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Welcome to a new school year! Journal Topics for JUNIORS: Students, please be aware that if you do not finish responding to or interpreting the journal prompt during the first 3 - 5 minutes of class, you are then responsible to finish it for homework Each journal entry must be numbered and dated. You must also write a solid paragraph (minimum)in response to each of the journal prompts. Journals will be collected at least once a month. Since you are expected to have it with you in class, everyday and at all times, I do not anticipate a problem with collecting them. You may not cut and paste an entry into your journal notebook. All entries must be hand written. In the unfortunate event (it will cost you a couple "preparation points" for the day) that you forget your journal notebook, take out a separate piece of paper and work on the prompt. However, don't forget to rewrite what you wrote into your journal notebook for homework. Any questions, please see me. Journal #1; 9/14/10 Reflect upon your first week as a junior Hutch Tech student (be sure to record all thoughts – both positive and negative, as well as ideas, reactions, feelings, questions, etc.). Journal #2; 9/20/10 One always thinks about “the road not taken,” wondering if it would have made a bigger & better difference. What has been the biggest decision you have ever had to make for yourself? Reflecting back upon this decision, would you go back and change your decision? Why or why not? Journal #3; 9/24/10 Discuss a time when you began something new, such as a sport or a foreign language, without knowing whether you would succeed. --OR-- How would it feel to abandon one’s whole world without the possibility of return? Journal #6; 11/7/10 Should people pursue wealth? Why or why not? How important is wealth to you? What limits, if any, would you place on your own pursuit of wealth? Journal #7; 1/10/11 Free Topic Journal #8; 1/11/11 Throughout the years, our country has often been referred to as the “land of the free”. Write a detailed response in which you either agree or disagree with the statement as written, indicating why. Journal #9; 1/13/11 What do you like most about being the age you are right now? What aspects of growing older do you look forward to? What aspects of growing older are undesirable to you? Do you think youth and age should be measured by the years a person has lived or by a person’s behavior and outlook? Journal #10; 1/14/11 Bucket List – Come up with a list of eight things you wish to achieve before you die. Explain why you chose these things and why they are important. Journal #11; 2/7/11 What "masks" do you wear in your life? Are there ever times when you feel you have to act one way, but feel the exact opposite way inside? Explain your answer being sure to use details to support your claims. Literary Elements and Techniques (including figures of speech) 1. Plot – the sequence of actions and events in a literary work. Generally, plots are built around a conflict – a problem or struggle between two or more opposing forces. Plots usually progress through stages: exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action. The exposition provides important background information and introduces the setting, characters, and conflict. During the rising action, the conflict becomes more intense and suspense builds as the main characters struggle to resolve their problem. The climax is the turning point in the plot when the outcome of the conflict becomes clear, usually resulting in a change in the characters or a solution to the conflict. After the climax, the falling action occurs and shows the effects of the climax. As the falling action begins, the suspense is over but the results of the decision or action that caused the climax are not yet fully worked out. The resolution, which often blends with the falling action, reveals the final outcome of events and ties up loose ends. 2. Theme – the central idea or ideas the writer intends to share with the reader. The idea may be a lesson about life or about people and their actions. Most themes are not obvious and must be inferred by the reader. At times, different readers discover different themes in the same work. Example: One theme of “The Masque of Red Death” could be stated, “No one, not even the wealthiest person, has the power to escape death.” 3. Setting – refers to the time and place in which the action occurs. A story can be set in an imaginary place, such as an enchanted castle, or a real place, such as New York City or Tombstone, Arizona. The time can be the past, the present, or the future. 4. Characterization – refers to the techniques a writer uses to develop characters. There are four basic methods of characterization: - A character’s physical description - The character’s own actions, words, thoughts, and feelings - The actions, words, thoughts, and feelings of other characters provide another means of developing a character - The narrator’s own direct comments also serve to develop a character 5. Conflict – a struggle between opposing forces that is the basis of a story’s plot. An external conflict pits a character against nature, society, or another character. An internal conflict is a conflict between opposing forces within a character. Example: In “Coyote and the Buffalo,” Coyote’s struggle to keep Buffalo Bill from killing him is an external conflict, whereas Coyote’s struggle to decide whether to kill and eat the buffalo cow is an internal conflict. 6. Point of View – refers to the narrative perspective from which events in a story or novel are told. In the first-person point of view, the narrator is a character in the work who tells everything in his or her own words and uses the pronouns I, me, my. In the third-person point of view, events are related by a voice outside the action, not by one of the characters. A third-person narrator uses pronouns like he, she, and they. In the third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator is an all-knowing, objective observer who stands outside the action and reports what different characters are thinking. In the third-person limited point of view, the narrator stands outside the action and focuses on one character’s thoughts, observations, and feelings. In the second-person point of view, rarely used, the narrator addresses the reader intimately as you. 7. Symbolism – a person, place, or object that has a concrete meaning in itself and also stands for something beyond itself, such as an idea or feeling. In “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” the blooming and fading rose symbolizes human mortality. 