September 2, 2011

• Good Things • Warm Up • Analyzing “Checkouts” – Active reading log (together) – Theme & Irony questions (together) – Motivation Chart (together) – Think-Tac-Toe – HOMEWORK due Tuesday September 6

Warm up

• Copy and Consider the following quote: • “

If you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice

.” • What does this quote mean? Why do people choose not to pursue what they want?

Theme and Irony: Copy and Answer these questions

1. Why is the THEME of this story? (think of missed opportunities…) 2. Explain how the following are examples of IRONY: *The boy drops the mayonnaise when he sees the girl.

*The boy and girl deliberately avoid each other when the have the chance to speak.

*The title of the story is

Checkouts.

Essential Question

• How does the setting and the character motivations influence the development of the plot?

“Checkouts” By Cynthia Rylant

Literary Terms and Concepts

Beveled Glass

Theme

• The meaning, moral, or message about life that a writer conveys to the reader.

• Example: “Helping others is one of the best ways to feel good about yourself.” • Most themes are not stated, but rather revealed through clues and character behavior.

Characterization, Motives, Traits

• Characterization – The strategies an author uses to describe a character, including what the character looks like, sounds like, and how he or she behaves.

• Motives – The moment to moment feelings, desires, and needs that make a character do something.

• Traits – The consistent, permanent qualities of a character’s personality, such as competitiveness or being nice.

Irony

• This is a situation that is opposite what is expected to happen.

Types of Irony

• • Verbal: this is when words are used in a way that have opposite meanings than what they actually mean.

Example

: They lived in a town called Summit, but it was in a land flat as a pancake.

Types of Irony

• • Situational: This is when the series of events works out to be the opposite of what you expect SHOULD happen.

Example

: You are rushing and rushing around in the morning to leave for school, but then realize at the last minute it is Saturday.

Vocabulary for

Checkouts

By Cynthia Rylant

Intuition

• “She had an intuition which told her that her parents were not safe for sharing such strong, important facts about herself.” • A feeling or sense about the future.

Lapse & Reverie

• • • “Inside the supermarket, she would lapse into a kind of reverie and wheel toward the produce.”

Lapse

means to fall behind or gradually slip.

Reverie

means to daydream.

Meditation

• “Like a Tibetan monk in solitary meditation, she calmed to a point of deep, deep happiness...” • A deep, calm happiness or pleasant feeling.

Brazen

• “..he envied the sureness of everyone around him:..the brazen bag boys who smoked in the warehouse on their breaks.” • Bold, fearless, without care or concern for consequence.

Fetishes

• “..he might learn just a little about her, check out the floor of the car for signs of hobbies or fetishes and the bumpers for clues of loyalties and beliefs.” • An intense liking of something, almost to the point of obsession.

• http://video.raelian.com/people

Deftly

• “She had loved the way his long nervous fingers moved from the conveyer belt to the bags, how deftly they had picked up her items and placed them into bags.” • To do something with a lot of skill and quickness.

Tedious

• “For the boy, the long and often tedious hours at the supermarket, which provided no challenge other than showing up the following workday.” • Long, boring, frustrating

Perverse

• “For some perverse reason she would not have been able to articulate, the girl did not bring her cart up to the boy’s checkout when her shopping was done.” • Improper or against normal expectation.

Impulse

• “She had an impulse to throw herself at their feet and beg them to let her stay.” • An overwhelming desire to do something.