Memoir Unit

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Memoir Unit

• The Glass Castle
• Week One

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AGENDA

• Formative Analysis Reflection
• Make foldables
• Choice Reading

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From the desk of Zach

• Rex Walls explained to his children that the
  shimmering heat waves, which radiated from the
  tops of flames, as the boundary between
  turbulence and order. The Walls family greatly
  reflects this line between chaos and control.
• This border is portrayed as the Walls reside in
  Welch. Jeannettes mother protestingly agrees to
  apply for a teaching position. The occupation
  accrues a steady income for the household, yet no
  stability. Jeannette epitomizes the situation,
  So even though she had a steady job, we were
  pretty much living like we were before (Walls
  198).
• The boundary between turbulence and order is
  exemplified though the Walls house on 93 Little
  Hobart Street. With the failed attempt of
  Jeannettes to improve its appearance, the house
  became two-toned. It consisted of, Instead of a
  freshly painted yellow house, or even a dingy
  gray one, we now had a weird-looking half
  finished patch job.. (158).

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Zach

• The dual-colored dwelling symbolized this
  boundary with the fresh paint representing order
  and with the dingy gray displaying tumultion.
  However, neither color dominated and both were
  ever present.
• The final manifestation of the Walls life
  habitually residing in the gray area between
  turbulence and order is the idea of The Glass
  Castle. This essential ideology of the family is
  based upon order and array as it would be a
  habitable, permanent residence. Their current
  lifestyle is mostly chaos, but the castle is so
  deeply rooted in their psyche that it drives them
  not to completely fall into the fire. Jeannette
  and Brian even begin to dig the foundation, We
  found a shovel and a pick axe and spent just
  about every free minute digging (155).

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From the desk of Patricia

• The speedometer needle crept past 100, the last
  number on the dial, and pushed into the empty
  space beyond. This quote from page 119 of
  Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle is a
  stomach-dropping excerpt from the everyday life
  of the Walls family. Rex Walls, Jeannettes dad,
  tells his children one day when they set a shed
  on fire to look at the shimmering place between
  the fire and the sky, where colors blur and
  molecules separate excitedly, and tells them that
  this is the zone known in physics as the boundary
  between turbulence and order- which draws a
  strong connection to the life they lead.
• Later, when he challenges their old car to go as
  fast as it can, for a second or two they cross
  that boundary. The zone in physics is also known
  as a place that no rules apply, and when the
  speedometer climbs past 100 and into the empty
  space beyond it seems that anything could
  happen, since nothing is written after that
  number. Who knows whether the car will continue
  to speed up, or explode, or go Back to the
  Future? Turbulence is in its element for Rex
  Walls and his family.

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Patricia

• Order, however, also demands a turn. If one were
  to read on, one would find that white steam that
  smelled like iron started pouring out from the
  sides of the hoodwith a terrible coughing,
  clunking noise, the car began to slow (119). As
  the family nears some kind of metaphorical
  impossibility, the car breaks down (which makes
  the laws of physics and the laws of the universe
  in charge of the family again).
• The Walls family is never completely in
  turbulence nor in order. When either one goes on
  for too long, they are catapulted by their own
  inner nature into each other.

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• Title, author, year
• Concise claim
• Support and quotes
• Set the scene
• Quote to qualify
• Loop for logic

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Rhetorical Vocab.

• Interruption (2)
• Omission (2)
• Repetition (6)
• Comparison (6)
• Balance (8)
• Word Play (9)

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AGENDA

• SAP
• GRAPESSS Analysis
• David Sedaris
• Video Clip
• Me Talk Pretty One Day excerpt

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SAP

• Speaker
• Audience
• Purpose

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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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G.R.A.P.E.S.S.S. analysis

• G- Genre
• R- Rhetoric
• A- Audience
• P- Purpose
• E- Effect (tone)
• S- Speaker
• S- Subject
• S- Situation

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Meet David Sedaris

• The rock star of writing
• Writers Digest
• Me Talk Pretty Excerpt

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AGENDA

• Group discussion on Current Events GRAPESSS
  analysis
• SSR and conferring

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Current Events

• USA Today
• CNN
• MSNBC
• Fox News
• NBC News
• Breakingnews.com
• Digg.com

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GRAPESSS

• Genre
• Rhetoric
• Audience
• Purpose
• Effect (tone)
• Speaker
• Subject
• Situation

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Homework

• Find a Current Events Article
• Print, Read, and Annotate
• GRAPESSS Analysis on page 8-9 in notebook for a
  formative assessment
• Ready to share tomorrow

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AGENDA

• SSR and conferring
• Tone
• Discuss Current Events article

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AP 30 Book Challenge

• Keep track in notebook
• Conferring provides evidence
• Award at end of the year!
• THANK YOU MRS. STEELMAN!!

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Tone

• What is tone?
• How is it established in a piece?
• Written and visual
• Why is it important?

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Tone

• That was the thing about the hospital. You never
  had to worry about running out of stuff like food
  or ice or even chewing gum. I would have been
  happy staying in that hospital forever (Walls
  12).

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Tone in The Glass Castle

• All we had to do was find gold, Dad said, and we
  were on the verge of that. Once he finished the
  Prospector and we struck it rich, hed start work
  on our Glass Castle (Walls 25).

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Tone in The Glass Castle

• After a while, it got cold and uncomfortable in
  the back of the dark U-Haul. The engine made the
  floor vibrate, and wed all go tumbling whenever
  we hit a bump. Several hours passed. By then we
  were all dying to pee and wondering if Dad was
  going to pull over for a rest stop. Suddenly,
  with a bang, we hit a huge pothole and the back
  doors on the U-Haul flew open. The wind shrieked
  through the compartment (Walls 49).

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Current Events

• Group discussion
• Share
• GRAPESSS analysis
• Thoughts on article

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AGENDA

• Formative Analysis 3
• Choice Reading

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Focus Question 4

• Look at the last sentence in The Glass Castle
• A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the
  candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the
  border between turbulence and order (288).
• How is the tone of this last sentence consistent
  with the ending of the story?

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Writing Plan

1. Explain the tone of the passage from the book
   (remember the details!)
2. Analyze the word choice in the quote that makes
   up the tone and qualify your claim
3. Explain what happened at the end of the memoir
4. Explain how the two are consistent with each
   other (tone and ending)