9/25/19 Huda Jafri Period 5

9/25/19
Huda Jafri
Period 5
Sophomores 2020

Aim: How does Golding use descriptive language to create setting and convey meaning?

Today, our lesson began with us creating a journal entry about what our favorite room is. I wrote about my cousins living room, where I have a lot of memories from when I was younger. The class recorded their answers on padlet, and, looking at the other responses, I noticed that most of them were personal to whoever wrote it. Everyone wrote about a room that was nostalgic for them, and barely anyone wrote over 2 or 3 sentences. 

After we discussed our answers as a class, Ms. Fusaro showed us her response to the prompt. She said her favorite room was the lab. Her response was filled with description and detail, unlike ours. It allowed the reader to visualize the scenario, and it showed how much the lab meant to her. One line that specifically stood out to me was “All these ingredients do is sit and wait until I perform my magic, my chemistry.” The use of first person and the repetition of “my” makes the reader feel a personal connection to the lab, even though we’ve never even seen it. This shows the power of description in writing. 

Next, we had to revise our journal entry. We added more detail to make the reader feel like they could visualize our favorite room, like Ms Fusaro did. Compared to our previous drafts, these were much more structured and creative, and overall sounded better. 

As we were wrapping this activity up, we learned about mood. Mood is “the atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience.” In simpler terms, mood is what the reader feels. This is often confused with tone, which is what the author is saying. Mood is important in literary works because it makes the reader more emotionally attached to the book they are reading, which makes it easier to relate to the characters. 

Our final activity of the day was to read page 12 of “Lord of The Flies” and jot down words that stand out to you, and explain what the mood is. 

One phrase that stood out to me is where the water is described as “clear to the bottom and bright”. As someone in my class mentioned, this almost makes the island seem like a beautiful vacation spot, creating a positive mood. However, in other parts of the section, the mood seems very negative. This includes the part where it says the palm trees “reached perhaps twenty feet, they fell and dried.” This is a very obvious shift from the previous happy mood in the story To continue with the quote about the palm trees, it was mentioned in class that this could be foreshadowing the future of the boys on the island. Right before the bell rang, an excellent point was made by my classmate. She said that, as readers, we should be able to see the foreshadowing happening, however, the characters in the book don’t notice it because of their young age. 

What I learned today is useful because it will help me develop my skills as a writer. Anyone can write down a few sentences about what their favorite room is, but getting the reader to visualize it to the point where they personally connect with it takes skill. To continue, learning about mood can help me convey emotions better in writing pieces. By using setting, theme, diction, and tone, I can make the reader feel a certain way. Also, by identifying it, I can understand how the author wants me to feel. Hence, by learning these new techniques, I can better myself, both as a reader, and as a writer.