Blogger #13, Sally Liu, Period 1, 3/8/2021, Day A

 Aim: How does a writer create effects through the connotations of words and images?

Do Now: WHOLE CLASS DISCUSSION

Describe an event in your life that at first seemed like fun, yet after the incident concluded you were ashamed or disappointed with yourself.  Why do you believe you felt that way?

For the Do-Now, the teacher wanted us to share out moments in our life when we did something that may have seemed fun at first but then regretted it later on. This was an important question because it relates to Lizabeth in the Marigold story as she becomes conflicted about making trouble for Miss Lottie with the other children in their town. It helps us to understand that everyone experiences this in their life at some point and time.

Some responses include:

Julianna:  “When I was in third grade I decided to put a hula-hoop around my angle and like skip with it. It was fun at first  but then I fall and now I have a scar on my elbow.”

Joel: “I went to this party with classmates from elementary school for school graduation. I decided that I would sacrifice wearing some really short shoes for the entire party because it was outfit-appropriate. It seems fun at first to go to the party and then when I came home I took off the shoe and my ankles were as big as a fist and I regretted that because it ended up being a really, really bad injury.”

Eleanor: “I thought that eating raw sugar out of a can would kinda taste good as a five-year-old. It tasted disgusting”

“Marigolds” Kahoot Link

Then, we played Kahoot on Marigold to assess our understanding of the Marigold Short Story and to see whether everyone in the class did their HW as they were instructed to. The link to the Kahoot is shown above.

TEAM COLLABORATION

 

Afterward, we went into our breakout room groups and were instructed to complete the following 6 questions by collaboratively discussing the answers with our group members through the annotation of the Marigold Short Story that we did for the previous cycle’s HW. We were able to answer all of the questions by applying our understanding of the narrator’s voice, the use of imagery, and the connotations of words. My group managed to come up with in-depth answers that describe Lizabeth in the short story accurately. Here are some examples: 

1. In Paragraph 22, why are the marigolds so important to Miss Lottie, and why do the children hate them?

1. What stands out about the imagery in paragraphs 22 and 27?

In Paragraph 22, the marigolds are so important to Miss Lottie because she wants to be able to dedicate all her love and compassion that she has left to caring and nourishing those marigolds. In this way, she is able to have control over something and wouldn’t feel as bad during the hard times in the Great Depression. Marigold has represented life to Miss Lottie in their dusty and sad town. The children hated the marigold because they feel that they are not deserving of the marigold since they are so used to the ugliness of the town. They also couldn’t accept and make sense of the contrast of Miss Lottie’s place and the whole town’s image with the beautiful marigolds. Paragraph 27: “I said before that we children were not consciously aware of how thick were the bars of our cage.” This demonstrates how the narrator is describing them be like stuck in a cage due to their difficult situation. Paragraph 22: “Beyond the dusty brown yard, in front of the sorry gray house, rose suddenly and shockingly a dazzling strip of bright blossoms, clumped together in enormous mounds, warm and passionate and sun-golden.” This shows the juxtaposition between the beautiful marigold to the ugliness of the town and Miss Lottie’s place.

2. Describe the internal conflict occurring for the narrator, Lizabeth. Find “textual evidence” to support your statement.

She had an internal conflict when she overheard her parent’s argument in the room next door. She was really bewildered by the fact that the roles of the family have changed and wasn’t able to comprehend what was happening. In addition, she was feeling hopeless about their situation in poverty during the Great Depression. Lastly, she was conflicted over how was neither a child nor a woman but at the same time being both. In addition, her internal conflict is the loss of innocence and the beginning of womanhood. Paragraph 42: “My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. Everything was suddenly out of tune, like a broken accordion.”

3. Lizabeth overhears her parents’ conversation. How does it make her feel? What is the consequence of her hearing this conversation?

When Lizabeth overhears her parent’s conversion, she was really bewildered by the fact that the roles of the family have changed and wasn’t able to comprehend what was happening. She wasn’t aware that her father, a man, would cry in desperation for their difficult situation. She is made more aware of her family’s financial situation and that things are not as joyful as it seems. She had conflicting feelings and wanted to go out because she felt scared and lonely.

