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EWRT 30 Class 9

EWRT 30 Class 9

AGENDATerms 9-17

Review

Discussion: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog”

Lecture: Setting, Tone

Guided Writing: Adventure Story

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TERMS 9-17In medias resFlashbackExpositionConflictSuspense ForeshadowingRising actionClimaxFalling action

9. In medias res: Latin for "in the midst of things." We enter the story on the verge of some important moment.

10.Flashback: a device that informs us about events that happened before the opening scene of a work; often a scene relived in a character's memory.

11.Exposition: the opening portion that sets the scene, introduces the main characters, tells us what happened before the story opened, and provides any other background information that we need in order to understand and care about the events to follow.

12.A conflict is a complication that moves to a climax. Conflict is the opposition presented to the main character of a story by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some act of the main character's own personality or nature. More loosely defined for contemporary fiction, it is the problem or tension that must somehow be addressed (if not perfectly resolved) by the end of the story.

13.Suspense: the pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story.

14.Foreshadowing: indication of events to come—the introduction of specific words, images, or events into a story to suggest or anticipate later events that are central the action and its resolution.

15. Rising actionA set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play or story's plot leading up to the climax.

16. Climax: the moment of greatest tension in the story, at which the outcome is to be decided

17. Falling actionIn the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution.

TheGroup Review

“The Celebrated

Jumping Frog of

Calaveras County”

1. PLOT

2. POV

3. CHARACTER 

4. SETTING 

1.Character2.Flat

characters3.Round

characters 4.Protagonist5.Antagonist 6.Motivation7.Plot8.Chronologica

l Order

Plot

Exposition: The narrator enters the tavern in Angel’s mining camp and asks Simon Wheeler about Leonidas W. Smiley. Simon tells a yarn about Jim Smiley—a betting man.

Rising Action: Smiley gets a frog and trains it to win jumping contests. Bets with a stranger.

Climax: A stranger fills Smiley’s frog with quail shot and the frog loses

Falling Action:

Smiley finds out that the stranger cheated him so he chases after him, but the stranger is gone with his money.

Wheeler is interrupted in a unfriendly way by the narrator

Resolution: The narrator leaves, bitter that his quest was worthless.

Conflict: Smiley bets on old animals and thinks he can always win

POV

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: POV

Who is the narrator, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

First Person

Through a frame narrative, the narrator (clearly an educated person from the East) presents the story of Jim Smiley, told in Simon Wheeler’s uneducated dialect. This is the main device that Twain uses to present the contrast between East and West: educated vs. uneducated, refined vs. coarse.

The Characterization of Simon Wheeler

Simon Wheeler: Characterization

Method: Directly Describing: “I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel’s” Method: The Character’s Own Words : "And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan's worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him, he was a different dog; his underjaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces.”

Method: The Character’s Own Actions: “Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph.”

Method: Detailing Physical Appearance: “I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.”

Method: Through the Reaction of Others: “To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd.”

Setting

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” SettingWhere It All Goes DownAngel’s Camp, California, mid-19th century

Angel's Camp is a gold mining community in the mid-19th century that the narrator claims to have visited to find Simon Wheeler. Like any mining town in the West, it was populated primarily by men, many of them looking for their fortune. As something of a frontier town, it would probably seem to be full of loud, uncouth, and uneducated people compared to the more genteel East.

Lecture SubjectMood and Tone

Basic Elements of a Story

1. PLOT - the story line; a unified, progressive pattern of

action or events in a story

2. POINT OF VIEW (POV) - the position from which the story

is told

3. CHARACTER - person portraying himself or another in a

narrative or drama

4. SETTING - the time and place of the action in a story

5.TONE - the attitude of the author toward

his subject or toward the reader

6.MOOD - the feeling or state of mind that

predominates in a story creating a certain

atmosphere

TONE

TONE is simply the author’s attitude toward the subject.

You can recognize the tone/attitude by the language/word choices the author uses. His or her language will reveal his/her positive or negative perspective or opinion about the subject.

Tone must be inferred through the use of descriptive words.

Tone Example   The girls were playing in the pond, splashing

each other and trying to catch fish with their hands. They were having fun, but kept looking over their shoulders at the looming forest. The long grass of the field kept moving, and they sort of felt like they were being watched… About a half hour passed and still the girls kept checking the field for movements. It seemed like a pair of dark eyes was on them. They even considered going back inside, but that would mean homework time. So they continued splashing but with caution now. Their eyes hardly left the field.

The tone of this passage is ominous, suggesting a little bit of fear or foreboding. Words like "caution, dark, and looming“ lead readers to the tone.

TONE EXAMPLE

Finally, one of the girls pointed to the grass and giggled. "Meow!" A cat sat on the edge of the field and licked its paw. They did indeed have company. The girls ran over to the cat and pet his belly. They laughed and the cat sauntered back to the field.

