Aim: How can we develop our close-reading skills through the analysis of Katharine Brush’s “The Birthday Party”?
Today’s class was very straightforward and brief while providing an abundance of important information to keep in mind.
To begin our class today, we picked up right where we left off from yesterday’s lesson. This task was to continue the Nearpod lesson which Ms.Peterson has walked us through for each and every slide. The Nearpod lesson was based around the topic of annotating and analyzing text in stories, such as paying attention to any details like keywords that tell us something important about characters or the situation in the story.
The story that we continued reading and analyzing is called “The Birthday Party” by Katharine Brush.
Context/Summary: This story revolves around this married couple who in the story is described as “unmistakably married” and it takes place during the husband’s birthday. The wife, who is described to be a very sweet person, planned a surprise for her husband’s birthday at a restaurant. The husband’s reaction to this surprise however, does not match the same energy the wife has given. With the arrival of a small glossy birthday cake, the violin and piano orchestra playing “Happy Birthday to You”, the applause of the small audience in the restaurant, and the wife beaming with pride and joy, the husband does not seem pleased. He was embarrassed and then also indignant at his wife for planning the surprise and embarrassing him. It is described that after all the attention shifted from the couple, the narrator had witnessed the husband saying something under his breath, something unkind. The story ends with the description of the wife crying quietly, heartbroken and hopeless under the brim of her best hat.
Cluster Activity
After reading and annotating the rest of the short story, we move on to what is called a Cluster Activity. For this activity we were to work with our team members to review our annotations noting for the DICTION, SYNTAX, and POINT-OF-VIEW and then come up with a response using in-text citations to explain and demonstrate how the author used diction, syntax, and point-of-view to reveal the main purpose of the story.
Important Vocabulary/Terms to note:
Diction: A speaker’s or author’s word choice, which may also refer to the general language that is used in a work of literature.
Syntax: Refers to the arrangement of words such as the ordering, grouping and placement within a sentence.
Point-Of-View: The perspective of the speaker/narrator ; their opinion or judgement
Diction Syntax
Point of View
SAMPLE RESPONSE PROVIDED:
My team and I had a discussion along the lines of how the author did a great job on the use of diction, syntax, and point of view to put more emphasis on the words relating to the character. For example, one of the lines we discussed was in the last line of the story where it states, “Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.” It was mentioned how there has been some emphasis put on “the hat” as it was previously mentioned when describing the woman in the beginning of the story. The author has described the hat to be “big” and this could have a bigger meaning to it. Further discussions covered how the author also really did a good job on descriptions where we are able to get a sense of the characters’ personalities and the differences between them. From such descriptions the readers were able to tell the husband and wife have very different personalities, with one described as “The man had a round, self-satisfied face” and the other described as “the woman was fadingly pretty, in a big hat”. It was concluded that diction, syntax, and point of view really adds more meaning into aspects of a storyline and it’s development.
Wrap-Up
To end today’s class session, Ms.Peterson introduced us to the Fahrenheit 451 Summer Reading Project, which is a Group Project Presentation.
Objective: What happened prior to the beginning of the novel and what would drive humans to make the choices that they do in the text?
The task of this project is to pretend to be an omniscient historian writing the prequel with the job of creating a book cover for the prequel.
The book cover is to illustrate “what happened prior to the beginning of the novel and what would drive humans to make the choices that they do in the text?”
The goal of the presentation is to persuade our audience, which are our classmates, that our argument is the most convincing. The book cover is to include sketches/drawings/illustrations to visually depict the argument. In this project we are free to decide which presentation style we will be using.
Additionally, it is required that one member of the group prints, completes, and submits the document with their project.
LINK TO PROJECT DOCUMENT - All instructions and requirements included
Fahrenheit 451 Book Cover - Summer Rdg Proj.docx
Reflection
A decent amount was covered in today’s English class session. I was able to further develop my annotating techniques, and skills in analyzing text. I start to realize more and more, having great reasons to add to the list of why it is necessary to annotate even though it is not something I enjoy much most of the time, something I would have to admit I’m lazy for not doing. One of the many reasons comes from the fact that it was so convenient to be able to look back at annotated text and understand it immediately without having to reread the entire text and reprocess the information. In addition to the emphasis on the importance of annotating and why it is necessary, I was able to have a refresher on noting diction, syntax, and point of view during the cluster activity which was opened for discussion. We were able to discuss and understand the great importance and difference that the little specific details made to the development of the story. I’ve come to realize that these lessons and tips are crucial in everyday life, not just for school work, it is important for us to learn it, because we can apply it to almost anything around us. It can help us be more observant of details which would help us develop the skill of easily being able to see great importance in something. These techniques discussed in the lesson can be useful for anything, even right now as I am writing and concluding this blog.
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