One example is Andy’s name, he felt connected to the meaning of his name in greek, which meant warrior-like. Someone that did not feel connected to their name was Fiona since her origin of the name was Scottish and she did not feel connected.

 

Annotation techniques: 

    Ms.Peterson showed us a video on how to annotate text after we completed the do now. The video talks about ways of how to annotating and not make it boring. It starts by talking about what annotating is, which is to take notes. The reason why annotating is so helpful since it makes sure that the reader isn’t dozing off when reading, and when annotating, it helps the reader take in more information than when just reading regularly. Then the video starts to talk about ways of annotating, like highlighting text, writing in the margin, etc. When the video was over, Ms.Peterson told us about one of her ways of annotating, which was chunking texts. Chunking texts is when you read a specific amount of text, summarize it, then repeat. Another technique that she told us about was looking for common themes. This helps since when you are asked about what theme was in the text, you would already have the necessary notes to tell about the common theme. Another technique was the point of view, which was mentioned briefly since the class went over that last class.

 

Team Discussion:

    The class was split into break-out rooms, where the people in the group would talk about how they got their names. In my group with Vanessa, Julia, and Mikita, we all said pretty much the same thing, that where we got the name was because our parents thought they were nice names. When the break-out rooms ended, the class came back together and we talked about how we got our names. I learned that Hao’s name meant good in Chinese. Ms.Peterson said that her name, Jessica, came from when the name Jennifer was really popular but her mother didn’t want to name her daughter Jennifer like everyone else. They liked the J sound so they settled with Jessica.

 

Reading and Annotating: “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros

    When we finished the discussion, we were told to read and annotate “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros. We were also told to look out for figurative language, basically annotating anything that was figurative. Some other things we were told to look out for were diction, tone, and syntax. We learned about this last class but figurative language is the use of language but not in a literal way, this means things like similes and metaphors would be figurative language. There was spirit reading, which is when one person reads a part of the text, then someone continues until the test is finished. When we finished reading, we had to answer two questions, 

1. How does Esperanza describe her name using figurative language? Refer to your annotations and cite some examples from the text. 
2. What is Esperanza revealing to us about her feelings about herself, her life, and her dreams for the future through the discussion of her name? 

a.                    How does she establish a conflict of identity? 

which we could answer with our group members. For the first question, I answered that people thought that her name was weird, especially during school. Then I gave an example of when Esperanza (the character in the story) uses figurative language which was in the school and people thought her name was weird. For the second question, I answered that she doesn’t want to be left with a that was passed down from her great grandmother since she thinks that she will go down the same path as her, sitting next to a window. 

 

Individual Activity:

Once we were finished, we had an individual activity that we had to complete: 

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? 

I wrote that my full name, then what it meant (derivative from Latin name), and I wrote that my parents came up with the name on the spot, and also my name didn't really reflect who I was. I also said I  wouldn't change my name.

 

Reflection: 

    I learned that there were different techniques for annotation and it’s not always just highlighting things. Even though I don’t like annotating, I learned that some techniques like chunking texts help you retain more information about the text. I think that these annotating techniques will help me achieve better notes and annotations. In “My Name,” I learned that one name could give or change someone’s picture of themselves and in the story, I also learned how important a name is. When I read this, I also found some examples of figurative language which were pretty good.