When you write about literacy

1. When you write about literacy • When people write about literacy they are not only telling you a story about their life, they are trying to understand literacy better • They are trying to understand how to become better readers themselves • By understanding their own stories they hope they could understand literacy better

2. Just like the Movies • Director’s don’t come on the movie screen and tell you what they “meant” to say • Authors don’t do that either • They let you decide what you think • You have to decide for yourself what these conclusions are when you read these texts

3. In your Readers Writers Notebooks…. What does Alexie seem to be suggesting about how reading shaped his life experiences? Explain using evidence from the text Re Read “Superman and Me”

4. What was expected • Excel sheet assignemt

5. Reflection What did you learn or think about differently by working on the paper? How did the WriteAbout help you prepare for this discussion?

6. Authors Style • Author’s style is made up of many different things • Word Choice, sentence structure, syntax, punctuation, ect • One feature of Alexie’s style is repetition • Re read the paragraph that begins “I REFUSED TO FAIL” on page 125 • Highlight or circle where he repeats phrases

7. Repetition • What effect does the repetition of “I read” have on you? • Why do you imagine Alexie chose to repeat this phrase? • How does this repetition add to the power of the text? • How can repetion be interesting and effective for a writer’s purpose?

8. Homework • Take home “Superman and Me” • Number each paragraph • Write a brief description of each paragraph • Then write why you think Alexie put that paragraph in his essay • Example: What was the information he provided in each paragraph? What is the purpose of the paragraph