Today’s Plan

1. Today’s Plan Class Work: • Collect any remaining outlines • NEW SEATS! • Connotation, Denotation and Imagery • Pass out books and begin reading A House on Mango Street • Discuss unit plan and reading homework Homework: • Read through the chapter entitled “Those Who Don’t” • Complete worksheet with summaries and analysis • Be prepared for a reading quiz

2. Quick Write Defining ourselves: • What is the thing that defines you the most? Your name? Your house? Your neighborhood? Your school? Other’s view of you? Your religious beliefs? • Tell me what it is and WHY it is the thing that defines you most.

3. Denotation • Dictionary definition of a word – what it ACTUALLY MEANS • I drank my coffee. • Drank: to take a liquid into the mouth and swallow it. • Coffee:Any of various tropical African shrubs or trees of the genus Coffea, especially C. arabica, widely cultivated in the tropics for their seeds that are dried, roasted, and ground to prepare a stimulating aromatic drink.

4. Connotation • Added cultural meaning of a word – the other stuff that makes it more or less intense than another word • Often the adjectives, adverbs, or verbs used in sentences have the STRONGEST CONNOTATION • She cried. • She wept. • She sobbed. • I drank my coffee. • I quickly slurped at my lukewarmmorningcoffee, grimacing at the chalkyflavor of the powderedcreamer I added.

5. Let’s Practice • Using these sentences, tell me what words stand out as having STRONG ADDED meaning (CONNOTATION) and which ones really just stand for one simple concept (DENOTATION) • “Chores – even the word registers a feeling for the task at hand: ‘I’ve gotta go home and do chores.’ Never singular, always plural, a job that interrupts some fun you’re having, then grows and grows like polyps in an intestine. One syllable quickly spat out or yelled up creaky stairs, the word chores describes a job so unsavory that to spend the energy using two syllables means you’d probably never get around to doing it”

6. Imagery • Words with strong connotation frequently have greater imagery than those with less sophisticated language. • IMAGERY is the use of sensory description (taste, touch, smell, sound, sight) to encourage the reader to feel the same way the author does. • For instance, which sentences has stronger imagery? • I drank my coffee. • I quickly slurped at my lukewarm morning coffee, grimacing at the chalky flavor of the powdered creamer I added.

7. Let’s Practice • Using these sentences, tell me what words stand out as having STRONG ADDED meaning (CONNOTATION). • Now, let’s add in IMAGES – what appeals to the senses stand out? • “Wind rakes the branches of the trees that shelter the headstones spread across Crown Hill Cemetery. Tucked into a modest residential area on the edge of Ballard, the graveyard is one the few remaining family-owned cemeteries in Seattle. In the green-shingled cemetery office, caretaker Phillip Howell pulls a yellowing card from an old steel file cabinet. “Here she is,” he says. The card read: Doe, Jane, Grave No. 197-A.

8. Let’s Practice • Using the first chapter of the book (“The House on Mango Street”) and your worksheet, tell me what words stand out as having STRONG ADDED meaning (CONNOTATION) and what images stand out

9. I’m Excited  I love this book for lots of reasons: • Sandra Cisneros (the author) is neither MALE nor DEAD nor WHITE. I love a different perspective. • Cisneros is a poet in prose – she creates beautiful, haunting images as a young woman fights to determine her identity • It allows us to examine language and how LANGUAGE creates meaning (rather than how elements like setting and symbolism create meaning). • There are many emotions, but all of them are very real to me. I feel as I understand Esperanza (our narrator)