Life+of+Pi+Journal+Topics

English 12: Literary Response Journal (for novel study) // Your journal should be an informal dialogue with yourself about literature we read in this class. I will be interested in your reflections. I will be interested in the questions you ask and the observations you make. Do not worry about making profound statements in your journal. Make the literature yours. Show me that you are engaged with and moved by what we are studying. // // Below are suggested topics. For each entry, choose the topic that best fits the section you have just read. You may write about a topic more than once. //  1. Respond to the title of the piece. What ideas does it evoke? Using vivid, sensory language, describe the scene or conflict or image it conjures up. 2. What is your initial impression of the work. After reading  chapters, predict what you think will happen later in the work. What other book, movie, poem, or television show helped you to arrive at this prediction? Why? Feel free to share any questions that you might have at this point. 3. What strong images are evoked from your reading? What do you see—whether it is mentioned or not? What do you hear—mentioned or not? What do you smell—mentioned or not? Where are these images coming from? Is there something in your personal life to which you may have connected the passages you have read? Feel free to share any questions that may have been generated by this writing prompt. 4. After further reading, is the action different from your prediction in number #2? How is this like or unlike anything you have seen or read before? What makes this similar to or different from the other works? Feel free to share any questions that may have been generated by this writing prompt. 5. What do you find most disturbing in this work? Why do you find it disturbing? What does that reveal about your values? How are these values different from your classmates? Why? What does the main character find most disturbing? Share your questions. 6. When we see a glamorous travel brochure for a place that we know, we may say, “They left out the slums and beggars that were all over the city when I was last there.” At this point we pry open a gap that the text would have left papered over. The question you must entertain is this: What is //not// happening in this work? What is the text leaving “papered” over? How does this omission affect you as a reader? 7. List the emotion (anger, envy, admiration, astonishment, etc….) that the work evoked. Explain why you felt these emotions. 8. Explain why you could—or could not—identify with a particular character or situation in the work. 9. Select a minor character. Explain why he appears in the work? What’s his purpose? Explain why you could—or could not—identify with this character? 10. What is the major issue of this era with which you are dealing? How are you handling it? What is the major issue of the era in which the story takes place? How does the author address it? How is the character handling it? How would you handle that issue? 12. Locate an interesting stylistic device anywhere in the work. Identify it and explain its literal and/or figurative meaning. What is the relevance to the context? What is its direct connection to the plot, characters, theme? What about it interests you? Did it spark a reflection or a memory?