January 14-17

     This week we really had a chance to dive into Tuck Everlasting that was introduced last week. With a shortened class period on Monday, we reviewed "Prologue" and the purposes an author has for writing a prologue. Then we worked on illustrating a specific passage from the prologue to help us visualize different events Natalie Babbit introduces to us in the prologue as "three things [that] happened and at first there appeared to be no connection between them" (pg. 3). Visualization is a key concept throughout our discussions because it is one the many reasons why an author utilizes different literary techniques and figurative language in his/her writing. We will refer to our illustrations frequently as we uncover the apparent connection between these events. Below is a picture of the example illustrations I had a chance to hang.

      After moving on, our classes have taken a more organized approach to the novel. We start each class period with a journal question per usual and take a few moments to discuss various responses to the journal entry. Then, students are introduced to the lesson topic for the day. This week we've focused on the different literary terms personification, simile, foreshadowing, and introduced metaphor (in two class sections). We've written down the meaning of these words as well as a general example. After introducing personification, we together read Ch. 1 and 2 and our purpose for reading was to identify examples of personification within the chapters. After reading, we together identified numerous examples of personification by highlighting and labeling them as such. We ended the class by discussing the plot events that unfolded through the two chapters. Similarly, simile and foreshadowing were introduced, discussed, and identified through our reading as we continued through Chapter 4 of Tuck Everlasting. 

Next week we will review metaphors diving into a discussion on the metaphors within Tuck Everlasting. I also hope to introduce symbolism to the students as we continue reading up to Chapter 8 in the novel.