Rockmart High School

Honors 10th Lit. Summer Reading 2014

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Assignment Explanation:

·  Split-level journaling is a method designed to help scholars process, comprehend, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate literature.

·  Literary journals are about knowledge and thought. We respond to how the author writes to convey his/her tone and/or purpose.

Execution:

·  Start by heading your journal with necessary identification information. You should “split” your journal pages, nearly in half. Your right side should be slightly bigger than your left side. Each journal page should follow this format; pay close attention to the requirements for each entry.

·  Complete one journal entry for each chapter of the novel. Advice: Be fluent (provide multiple responses) and elaborate (provide detailed responses) in all parts of your journal. You are expected to meet all parameters set forth in the examples provided below.

·  There are 20 chapters in this novel; therefore you should have 20 journal entries. Follow the outline below and the example on the back of this handout to complete this assignment successfully.

Title and Section of Text Analyzed

1. 1 Striking diction choice of the author; these should be indicated in full lines of text and formatted according to MLA style in complete sentences.
2. 1 Striking phrase, line, quote, or passage that contains effective uses of literary elements. This need to be formatted according to MLA style in complete sentences.
3. 1 Question about the text and/or author that requires answer that lends itself to interpretation. These questions should be most interested in what the text means and/or how the author has achieved a certain meaning. / All analysis should be in complete paragraphs
a) Definition(s) of diction choice (denotations)
b) Analysis of diction choice—how or why is the word(s) effective? You should consider the following: word etymology, connotations, and/or multiple meanings
c) Analysis of how the diction choice conveys the authors tone and/or purpose. This is the most important portion.
a) Identification of literary element
b) Explanation of what the author means
c) Analysis of how or why the use of the strategy or element is effective.
d) Analysis of how the element reveals/develops/enhances the author’s theme (purpose)
a) Interpretative answers to questions in paragraph form (5 sentence minimum)
* the strongest answers will connect that analysis to theme
* the strongest answers will use the text for support

**EXAMPLE JOURNAL ENTRY**

Student Name

Honors 10th Lit.

Mr. Johnson

August 23, 2013

Text: Lord of the Flies by William Golding, pp. 139-184

Required Components / Analysis
Diction Choice: “The twins watched anxiously and Piggy sat expressionless behind the luminous wall of his myopia” (Golding 154). / Diction Choice #1: Definition (denotation): a condition in which the visual images come to a focus in front of the retina of the eye resulting especially in defective vision of distant objects; a narrow view of something. Now that Piggy has lost his one remaining spectacle, he is almost completely blind—like Golding says—behind a shielding wall keeping him from the rest of “world,” or island. Not only does myopia name his vision problems, but also his new perception of the island. He was once very open-minded, full of ideas, and seeing every option. But, as the definition says, his view has become more narrow. He does not see the island as he once did, both physically and mentally. He now has to see through the eyes and minds of others.
Passage: When Golding writes, “The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed” (Golding 139), he is comparing the boys to a creature. / Passage #1 Analysis: In this passage, Golding gives the human characteristic of having a mouth to the mob of hunters. He goes even further with this personification by having the mouth “crunch” and “scream.” By doing so, the reader pictures the mob not as boys having fun pretending, but as a creature ready to kill—which, is exactly what they have become. The entire passage contains words like “the beast” for Simon, and descriptions of the crowd staying “…on the beast, screaming, striking, biting, tearing” (139). This paragraph is like the “point of no return.” The boys have become so savage-like that they could turn on a fellow friend and kill, as if they didn’t know any better, as if they had only animal instincts, and as if they were just mindless creatures.
Question: Why is Roger’s loose tooth important? / Question #1 Answer: Roger, Jack, and the others are behaving as members of the new tribe. Jack is “…a proper chief” (154), and Roger is looking “… somberly back at the island… sitting on the very edge of the cliff” (145) in a pondering frame of mind. The whole point of this passage is to show how the boys are trying to act far older than they really are. In some ways, they have been forced into making hard decisions—decisions the grown-ups would normally make, if there were some. But, Jack has made it worse with all of the hunting and killing, and now they’re about to go hunting again. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, Golding says that Roger “… worked with his fingers at a loose tooth” (143). By throwing in the part about Roger’s loose tooth, Golding is reminding the reader that yes, these boys are only kids.