Character Trait

We reviewed the idea of juxtaposition from last day.
We read chapter 16.
Then students were given a handout on character traits and what to do when your English teacher asks you to discuss or write about a character.

We proceeded to do an example on the board where we talked about Schmuel.  Myah noted that Schmuel's cautious nature juxtaposes his bravery. 

This week we'll be working on a composition and the topic will be. . . discuss the character of Bruno from The Boy In the Striped Pajamas.

ch 14/ 15 and the word Juxtaposition

We discussed the reason that the author so subtlely implies that Kotler and Bruno's mother were having an affair.  The answer is that since the novel is from Bruno's naive point of view, it makes sense that that relationship is not clearly stated.  Bruno himself does not know what is going on between the two.

We discussed the word justaposition; it means a stark contrast between two things or ideas.  Bruno's friendship with Schmuel is justaposed with his cowardly betrayal of Schmuel in chapter 15 -- when Bruno states that he has "never spoken to [Schmuel]" and that he's "never seen him before in [his] life."

Letters handed in today!

Students handed in their Letter to Grandmother assignments today.

Today we discussed how Bruno, the protagonist, can be understood in another way. He can be understood as a symbol -- he symbolizes all the German people during World War 2.  Bruno, like most German people, does not know what is going on in concentration camps.  In fact, most German people during the war, willfully refused to believe anything bad was happening to Jewish people.

I handed back our work on transition words and then we worked on another transition work exercise.

We continued reading our novels.  We finished chapter 11, read chapter 12 and 13.

The author gave us, as readers, a pretty clear example of foreshadowing in chapter 12 (the boys could, if they choose, go under the fence).

We also chatted about the final exam: it is primarily a skills exam.  There is only PART of the final exam you can study.  You can study our notes on plot, setting, character, theme, and poetic devices. There will be no specific exam questions on the novels, stories, and poems we've read.

Oh, and the class was at first worried and then amused with Dawson: it looked like he was storming out of the class, but really he was just answering the door.

Chronology in TBITSP

Today we discussed and examine how time is portrayed by authors in novels.  Some authors like Tolkien, use time in a very straightforward manner.  In The Hobbit,
Other authors, like John Boyne, the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, make time go forward and backward.  We noted that chapter 8 and chapter 11 are flashbacks to earlier times. 

We worked on the letter assignment from last week.  The letter is due at the beginning of class tomorrow afternoon.

TBitSP - chapter 10 and Letter Assignment

Last week, in my absence, Ms. Vincent was in class and she discussed her connection with the events of W.War two -- specifically her grandfather's time in a prison camp in Holland.

You read up to the middle of chapter 10 and you worked on the Letter Assignment below (this assignment will be due this week). 
Today we began with a review of connecting words and a handout where you connected sentences to make a better paragraph.

 

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas:

Chapter 8

The following paragraph ends Chapter 8:

That day he sat down with a pen and paper and told her how unhappy he was there and how much he wished he was back home in Berlin. He told her about the house and the garden and the bench with the plaque on it and the tall fence and the wooden telegraph poles and the barbed- wire bales and the hard ground beyond them and the huts and the small buildings and the smoke stacks and the soldiers, but mostly he told her about the people living there and their striped pajamas and cloth caps, and then he told her how much he missed her and he signed off his letter 'your loving grandson, Bruno'.

Write the letter that Bruno sends to his grandmother, and do it in a way that reveals your creativity and your understanding of the novel.  Use your novel (and your chapter questions) to help furnish you with details to enhance your writing.

The first paragraph of your letter should deal with the events in Chapter 8, specifically, the details we learn about Bruno’s grandmother and grandfather.  Be sure to make reference to the different opinions they have regarding Germany and Hitler’s leadership.

After this paragraph, your remaining paragraphs can deal with the information Bruno referred to in the excerpt above, and you may go into other details to give your letter credibility and creativity.  Plan out your work before you dive in to your writing.

You may choose to adopt a voice[1] for Bruno that is less naïve than the one presented in the novel, but please remember that he is only 9.

---

[1] “Voice” is the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator --a persona. Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.