The tone of this passage is happy/contentment as there was a successful, happy resolution to the problem.

TONE

Identifying and writing TONE is all about using descriptive vocabulary words. Without an extended writing vocabulary, it’s difficult to describe outside of “good” and“bad.”

Tone in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”

I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

Which words give the reader a clue about tone?

Tone: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras

County”

Disparaging, disbelieving

The attitude of the narrator toward the subject matter is one of disbelief that his time has been wasted in such a way. He’s annoyed that he has had to listen to such a stupid tale (about Dan'l Webster) from a man who seems to take it so seriously. His effort to reproduce Wheeler’s ungrammatical dialect feels slightly mocking.

MOOD

MOOD is the overall feeling or emotion that is created IN THE READER.

Authors “move” their readers’ moods through their choice of words and level of detail.

MOOD EXAMPLE 

During the holidays, my mother's house glittered with decorations and hummed with preparations. We ate cookies and drank cider while we helped her wrap bright packages and trim the tree. We felt warm and excited, listening to Christmas carols and even singing along sometimes. We would tease each other about our terrible voices and then sing even louder.

Mood: Content, happy. How do we know? Words like "warm, excited, glittered” are used by the author.

MOOD EXAMPLE

After New Year's, the time came to put all the decorations away and settle in for the long, cold winter. The house seemed to sigh as we boxed up its finery. The tree was dry and brittle and now waited forlornly by the side of the road to be picked up.

Mood: Dreary, depressed. How do we know? "cold, sigh, brittle, forlornly"

Mood in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”

He was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him--any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and he was, too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road.

Which words establish the mood?

MOOD WORDS

Cheerful

Relieved

Gloomy

Bleak

Uncertain

Bittersweet

Relaxed

Lazy

Hopeless

Tense

Furious

Disappointed

Dreamy, foggy

Content

Satisfied

Angry

Motivated

Inspired

Confident

Eerie

Guided WritingGuided Writing

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

An Adventure Story

One morning, you get out of bed, slide into clothes, pick up your backpack, put ____________ into it, and go down the stairs, skipping one because _________.

__________ smells good, but you have plans with your friends, so you pass kitchen. You overhear ___________ talking, but they don’t notice you go by. So you walk ____________ quietly, open the side door, and sneak into the garage.

It is pitch black inside. You run your hand up the wall, searching for the light switch, and you touch ____________, which feels ____________. You try to wipe it on your __________. Then, you find the light switch with other hand and turn it on. You look at your _______ hand and see _________. You find ________to clean it with.

Finally, you secure your mode of transportation, open the garage door, and head for __________ house.

You travel down _________street, past __________ (landmark), to (A’s) house. You ___________ to get his or her attention. He/she looks out a window and you say, “___________.” (Blank) comes downstairs and you hear him/her in garage. Then you hear a __________. When the door opens, you find out what caused the noise. The two of you take off, to go to B’s house.

You and A travel down __________ street, past (landmark) on the way to meet B. On the way, (A) calls (B), and says “meet us at the corner of (blank and blank) and bring (C) with you.”

You all four meet at the corner. You travel together down _______ Avenue/Drive/Boulevard and past (a landmark). You see somebody you want to avoid, so you ___________.

You arrive at _______ (store) on the corner of (blank and blank), and you go in and you buy _________ for your day. Finally, you get back on the road, traveling about five miles out of town, to the edge of the forest.

You pull over and sit there for a minute, discussing the benefits of entering the forest. Some people say the forest is ____________, but you don’t worry because you’re invincible.

One friend is resistant. One is enthusiastic. And one is apathetic.

Pick who is who and begin your characterization of each of your companions. (Give them qualities that make them individual. Consider looks, behavior, attitude, and speech patterns, for example)

Finally, you decide you’re all going in.

As you make your way into the forest, even though it’s now late morning, it gets ______ and _________ and _________ and _________ because _______________. The forest gets so ___________ that it is difficult to make your way. You stop at a ___________to have conversation about how far you’re going in. Describe the forest here. (include the five senses here. What do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch)

Take off again and walk for _________. All of the sudden, the forest gets deathly quiet and very _______.

You soon come into a clearing of sorts. It is still quiet. The four of you express varying emotions.

You look around, trying to assess your location. To your right, you see a cave hidden behind thick bushes. To the left, in the top of this big _____ tree, there’s a ___________tree house. Straight ahead of you, in the distance, sits a mansion/castle.

All of a sudden, you hear _________. And you say, “hey, that came from the (cave, mansion/castle, or tree house)!  

-convince your companions to enter the ____________-develop your characters-figure out what made the noise-determine your plot, conflict and climax-establish setting, mood, and tone -tell your story

Homework Post # 9: Best 250 words

of your guided writing (draft)

Read: “The Chrysanthemums”

Study Terms