Monday, 8/25

Agenda
1. Spelling Pre-Test #2
-->vocab exercise 1
2. "The Veldt": literary response essay

HW: 1-vocab exercise 2
2-work on "The Veldt" essay (due Wednesday)

Today we went over Lesson 2 in our vocabulary book after taking the pre-test. Then we learned how to take our six quotes from our dialectal entry response to "The Veldt" (the weekend homework) and use them to write a literary response essay.
The first step is to sub-categorize our quotes into THREE different sets. For instance, how can you divide the quotes by two? Are two of them about the parents? Two about the house they live in? Two about the children's strange behavior?
Then we create an outline based on our quotes to determine how to organize our essay.

THESIS: suspenseful story
- parents have morbid thoughts
- strange clues that foreshadow
- children behave unnaturally

REASON 1: parents have morbid thoughts about their children and the Veldt
- not enough to do?
- worried about the effect of the veldt/death
- call in a psychologist

REASON 2: strange clues that foreshadow
- chewed up wallet with saliva
- Lydia's bloody scarf found
- familiar screams?

REASON 3: children behave unnaturally
- threaten parents
- care more about the veldt/nursery/house than about parents
- drink tea at end after gruesome event

CONCLUSION: story held my attention, full of suspense
- confused first whether it was just all in the parents' heads or whether true
- clues were mysterious, especially bit about familiar screams
- children add element of weirdness by their creepy behavior towards parents

We will have time in class tomorrow to work on our actual essay.