8. Simile – a figure of speech that compares two things that have something in common, using a word such as like or as. Examples: “power and liberty are like heat and moisture” and “we live meanly, like ants” 9. Personification – a figure of speech in which an object, animal, or idea is given human characteristics. Example: In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death,” death is personified as a gentleman of kindness and civility. 10. Onomatopoeia – the word onomatopoeia literally means “name-making.” It is the process of creating or using words that imitate sounds. The buzz of the bee, the honk of the car horn, the peep of the chick are all onomatopoetic, or echoic, words. Writers, particularly poets, choose words whose sounds suggest their denotative and connotative meanings: for example, whisper, kick, gargle, gnash, and clatter. 11. Alliteration – the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. Poets use alliteration to impart a musical quality to their poems, to create mood, to reinforce meaning, to emphasize particular words, and to unify lines or stanzas. Example: Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Raven” 12. Rhyme – is the similarity of sound between two words. Words rhyme when the sounds of their accented vowels, and all succeeding sounds, are identical, as in tether and together. For true rhyme, the consonants that precede the vowels must be different. Rhyme that occurs within a single line, as in the following example, is called internal rhyme. Example: Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; - Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Raven” When rhyme comes at the end of a line of poetry, it is called end rhyme. The pattern of end rhyme in a poem is called the rhyme scheme and is charted by assigning a letter, beginning with the letter a, to each line. Lines that rhyme are given the same letter. 13. Flashback – a scene that interrupts the action of a narrative to describe events that took place at an earlier time. It provides background helpful in understanding a character’s present situation. Example: William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” opens with Miss Emily’s funeral, followed by a flashback that recounts how, when she was alive, Colonel Sartoris exempted her from paying taxes. 14. Foreshadowing – a writer’s use of hints or clues to indicate events that will occur in a story. Foreshadowing creates suspense and at the same time prepares the reader for what is to come. 15. Climax – In a plot structure, the climax, or turning point, is the moment when the reader’s interest and emotional intensity reach a peak. The climax usually occurs toward the end of a story and often results in a change in the characters or a solution to the conflict. 16. Denouement – the final unraveling or outcome of the plot in drama or fiction during which the complications of the plot are resolved, any mysteries are solved, and any secrets are explained. Example: In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the denouement explains what becomes of Tom’s ill-gained wealth after his death. 17. Stereotyping – an over-simplified image of a person, group, or institution. Sweeping generalizations about “all Southerners” or “every used-car dealer” are stereotypes. Simplified or stock characters in literature are often called stereotypes. Such characters do not usually demonstrate the complexities of real people. 18. Protagonist – the main character or hero in a narrative or drama, usually the one with whom the audience identifies. 19. Antagonist – usually the principal character in opposition to the protagonist, or hero of a narrative or drama. The antagonist can also be a force of nature. 20. Metaphor – A figure of speech that compares two things that have something in common. Unlike similes, metaphors do not use the word like or as, but make comparisons directly. Example: Our country is a parent. 21. Denotation – the literal meaning of a word. Example: Kitten is defined as a “young cat.” 22. Rhyme Scheme - The pattern of end rhyme in a poem is called the rhyme scheme and is charted by assigning a letter, beginning with the letter a, to each line. Lines that rhyme are given the same letter. 23. Tone – a writer’s attitude toward his or her subject. A writer can communicate tone through diction, choice of details, and direct statements of his or her position. Unlike mood, which refers to the emotional response of the reader to a work, tone reflects the feelings of the writer. To identify the tone of a work of literature, you might find it helpful to read the work aloud, as if giving a dramatic reading before an audience. The emotions that you convey in an oral reading should give you hints as to the tone of the work. 24. Mood – the feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader. The writer’s use of connotation, imagery, figurative language, sound and rhythm, and descriptive details all contribute to the mood. These elements help create a creepy, threatening mood in the following passage: The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks,…It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud;… - Washington Irving, - From “The Devil and Tom Walker” 25. Imagery – the descriptive words and phrases that a writer uses to re-create sensory experiences are called imagery. By appealing to the five senses, imagery helps a reader imagine exactly what the characters and experiences being described are like. In the following passage, the imagery lets the reader experience the miserliness of the main character and his wife: They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney…A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field, where a thin carpet of moss…tantalized and balked his hunger. - Washington Irving, from “The Devil and Tom Walker” The term synesthesia refers to imagery that appeals to one sense when another is being stimulated; for example, description of sounds in terms of colors, as in this passage: Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. - Zora Neale Hurston, from “How it feels to Be Colored Me” 26. Assonance – the repetition of vowel sounds within words. Both poets and prose writers use assonance to impart a musical quality to their works, to create mood, to reinforce meaning, to emphasize particular words, and to unify lines, stanzas, or passages. For example, Along the window-sill, the lipstick stubs Glittered in their steel shells. - Rita Dove, from “Adolescence – III” 27. Allegory – a work of literature in which people, objects, and events stand for abstract qualities. In an allegory, a bird might represent freedom, for example, or a child might represent innocence. 