Mrs. Overstreet's English Class

2nd Trimester Independent Reading Chat Room-Due Wednesday Jan. 18 by 8:00 pm.
Prompt: 

1.     What inferences are you beginning to make about the main character as you are reading your I.R. book? Explain these inferences.

2.     What clues from the text help you to make these inferences? Use specific text evidence.

Example...

I am reading the book,The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianby Sherman Alexie. The main character of the book is this kid named Junior. Junior is really struggling with who he is. First of all, he is always being picked on by others due to his brain condition that has caused him to have some physical issues. Not only was he born with fluid on the brain, but he is also poor, which causes a whole different set of problems. 

         I am starting to infer that Junior is feeling hopeless about his situation. In the passage that I read today, Junior described what it was like to be poor. Not only does he sometimes go over 18 hours without food, but he also talks about how there are worse things about being poor than being hungry. For instance, he shares a scene in which Oscar, his dog and best friend and the one living thing he can depend on becomes ill. Because his parents don’t have enough money to take Oscar to the vet, his father decides to kill Oscar in order to put him out of his misery (I’m still sad about this as I write). 

         I can infer that he is feeling hopeless because after realizing what must happen to Oscar, he says, “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” After he hears the boom of the gun, he goes on to say, “A bullet only costs about two cents and anybody can afford that.”  At this point, he is having to face the reality of being poor and he seems to see how cruel that reality can be. He says, “I wanted to run faster than the speed of sound, but nobody, no matter how much pain they are in, can run that fast.” He is looking for an escape that doesn’t seem anywhere near. 

1. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/10/21/jvm-ohio-exotic-animals-escape.cnn

2. An Ohio sheriff defended the killings of more than four dozen lions, tigers and other wild animals Wednesday after they were turned loose from a farm outside Zanesville by its suicidal owner.

3. This will help me with my essential question, (How can we stop animal abuse?), because the article talks about an exotic animal farm and the animals untimely demise at the hands of local law enforcement agents.  Local police shot and killed more than 48 rare and exotic animals instead of trying to capture and place the animals in a safe environment.