Reading+Lab+Journals

//**Directions:**// Write a paragraph in response to the literature-based journal prompts provided. Unless otherwise noted, grammatically correct writing is expected. Please label each journal entry with the title, number, and date. Journals will be collected every few weeks and may not be returned for a week.

__Journal #1 "Choices" 2/12/13__ Why did you choose the fiction book(s) you did? What about the book(s) interests you? What do you anticipate will happen in the book(s) and why? Use details from the covers and the first few pages or chapters to support your hypothesis.

__Journal #2 "Setting & Mood" 2/15/13__ As you begin your fiction independent reading book, what elements of the setting are obvious? What mood is conveyed in the beginning of the work? How does the setting influence the mood? Use specific quotes from the story to prove your analysis.

__Journal #3 "Conflict" 2/21/13__ Identify at least one internal conflict [human vs. self] and two external conflicts [human vs. human, human vs. nature, human vs. fate, or human vs. society] in your story. Be sure to use details from the story to explain why these situations are conflicts.

__Journal #4 "Who Are You?" 2/28/13__ For this journal entry, identify all the ways in which the author characterizes your protagonist. The methods of characterization are 1. what the character says, 2. what the character does, 3. what the character thinks, 4. how the author describes the character, 5. what others say about the character, and 6. how others interact with the character.

__Journal #5 "5 Objects" 3/5/13__ Explain the importance of 5 objects you could use for your book talk. The objects could be items in the story, or they could be symbolic things. For example, a CD could be what Oscar uses to program teens with his own "Messages," but headphones could symbolize listening only to Oscar's music, not Candor's elevator music with subliminal messages.

__Journal #6 "Fiction vs. Nonfiction" 3/21/13__ Explain why you chose your nonfiction book(s). Now that you have started reading, how is your book living up to your expectations? Does the classification "nonfiction" cause you to look at the book differently? If so, how?

__Journal #7 "Context Clues" 3/26/13__ As you read, find 5 words you do not know. Copy down the word, the page number, and the context clues that might help you figure out what the word means. Then guess at the definition; when you have finished reading, check your definition in the dictionary.

__Journal #8 "Biased Perspective" 4/4/13__ 1. In //The Last Lecture//, Randy Pausch declares, "I won the parent lottery" (Pausch 21). This statement shows his underlying belief that he randomly received good parents. I'm not sure this is totally luck, but he should be happy to have had such a great childhood. 2. Later in that same chapter, Pausch advises, "Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let them do it. It'll be OK. Don't worry about the resale value of the house" (Pausch 30). His bias is evident. He thinks that parents are generally too strict, more worried about their house's appearance than their kids' creativity. I'd say this is true for a lot of American families.
 * What is bias? - a judgment based on a personal point of view
 * Choose two statements from the book that reveal the author's bias. Then explain the underlying points of view in those quotes and what you think of the author's bias.
 * My Example:**

__Journal #9 "Point of View" 4/9/13__ What are the possible points of view? -1st person -2nd person -3rd person limited -3rd person omniscient
 * What is the point of view of your nonfiction book, and how does that point of view contribute to its power?