Periods 3,4 Friday, September 18, 2015

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

Reminder: Short writing piece due Monday on SMOKE SIGNALS compared/contrasted to one of the textbook selections we read so far this trimester.

Today:

We'll be working in the Media Center at the computers (Blue Lab):

 

Read the short story “The Shawl” by Louis Eldrich that can be found online at http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/03/05/the-shawl-2

The story is approximately 4 word-processed pages long.

1. Read the first two half of the story (approximately ½); then answer the first set of questions (word process your answers so that you will be able to print and turn in):

1. Having read the first paragraph, what kind of mother is Aanakwad? What kind of 
wife is she? How can you tell?

2. What kind of sibling and daughter is the oldest sister? How can you tell?

3. Who does she take with her?

4. Who does she leave behind?

5. What object does the older sister have with her?

6. The father is sick, how do you know this? Do you think that it would have been 
expressed better through this description or through direct telling? What effect 
does the expression have on you as a reader?

7. There is foreshadowing in the first part of this story. What is foreshadowed? Something 
good or bad? How can you tell? 


Now read the remaining part of the story silently; then answer the following questions:

A.    What are the black shadows?

B.    Do you think the narrator blames them or mankind? Why?

C.    What happened to the sister?

D.   What alerts the little boy that something has happened to his sister? (The answer here is the shawl, which is important to point out since it is a central object in the story)

E.    What does the father fear that Aanakwad did to the oldest sister?

F.    How is this crime similar to that committed against the little boy?

G.   At the end of page 3 the narrator turns to first person. Who do you think is 
speaking? Why do you think there is a change in narration? What does this do for 
the story?

H.   What is ishkobe waboo? How do you know?

I.      How is this new narrator similar to the oldest sister from the previous story?

J.     What does the narrator think of the father? What kind of parent is this father?

K.   What does the narrator decide to do about his father?

L.    Why is the shawl important to this new story? What happens to it? What was its 
primary focus in the story? (Here, might want to focus on how the shawl carries more meaning than a piece of clothing. Also, may want to talk on the fact that it ties in two separate stories together.)