Writing

2. Writing • We all have been very angry at someone. At times, we may have been so angry  that  we  said  “I  could  just  kill  you!”   • In the above passage we have named the universal part of the theme or text. Introductions also set up the context of the theme itself, mainly by explaining it with more words and in a more general way: • We all have been very angry at someone. At times, we may have been so angry  that  we  said: •  “I  could  just  kill  you!”  But while it may seem sometimes that lashing out will help you feel better, it does not. In fact, being violent hurts you almost as much as it does your victim. • Next we will do what we know we do in our introductions - name the text and the theme we will be exploring for the rest of the essay: • We all have been very angry at someone. At times, we may have been so angry  that  we  said  “I  could  just  kill  you!”  But  while  it  may  seem  sometimes  that   lashing out will help you feel better, it does not. In fact, being violent hurts you almost as much as it does your victim. In  both  “Lamb  to  the  Slaughter,”  and  “A   Telltale  Heart,”  we  see  characters  who  are,  it  seems,  driven  mad  by  their   violent acts. • Either with a partner or on your own, draft a few possibilities for your introductions and choose the best one.

3. When you have a theme in mind you read with that idea held in your mind and how the author will tackle that idea in their work. Early Memory by January Gill O'Neil I remember picking up a fistful of sand, smooth crystals, like hourglass sand and throwing it into the eyes of a boy. Johnny or Danny or Kevin—he was not important. I was five and I knew he would cry. I remember everything about it— the sandbox in the corner of the room at Cinderella Day Care; Ms. Lee, who ran over after the boy wailed for his mother, her stern look as the words No snack formed on her lips. My hands with their gritty, half-mooned fingernails I hid in the pockets of my blue and white dress. How she found them and uncurled small sandy fists. There must have been such rage in me, to give such pain to another person. This afternoon, I saw a man pull a gold chain off the neck of a woman as she crossed the street. She cried out with a sound that bleached me. I walked on, unable to help, knowing that fire in childhood clenched deep in my pockets all the way home.

4. What is this poem saying about why people lash out and what happens after? • How does this poem convey this idea in just a few lines, whereas Roald Dahl and Poe used pages to convey similar themes? • Set yourself up for transferring this work in your own by discussing  with  your club  a  theme  you have  noticed  in  a  story  you have read  already.   Then read or re-read a story using that lens.(refer to class posters for help with how to read with a lens).