The Turning

1. The Turning

2. Posters for Short Stories 12 min • Draw Significant symbol or image • Two quotes • One about the sky • One that relates to theme, epiphany, etc. • Point of view? Who is telling the story? • Main character? • The turning? • Other stories characters have appeared in?

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lymOVv6SeI • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyRbs3OcIMk

4. Homework • Family • For your own benefit and for class discussion: • Write down theme statement • Dominant symbol why it is significant. • 1 quote

5. Essays • Read them blind • Use a slash / to separate the line breaks • Use literary terms whenever possible and be sure to link them to poet’s purpose. Even though you understand the poem well, you need to demonstrate understanding of craft as well. • Use formal language. • Keep this to review for spring exams • Please look over my corrections and comments and learn from them.

6. Be specific in intro • What type of diction? (formal, colloquial, slang lyrical) • What type of imagery? Nature imagery, violent imagery, sexual imagery?

7. homework • Read Long Clear View • Reunion

8. Setting • Why is it important? • Setting provides a backdrop for the action. Think about setting not just as factual information but as an essential part of a story's mood and emotional impact. Careful portrayal of setting can convey meaning through interaction with characters and plot. • Adds symbolic meaning to story

9. Western Australia

11. “Big World”: Setting Pg. 2: “Some days I can see me and Biggie out there as old codgers, anchored to the firggin place, stuck forever” • Connotation: “anchored” “friggin” “stuck” all imply negative feelings (connotations) • Emotive language (words or phrases that purposely arouse a particular emotion in the reader): the negatively connoted words suggest that the narrator perceives Angelus as a town that can offer him nothing.

12. A word on “Place” Tim Winton once said, “[t]he place comes first. If the place isn’t interesting to me then I can’t feel it. I can’t feel what the people are on about or likely to get up to.” • This resonates with the cultural importance that Australians place on land. • It also reiterates the importance of setting (orientation) in order to develop a moving story. • Also, when studying journeys (a movement from one place to another) it is important to have an understanding of the beginning and ending place’s significance.

13. More Place… “The southern sky presses down and the beaches and bays turn the colour of dirty tin…And suddenly there we are, Biggie and me…with beanies on our heads and the horizon around our ears” (1-2). Tone: the feeling that the author demonstrates toward his/her subject matter. Mood: the feeling that is aroused in the responder by the description of a particular thing, place, person or event. So, what is the tone and mood communicated? What are some key words that communicate it?

14. More Place… “The southern sky presses down and the beaches and bays turn the colour of dirty tin…And suddenly there we are, Biggie and me…with beanies on our heads and the horizon around our ears” (1-2). • Metaphor: A comparison between two things when one thing is described as another thing. The narrator is talking about their loss of opportunities, what is the metaphor that the author is painting?

15. Even more place… “The longer we drive the more the sky and the bush open up” (4) This sentence has two purposes • It most likely describes the open plains… • It is a metaphor that contrasts (juxtaposes) the sky from pages 1 & 2. How so?

16. Yet even more place… “When Perth comes into view, its dun plain shimmering with heat and distance towers ablaze with midday sun, we get all nervous and giggly, like a pair of tipsy netballers” (4). Simile: comparing two things using ‘like’ or ‘as’ What is the purpose of this simile? Tone/mood: What is the tone and mood of this sentence? What are the key words that suggest this? What is this juxtaposed against?

17. Theme of time in Aquifer • Time doesn’t click on and on at the stroke. It comes and goes in waves and folds like water; it flutters and sifts like dust, rises, billows, falls back on itself. When a wave breaks, the water is not moving. The swell has travelled great distances but only the energy is moving, not the water. Perhaps time moves through us and not us through it.”

18. “Things are never over” • How does this relate to the story? • Epiphany.

19. Life moves on, people say, but I doubt that. Moves in, more like it.’ (p 37) The weight of the past on the present is one of the central themes. • The past shapes the present…remember this! • Important to all the other books we are reading.

20. Symbol of the swamp • Write about it. Connect it to theme and his epiphany. • How does the structure of the collection support this theme?

21. Agenda • Big World • Importance of setting • Practice theme statement • The Turning: small groups answer one question plus the all questions for each group

22. The Turning • A story about abuse, faith, longing for a different life. • “Finding our way”

23. View of the faithful? • Does Winton get it right? Rae’s perspective of Sherry and Dan…is it accurate in how non-believers view some believers? • How does he break the stereotype of Dan and Sherry?