28. Irony – refers to a contrast between appearance and actuality. Situational irony is a contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually does happen, as in the poem “Richard Cory,” when a gentleman who is admired and envied commits suicide. Dramatic irony occurs when readers know more about a situation or a character in a story than the characters do. In Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” for example, readers find out that Mr. Shiftlet is a scoundrel before the other characters do. Verbal irony occurs when someone states one thing and means another, as in the title of Stephen Crane’s poem “Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War Is Kind.” 29. Connotation – the emotional response evoked by a word, in contrast to its denotation, which is its literal meaning. Kitten, for example, is defined as a “young cat.” However, the word also suggests, or connotes, images of softness, warmth, and playfulness. 30. Rhythm – refers to the pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Some poems follow a regular pattern, or meter, of accented and unaccented syllables. Poets use rhythm to bring out the musical quality of language, to emphasize ideas, to create mood, and to reinforce subject matter. 31. Hyperbole – a figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or humorous effect. The expression “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” is a hyperbole. For example, In Americo Paredes’s “The Legend of Gregorio Cortez,” the narrator, describing Cortez’s abilities as a gunman, says, “He could put five bullets into a piece of board and not make but one hole, and quicker than you could draw a good deep breath.” 32. Oxymoron – a special kind of paradox, which brings together two contradictory terms, as in the phrases “wise fool” and “feather of lead.” 33. Stream of Consciousness – a technique that was developed by modernist writers to present the flow of a character’s seemingly unconnected thoughts, responses, and sensations. The term was coined by American psychologist William James to characterize the unbroken flow of thought that occurs in the waking mind. For example, In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot uses this technique to reveal the jumble of thoughts that flow through Prufrock’s mind. 34. Paradox – a statement that seems to contradict itself but may nevertheless suggest an important truth. For example, • In Walden, Henry David Thoreau writes the paradox “I am not as wise as the day I was born.” The statement suggests that civilization erases a child’s innate wisdom and spiritual awareness. • Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement, “Good men must not obey the laws too well.” A special kind of paradox is the oxymoron. 35. Allusion – an indirect reference to a person, place, event, or literary work with which the author believes the reader will be familiar. For example, In “Speech in the Virginia Convention,” Patrick Henry warns colonists not to be “betrayed with a kiss” – an allusion to the Apostle Judas, who betrayed Jesus by kissing him. 36. Satire – a literary technique in which foolish ideas or customs are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society. Satire may be gently witty, mildly abrasive, or bitterly critical. Short stories, poems, novels, essays, and plays all may be vehicles for satire. For example, In the excerpt from The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Twain satirizes the gullibility of the people in his hometown who are easily duped by impostors, like the mesmerizer and himself. 37. Euphemism - The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration. 38. Pun - A play on words that have similar sounds but different meanings. Shakespeare and other writers use puns extensively, for serious and comic purposes; in Romeo and Juliet (III.i.101), the dying Mercutio puns, "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man." Puns have serious literary uses, but since the eighteenth century, puns have been used almost purely for humorous effect. For example, A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds. 39. Persona – The speaker of a poem, like the narrator of a story, is the voice that talks to the reader. In some poems, the speaker can be identified with the poet, as in the case of “Tia Chucha,” Luis J. Rodriguez’s tribute to his aunt. In other poems, the poet invents a fictional character, or a persona, to play the role of the speaker. Persona is a Latin word meaning “actor’s mask.” In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror,” the persona is an inanimate object capable of speech and thought. 40. Style – the distinctive way in which a work of literature is written. Style refers not so much to what is said but how it is said. Word choice, sentence length, tone, imagery, and use of dialogue all contribute to a writer’s style. A group of writers might exemplify common stylistic characteristics; for example, the Puritans who wrote in the plain style – a simple direct way of expressing ideas – or the Imagists whose poems are marked by comprehension and rich sensory images. E.E. Cummings’s style is decidedly unconventional, breaking rules of capitalization, punctuation, diction, and syntax. **NOTE: If you have any questions or difficulties with any of the assigned work, I am always available. You can: e-mail me (gfalcone@buffaloschools.org), visit me in room 304 between 7:30 am - 7:55 am, during periods 2 and 7, or by appointment. See you in class, Mr. Falcone "You were born to succeed, but to be successful, you must plan to succeed, prepare to succeed, and expect to succeed." This page was last updated on: February 7, 2011, at 2:32 pm.