4. What can you infer from the text as to Lizabeth’s reasons for her final act of destruction?

I could infer that Lizabeth’s reasons for her final act of destruction was due to the conflicting feelings within her that she needed to do something to relieve her feelings. She was confused, sad, and lonely about their family situation due to poverty, his father’s cry of desperation that triggered her unstable emotions, her bewilderment of how she couldn’t be either child or woman but at the same time being both. She was fearful of all of the negative things that were happening during the Great Depression.

Paragraphs 57 &  60 are especially rich in Juxtaposition.

Juxtaposition:  is when two or more things are placed side by side often to emphasize the differences between those things. 

In our class discussion, the teacher gave an excellent example of juxtaposition by describing the day of 9/11. This really helped to demonstrate the large contrast between two things when they are placed next to one another.

The example is shown below:

“It was a beautiful pictorial day. It was like perfect weather outside. A beautiful sunny sky with white puffy clouds. The sky was a perfect color of blue. The day seems like it couldn’t have gotten any better. And, wham the first plane hit. Wham the second plane hits. And we have no idea what is happening. Everything is scrambling and by the time both towers fall we have seen and heard people jumping out of the building. Death is all over the place. You have plumes of smoke all over. So picture this. All of this death and destruction and smoke right from the site juxtaposed to this beautiful bright blue sunny sky day.”

5. Examine the diction and imagery and show your understanding of juxtaposition by identifying two images or words set up for comparison.

In paragraph 57 and 60, innocence during childhood vs compassion during adulthood and womanhood is being compared. Paragraph 57: “I leaped furiously into the mounds of marigolds and pulled madly, trampling and pulling and destroying the perfect yellow blooms.” In paragraph 57, Lizabeth is described to be throwing a fit from all her negative feelings that she had been holding inside herself. This showed her child’s side and how she still holds onto the innocence that caused her to well up and clashed out. In paragraph 60, she showed maturity when she has seen that Miss Lottie was only a broken woman. She is shown to show compassion that was only in adulthood.

6. Consider the last sentence of the story...

“And I too have planted marigolds.”

...and make inferences about whether the narrator is speaking literally, figuratively, or both.

I think that the narrator is speaking both literally and figuratively because I think that the narrator wanted to plant marigolds to reminisce the memories of the past and also to plant these memories of those marigolds in her mind forever to cherish this moment of her youth in which she finally became a woman and the happiness and joy of the marigolds that represented the positive things in life.

After we regrouped, we had a class discussion in which different teams answered the 6 questions that we were instructed to complete to try to earn points for their teams.

After our class discussion, we were instructed to complete the individual activity that was located at the end of the lesson. We needed to identify and describe the narrator’s voice that was present in the Marigold short story.

 

INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY

Brainstorm here! Try to describe the narrator’s voice. 

• Think of ways to explain how the writer’s diction and imagery create this voice. 

• You might also mention other literary elements, such as juxtaposition, that contribute to the narrator’s voice or point of view.

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The narrator’s use of imagery describes the juxtaposition of the beautiful and dazzling marigold to the ugliness and bleakness of the town. The narrator’s voice suggested that beautiful things could also exist in hard and terrible times. The narrator conveys that through her experience of throwing a fit in releasing all her emotion on the marigold which allows her to find the compassion that she had for Miss Lottie and that she was only trying to find joyful things in life. She understands how she needs to accept things as they are and to find the happiness out of life as Miss Lottie had done.

 Reflection

In this lesson, I learned to apply my understanding of the narrator’s voice, the use of imagery, and the connotations of words to make an accurate analysis of the text. Through the use of annotation of the Marigold short story for the last cycle’s HW, I was able to comprehend the text and find certain parts of the text quickly to provide in-depth answers to the questions. I was able to improve on interpreting the text and got a better sense of the narrator’s voice. I also learned about the purpose of the application of juxtaposition in a text. A juxtaposition is very effective in creating imagery to suggest the huge contrast between two things and really helps to enhance the differences that the author of a text is trying to demonstrate. The application of imagery, diction, syntax, and the connotation of words would play a big role in creating the narrator’s voice. Knowing the narrator’s voice would help to make me as a reader to better comprehend and interpret the text for the deeper meaning. This would allow me to look for the effect of the author’s word choices and their connotation as well as the imagery that the author creates. By using the same method for our analysis of the Marigold short story, we can use this for other texts to gain a better understanding of what the author is trying to convey to the readers.