24. Character Development Techniques authors use to develop character Character+desire+action=plot -character must take action (can’t be passive) (agent of their own change) -Character must occasionally make mistakes -Must have strengths and weaknesses -external and internal conflicts Transformation or epiphany

25. Direct and Indirect Characterization • Direct characterization tells the reader about a character • indirect characterization shows a character in action and leaves the reader to infer the rest. • Dialogue • Interior thoughts

26. Questions groups • What are the main conflicts in the story? • How does Winton develop Raelene’s character? • Find examples that Foreshadow the end. • What images and symbols are significant in the description of Rae’s walk on the beach? (149) • What other symbols are significant in the story? • How is setting important to the story? • ALL: in group discuss What happens at the end? Support it with text. • All: in group discuss epiphany

27. Story: The Turning • Foreshadowing • 146: She needed a rescuer • 147: The word sacrifice gave her goosebumps, reminding her of gory midday movies. • Walk on the beach: …”walking with her hands outstretched, overcome by the apprehension that she was about to stumble into something on the smooth, empty beach • 153: (Sheery describing her turning) “It was like a hot knife…” • (this relates to the last sentence: …”Max speared into her and tore open her insides she was full of hot and certain feeling.

28. Epiphany • Greek Word epiphainein 'reveal' • Christian definition-The manifestation or appearance of a deity )Christ) • Literary meaning: revelation or insight

29. Where is her Epiphany?

30. p. 160 • She knew she was safe from him now, not safe from tonight but gone from him altogether…She was free.

31. P.155: “She thought of telling him the truth but it sounded so weak, so bloody awkward, and the bastard didn’t deserve the truth, wasn’t worth one honest piece of her.” • 156:” She had a name for him, her secret man. ….When she got her breath back and her tongue steady, she’d spit that name in his face to see him explode.”

32. Born Again? • p. 159: “Walking back she felt bruised and weary but fierce now and invulnerable. Like she climbed from some flaming wreckage an unlikely survivor. Spared.” • Besides the religious symbolism here, there is the fire motif used by Winton from other stories, as well as the idea of surviving.

33. Symbol of the snow dome • “…She liked to think of him in his little dome and her in her little aluminum box, both of them trapped. • What does it represent?

34. Practice Writing • What is the short story “The Turning” about? I’m not interested in a summary of events, but a statement about the theme and essence of the work. The theme of compassion and forgiveness in King Lear teaches us that love is more important than power. Hawthrone uses symbols of the forest and town to deepen the theme of conflict between natural law and civil law.

35. Practice intro • Discuss the ways in which Winton has sought to make his portrayal of Raelene credible.

36. Finals: E118 • Open book. • If you want to write instead of type (ask me first…depends on your handwriting) bring paper and pen. • Skip every other line.

37. Silent conversations • 6 groups of 4 or 5 • Read essential question • Read your passage and annotate: write in the margins • It can address question, but also highlight and circle important images and words that are significant • Put a ? If something is puzzling. • Write a key insight on back • Swap with another member from group • Read their comments and comment on them • Add your key insight to the back.

38. Guiding Questions • (166)Passage A (Sand): What do we learn about the brothers’ conflict when they were children? How does imagery support the conflict? • (177) Passage B (Family) How does this passage support the quote from “Reunion” fit here” “Family. It’s not a word, it’s a sentence.” • (186) Passage C (Family) How does the past affect the present and how does imagery support this theme?

39. Travel time • Two oldest members of home group travel to next group. • Travelers exchange paper with home team (those who didn’t travel). • Read new passage (don’t mark) • Return papers • Starting with one team Discuss your passage • Read guiding question • Your response and anything someone else wrote • End with key insight. • Next team does the same

40. Last discussion • How do the passages connect?

41. One insight from each group • Sand • Family

42. Sand • Story of Frank and Max as a children • What has happened to their mother? • How do Max and Frank feel about her?

43. Sand • 1. How does Winton present Max’s character? • 3rdpov, Frank’s perspective • Cruel actions • Symbolic imagery of moon • Imagery of the moon: • Red moon • A little uneasy at how suddenly the moon had appeared • Strange light of the moon • blurry • Dark plane of the sea flecked with moonlight.

44. Family • How does the past affect the present in this story? • How does the epigraph relate to the story? • Blood is thicker than water. • The water was thick as sand • “Family. It’s not a word, it’s a sentence.” (from Reunion) How is this true in the collection of stories?

45. Final • Choose one question and discuss it within the context of two stories • Print and share on google docs:cbriskin@mpls.k12.mn.us • When done, complete survey for most…student • Finish the book for Tuesday • You have until 12:50 • Get TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by VIRGINA WOOLF for week after next!

46. Agenda • Return essays, comments • Concept: Point of view • Mini- lecture • Four Groups: fill out the chart on • Long, Clear View • Reunion • Commission • Fog • WHY IS THE CHOSEN POV CRUCIAL TO EACH STORY?

47. For tomorrow (10 pts) • Fill out the chart for Boner Mcpharlin’s Moll and Defender. • Bring in two significant quotes that relate to theme or character. Write why you chose them • Even though the story seems to be about Boner, remember that it is really Jackie’s story and her epiphany. We are changed by the people we know.

48. Comments on essays • Family. It’s not a word, it’s a sentence • Double meaning. Sentence as in jail sentence. • Not being able to escape • Confined in a similar way. • Stuck with it.

49. Put quotation marks around short stories and underline or italicize names of novels. • The Turning • “Commission”

50. When you introduce characters or a list use colon: • These two stories each have a main character: Vic Land and an unnamed narrator.