My active reading is going pretty good. I’m good at highlighting my favorite lines or the most important lines in each chapter as well as writing any notes in the margin that I would need to use in the future. The thing I struggle with most is coming up with valuable questions for our class discussions. I feel as if I need to become more creative with my questions to bring to the class.
In my view, The House on Mango Street has many strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths being the amount of personality in each chapter. I enjoy going through the sad, happy, funny, and intense moments with the narrator. One weakness I found in the book was the authors grammar. It might not even be a weakness, it makes the book raw and original. I think it’s just weird reading a book with grammatical errors. The 2nd book, A Long Way Gone there was also many strengths and weaknesses. Personally, a strength would be the description Beah uses to explain what’s happening. Whenever I’m reading this book, I can imagine what’s happening, in my mind and it really intrigues me to read more. One weakness would be the lack of explanation of how the narrator is feelings through all of this. I wish he would go more into depth about his emotions.
The theme of numbness and shock arises in chapter 5. This chapter begins with the boys basically living in starvation, silence and fear. “We were so hungry that it hurt to drink water and we felt cramps in our gut... We become irritable and sat apart from each other, as if sitting together made us hungrier.” Towards the end of the chapter they still continued to live in more fear and shock due to the fact that they were almost killed.
I enjoy highlighting my favorite sentences too, it really helps you engage into the book more.
ReplyDeleteI also feel like I do not come up with valuable questions to ask during discussion. I also agree on the grammar flaws in The House On Mango Street. It is really weird reading all of them and trying to interpret who is exactly talking.
ReplyDeleteAbout your sentence you choice from chapter 5, I actually had that underlined because it also stood out to me as well. Totally agree with the theme you choice. I was on the same direction to with the theme of shock and fear but I like how you used the word numbness, it describes it perfectly.
ReplyDeleteSame, I feel like I struggle with questions at the end of each chapter as well.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with the favorite lines I am. Huge fan of picking out my favorite quotes it helps me get more engaged in the text.
ReplyDeleteHi Abby! I honestly have trouble coming up with valuable questions. I don't know if my questions are good enough and that they will not help when were having class discussions. I enjoy highlighting in the book especially for interesting and important passages that I can find easily and look back to.
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