September 2, 2011

1. September 2, 2011 • Good Things • Warm Up • Analyzing “Checkouts” • Active reading log (together) • Theme & Irony questions (together) • Motivation Chart (together) • Think-Tac-Toe – HOMEWORK due Tuesday September 6

2. Warm up • Copy and Consider the following quote: • “If you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice.” • What does this quote mean? Why do people choose not to pursue what they want?

3. Theme and Irony: Copy and Answer these questions • Why is the THEME of this story? (think of missed opportunities…) • Explain how the following are examples of IRONY: *The boy drops the mayonnaise when he sees the girl. *The boy and girl deliberately avoid each other when the have the chance to speak. *The title of the story is Checkouts.

4. Essential Question • How does the setting and the character motivations influence the development of the plot?

5. “Checkouts” By Cynthia Rylant Literary Terms and Concepts

6. Beveled Glass

7. Theme • The meaning, moral, or message about life that a writer conveys to the reader. • Example: “Helping others is one of the best ways to feel good about yourself.” • Most themes are not stated, but rather revealed through clues and character behavior.

8. Characterization, Motives, Traits • Characterization • The strategies an author uses to describe a character, including what the character looks like, sounds like, and how he or she behaves. • Motives • The moment to moment feelings, desires, and needs that make a character do something. • Traits • The consistent, permanent qualities of a character’s personality, such as competitiveness or being nice.

9. Irony • This is a situation that is opposite what is expected to happen.

10. Types of Irony • Verbal: this is when words are used in a way that have opposite meanings than what they actually mean. • Example: They lived in a town called Summit, but it was in a land flat as a pancake.

11. Types of Irony • Situational: This is when the series of events works out to be the opposite of what you expect SHOULD happen. • Example: You are rushing and rushing around in the morning to leave for school, but then realize at the last minute it is Saturday.

12. Vocabulary for Checkouts By Cynthia Rylant

13. Intuition • “She had an intuition which told her that her parents were not safe for sharing such strong, important facts about herself.” • A feeling or sense about the future.

14. Lapse & Reverie • “Inside the supermarket, she would lapse into a kind of reverie and wheel toward the produce.” • Lapse means to fall behind or gradually slip. • Reverie means to daydream.

15. Meditation • “Like a Tibetan monk in solitary meditation, she calmed to a point of deep, deep happiness...” • A deep, calm happiness or pleasant feeling.

16. Brazen • “..he envied the sureness of everyone around him:..the brazen bag boys who smoked in the warehouse on their breaks.” • Bold, fearless, without care or concern for consequence.

17. Fetishes • “..he might learn just a little about her, check out the floor of the car for signs of hobbies or fetishes and the bumpers for clues of loyalties and beliefs.” • An intense liking of something, almost to the point of obsession.

18. Deftly • http://video.raelian.com/people • “She had loved the way his long nervous fingers moved from the conveyer belt to the bags, how deftly they had picked up her items and placed them into bags.” • To do something with a lot of skill and quickness.

19. Tedious • “For the boy, the long and often tedious hours at the supermarket, which provided no challenge other than showing up the following workday.” • Long, boring, frustrating

20. Perverse • “For some perverse reason she would not have been able to articulate, the girl did not bring her cart up to the boy’s checkout when her shopping was done.” • Improper or against normal expectation.

21. Impulse • “She had an impulse to throw herself at their feet and beg them to let her stay.” • An overwhelming desire to do something.