2. Identify and Sort

First, make sure you are done your first post. If you are not - go back to the instructions and finish it. These can be found in the blog archive.

This week, begin your post by identifying the book or books you would like to address for today's post. Use the MLA format to create a properly formatted MLA citation. You may also choose to include an image of the book cover to add further visual interest to your blog (use the 'add image' icon found on the tool bar at the top of your 'new post' page).

Today you will be identifying and sorting.

1. First, identify five main elements of your novel. Use your note "Elements of the Short Story" as a reference. (NOTE: Because this hand out is talking about good fiction - we can transfer our understanding from short fiction to longer pieces.)

2. Then, sort these elements according to importance for your engagement in your reading. Put the most important element to you at the beginning of your sorting list.

3. Once you have identified the most important element for your enjoyment,describe how this element has been used (or is lacking) in your novel. 

4. Use a direct quotation from a section of your book as evidence. Be sure to include a properly formatted MLA style citation following your direct quotation. Do not leave the quotation standing on its own - make sure that you explain its significance to the element you have selected as your top engagement feature.

MLA STYLE CITATION: (Author page)

a sample student entry of the third and fourth activity for this week is below:

Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2011. Print. 

Imagery

This element is used quite often in my book. In my previous post, I had a quote where I think Imagery was used best to describe a hollow which is a flesh-eating soulless creature. I think Imagery is the most important because it projects an vivid impression of what is being described. It helps the reader to really imagine themselves in the scene with the characters.

"A vast, lunar bog stretched away into the mist from either side of the path, just brown grass and tea-colored water as fat as I could see, featureless but for the occasional mount of piled-up stones. It ended abruptly at a forest of skeletal trees, branches spindling up like the tips of wet paintbrushes, and for a while the path became so lost beneath fallen trunks and carpets of ivy that navigating it was a matter of faith." (Riggs  78)

Even if I didn't want to imagine this bog, I couldn't help it after reading this excerpt. This is one of the less gag-inducing parts that I could have chosen. But it's true, sometimes you are happy to imagine a place of beauty and peace. But you might be forced to imagine a dreary bog, or a spine tingling creature. That's the best part about imagery, it's like real life because you can't choose what you want to see or however long that image lasts in your mind.