Theme Passages

Deliver a message to your readers in your own passage.
Step 1: Decide on a Theme
Step 2: Imagine a situation that will allow you to convey your theme.
Step 3: Think of some details that will strengthen the effect of your theme.

Ex: Suzie is trying to convey the idea that texting while driving is dangerous and wrong (step 1). She has decided to write about a pedestrian getting run over by a driver who is texting (step 2). Now think about step 3. Does it matter who gets run over? If an evil criminal gets run over, does it have the same effect as an elderly lady? A mother with a stroller? Imagine a teenager who has just opened a letter that says he’s getting a full scholarship to Harvard. Now a bright future has been snuffed out. In the story, the first person to respond on the scene of the accident will find the driver’s cell phone on the ground with half a text message on the screen (more interesting than a narrator saying the driver was texting). Does it matter what the text says? If the driver was sending an urgent text to a dying loved one while she was rushing to the hospital to see this person one last time, is the theme reinforced as effectively? Now imagine the text contains unimportant gossip. Does the reader feel more strongly that the driver shouldn’t have been texting? If the gossip contains negative information and the driver is being mean to someone, does it strengthen this feeling?
Use all aspects of your story to strengthen your theme!

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is when an author gives hints about what will happen later. Write your own passage and include an example of foreshadowing. Your classmates should be able to comment and predict what will happen later in your story. Be sure not to hint about something that will happen soon. If you’re writing chapter 1, I want a hint about chapter 12. Also, good foreshadowing is usually subtle (not obvious). Try to find a happy medium so that it’s not too obvious what’s going to happen, yet the reader can still figure it out if he/she is paying attention.

There & Back Again Unit

This is a collection of Medieval Lore and Science fiction that is connected thematically. Links to the Lit are the first post.

Characterization

Here’s an exercise on CHARACTERIZATION. Characterization is how an author REVEALS things about a character. DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION is when the author directly tells us about a character. EX: Sheriff Wayne was tough.
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION is when the author uses a more subtle way of revealing character. Here are some ways to get information about a character indirectly:
1) What the character says
2) What the character does
3) What other characters say about the character
4) How other characters react to the character
5) How the character reacts/deals with situations
6) What the character thinks

In this exercise, YOU are the AUTHOR. Make up a character and write a passage that lets the reader “get to know” your character. DIRECT characterization is not allowed in this exercise because it’s the most boring way to get info about a character. Use the 6 techniques listed above. It may be easier to show character if you put your character in extreme situations. Also, stay focused on the goal. You don’t need a PLOT. You don’t need to establish a SETTING or a BACKGROUND. Jump right into writing that REVEALS CHARACTER.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN, imagine your character and pick 3 adjectives that you think best describe who your character is as a person. Write a passage that REVEALS those traits. If you are successful, your readers will feel like they know your character. If someone reads your passage and then uses your 3 words to describe your character, then you have mastered CHARACTERIZATION.

The Raven

This poem is by Edgar Allen Poe. It has a very distinct mood. What is it? This poem is long, and it’s easy sometimes for 7th graders to tune out halfway through. What is this poem about? What happens in the poem? What is the main question the poet is wondering about? What answer does he get?

How does the poet use SENSORY DETAILS in the poem? What do you see, hear, etc. when you read this poem?

LINK to poem in the first post…

Errors with Homonyms

Find a mistake that someone made with homonyms. Copy and paste it into this post.

The Road Not Taken

This is probably Robert Frost’s most famous poem. I think the poem is popular because of the message it sends us (it’s theme). What is the theme? Do you agree with the message? What is the mood? Can you pick out any sensory details? What kind of imagery is there in the poem.

Link in the first post…

Bibliography

A bibliography entry should contain the author’s name (last, first OR last, first middle), the title of the book, the publisher, the location of the publisher, and the date of publication, in that order. There is a certain way to punctuate the entry, which is shown below. Please note that the book titles should be underlined, even though it is not shown that way in this post. The indentations are also not shown. Sorry, the text boxes on this site have some limitations. The first line of each bibliography entry should be left aligned (not indented). Every other line is indented. Some entries may be only one line. Bibliography entires should be listed in alphabetical order. Here are some examples.

Sample Entries:
(Book titles should be underlined)

Last, First Name. Title of Book. Pulisher: Location of Publisher,
date of publication.

St. John, Lauren. The White Giraffe. Scholastic Inc. New York,
2006.

ANY QUESTIONS?

ADV clauses

Adverb clauses modify verbs, just like adverbs. Let’s take a look at this.

The horse ran quickly.

“quickly” is an adverb. It tells how the horse ran. Adverbs answer questions about the verb. How did the horse run? Quickly. Adverb CLAUSES do the same thing. The only difference is that a clause is more than one word instead of just one word. Here’s an example with the same sentence:

The horse ran because we were yelling.

Notice that “quickly” has been replaced by “because we were yelling”. “because we were yelling” is an adverb clause. It modifies the verb “ran”. Why did the horse run? because we were yelling.
The adverb clause is at the end of the sentence, so we don’t need a comma. If the adverb clause comes at the beginning of the sentence, we do need a comma.

ex: Because we were yelling, the horse ran.

These sentences are easier to identify. When we recognize that the sentence begins with a subordinating adverb, or spoiler(because), we know that the adverb clause begins with the spoiler and ends at the comma.

Ingredients of a Simple Sentence

What are the ingredients of a simple sentence?