September 10, 2013

Questions:

Show how the writer uses very specific description to build the character of the mother and give us a very distinctive sense of her. Show at least THREE examples.

In order to build a character in a story, a writer has to create the character out of a clever use of language - NEWSFLASH, LOBB! 

The process of doing this is called CHARACTERIZATION

Basically this is done by:

Physical Description

Behaviour and Actions

Emotions

Interactions and Relationships

Symbolic Possibilities

POV of others or self in the story

Dialogue

“one with the darkness”

“most comfortable in extreme elements” - odd bit - she’s hardcore - she’s been through some business - weirdly badass - not unlike RIddick in the series of action movies - this stands out as strange and interesting

she’s very graceful and has a delicate hand - the way she’s touching things

never lost her balance

moves with catlike precision

This girl’s mother is literally a superhero. She IS BATMAN!

Unusual mother character in terms of a school short story - ORIGINAL - not very stereotypical

This trailer is eerily similar to the mom in this story: 

1. What does the title mean? And hey, don’t tell me it’s about jumping. Get into some symbolic or connotative meaning! Be sure to explain your answer. We like how and why as much as possible.

• the leap has a link to life and death - the two leaps referred to are 1) ending in death and 2) ending is saving a life (preventing)
• the leap of faith - a well known phrase - a cliche - in this case it’s the leap of faith the daughter takes to be saved by her mother - the leap the mother makes to trust the firefighters 
• the trust in the second husband, the first husband too - HEY! LOTS of leaps of faith
• leap - another, less obvious - changes of life - the leap from past to present and youth to age and power to powerlessness and life to death 

1. How does the point of view of the narrator affect the story?  What I mean by this is, how does the fact that we get the story from a specific person’s POV in first person colour affect meaning?

• POV is the perspective of the narrator that we read when we read the story - we’re seeing through her eyes, so every thing that we see we have to remember is based upon HER ideas, HER bias, HER beliefs, HER POV is not PERFECT 
• POV in a story is very important, as it is in life - the truth is relative!
• so, this narrator is talking about her mother - what do we need to remember? she is the daughter, she is biased to think certain things - ie mother is a superhero
• even characters in stories can bring baggage - a writer will often write “IN CHARACTER” - THE N WORD and Quentin Tarantino - he is not racist, but MANY of his characters ARE - this is using POV to make create an effect
• this is a very important thing to remember - the POV of ANYONE is made up by their thinking, and it is to be considered

1. Consider your own mother.  What kind of a person is/was she? How would you describe her? Write about an interaction that you had with your mother that you think might have had an important influence on you as a person. Consider this a creative writing exercise, so feel free to be as interesting and descriptive as you like.

Throw this paragraph on your blog. 

What? Yes. Your blog. 

How do I do that? 

You make sure you have a GMAIL address. 

You go to BLOGGER.COM and you make a little blog. 

You make sure you give it a title that HELPS ME KNOW IT’S YOURN!

Once you are done this, you could do a little work on creating that blog post where you introduce me (Mr. Lobb) to yourself and BE SURE TO SEND AN EMAIL with that blog address.  Remember to use Blogger to generate it.

If I am you, I am going to try to show Mr. Teacher what’s up with me as a person, as a learner and as an achiever. Why don’t you write down what you need out of this course - numerically, scholastically and so on. 

Write that post Who Am I? 

And then Who Is My Mother?