Page 80 - 2022-bfw-litcomp-TE-3e.indd

pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is “Girl,” which is only 650 words long, as the story of a mother giving her daughter advice 1
1
how you grow okra — far from the house, how to make a bread pudding; this is how to and instruction about how to become a respectable woman in their community. That’s
2
because okra tree harbors red ants; when you make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; actually it — the outline of what happens in the story. But the emotional wallop, the part chapter 1
are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; that makes us feel the experience and think about it, comes from the details, language,
water or else it makes your throat itch when you this is how to make a good medicine to throw and structure that Kincaid uses to tell this brief tale. To get to the deeper layer required
are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this away a child before it even becomes a child; this by such a task, you will need to reread the story, annotating as you do so. Why bother
is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a with annotation? In How to Read a Book, scholars and avid readers Mortimer Adler and
sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone fish you don’t like, and that way something bad Charles van Doren sum it up:
you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this
someone you don’t like at all; this is how you is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely
Analyzing Short Fiction
smile to someone you like completely; this is man, and if this doesn’t work there are other conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends
how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
table for dinner; this is how you set a table for about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your
dinner with an important guest; this is how you you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.
set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make Section 2 / From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP ® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
for breakfast; this is how to behave in the ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure Annotation is probably the most important strategy and habit of mind to develop DIFFERENTIATION
TION
DIFFERENTIA
presence of men who don’t know you very well, it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel as you read closely and analytically. It is the process of noting, right on the text
and this way they won’t recognize immediately the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are itself, words that strike you, phrases that confuse or thrill you, or places where you Scaffolding
Scaffolding
the slut I have warned you against becoming; be really going to be the kind of woman who the want to talk back to the speaker, a character, or even the author. In other words, You may wish to review annotation strategies
Y
ou may wish to r
eview annotation strategies
sure to wash every day, even if it is with your baker won’t let near the bread? annotation is your running commentary as the reader. That commentary need not be with students. Ask them to discuss how they
with students. Ask them to discuss how they
own spit; don’t squat down to play 1978 full sentences about literary elements, though some of your observations might be. annotate, what has worked for them, and
annotate, what has worked for them, and
marbles — you are not a boy, you know; don’t You can also ask questions or write brief remarks about your what has not worked for them.
what has not worked for them.
®
pick people’s flowers—you might catch 2 An Antiguan dish, doukona is a starchy pudding wrapped in a emotional reactions. Try to avoid simply high lighting, though, AP TIP
something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, banana or plantain leaf and boiled like a dumpling. — Eds. because it doesn’t require you to respond in words. While Even in a timed situation,
highlighting can call attention to details of a text, it doesn’t fully annotation is useful because
engage you as a reader because it is merely a way of recognizing it focuses your reading,
engages you physically with
Preparing to Write: Annotating Short Fiction how the text is speaking to you; it doesn’t allow you to talk back to the text, and can be a form
the text about what you think of it. What you as a reader want to of planning. When
Most of the time, you’ll be given a prompt or a writing assignment that will focus your get from annotation is a deeper understanding, and one that is annotation isn’t an option,
interpretation. For instance, in this case, your teacher might assign the following more likely to stick in your memory. You can then use that sticky notes also work.
prompt: knowledge to help inform your discussions with others or plan
your writing about the text.
The following question refers to Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” published in 1978. Once you finish, your annotation might look like a jumble of ideas. Sometimes it is
In this story, a mother addresses her daughter by imparting expectations for helpful to make annotation a two-step process: annotate directly onto the text first, and DIFFERENTIATION
proper behavior. Read the story carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, then write a paragraph summing up your observations and questions. This informal
analyze how Kincaid uses literary elements and techniques to convey how writing can help you explore your thoughts and bring together the observations you Scaffolding
social values and traditions shape the complex relationship between the made during the process. Let’s practice with the first half or so of the clauses that make You may wish to remind students that they
mother and her daughter. up the story — which is a single long sentence. From your pre and initial reading, you can annotate using a 3-step approach as
already know who the author is, that the speaker is the mother, and that the setting is well. The “Says-Does-How” approach is
Before starting to analyze at a deeper level and beginning your written response, it’s the Caribbean. This context will help you start to make your observations and develop useful in helping students develop a line
helpful to put into a sentence or two just what is going on in this story. We might sum up an interpretation. of reasoning. Ask students to fold a sheet
of paper to form three columns: Column
1 will contain every aspect of the natural
world that the excerpt details. Column 2
38 39 is where they will write information about
the narrator based on these details, and
column 3 is where they will interpret and
explain what the information in the second
column reveals about the narrator. Once
02_SheaLitComp3e_28114_ch01_xl_053.indd 38 27/10/21 9:06 PM 02_SheaLitComp3e_28114_ch01_xl_053.indd 39 27/10/21 9:06 PM students have completed the graphic
organizer, have them share their work with
a partner. Then, engage the class in a
whole-group discussion of their findings.
TRM Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer for this activity can be
found in the Teacher’s Resource Materials.

®
chapter 1 / From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP Prose Fiction Analysis Essay 39

02_SheaTEL&C3e_40437_ch01_001_053.indd 39 18/02/22 1:42 PM