Welcome to the English class blog. The purpose of this blog is to give students the opportunity to blog about short stories, novels, poems and other material done in class.
Some of the assigments require that you blog about a specific question regarding the reading, but you can blog on any particular topic whenever you like.
On our first week, we will discuss the novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnet.
Two of the elements of the novel that we will focus on in the blog are : Characterization and Conflict.
Characterization helps the reader understand the character and his motives better.There are six ways to achieve characterization:
1. by the things the character says : "You daughter of a pig! " Mary tells Martha .
With these words, we can tell that Mary is rude and spoiled.
from The Secret Graden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2. by the things that other character say about the main character:
" If Papa was here,them ole white men wouldn't be messing with our trees."
from "Song of the Trees"
3. by describing how the character looks and dresses
" Yollie's mother, Mrs. Moreno, was a large woman who wore a muumuu and
butterfly-shaped glasses."
from "Mother and Daughter" by Gary Soto
4. by letting you listen to the character's thoughts and feelings
"Roger watched, horrified, as Miss Orville's figure proceeded among the aisles
inspecting notebook."
from " Miss Awful " by Arthur Cavanaugh
5. by showing you what the character does
" The female triceratops smelled something. Her sense of sight was very poor, so
she turned to face what was causing the strange odor.Wisps of smoke sailed
through the trees."
from " The Last Dinosaur " by Jim Murphy
6. by telling you directly what the character's personality is like ( cruel, kind,sneaky,
brave and so no )
" He was brown like us, a plump kid with shiny black hair combed straight back,
neat, cool and faintly obnoxious."
from " Barrio Boy" by Ernesto Galarza
