"A Christmas Memory"

Wednesday - Thursday
Thinking About Thinking: (Meta cognitive Thinking)
Bell Ringer:
-Reminisce about a childhood memory.  (One that you talk about frequently)
-Be ready to discuss what makes these types of tales (a person's reminiscence) interesting to others.

Thursday:
What aspects of you life do you often wonder about?  Can you control your future? 
Tuesday, 1/29/13:
What makes a memory memorable?  (Think of your memories...good or bad....or the memories of events that have occurred in our society.  Why will people always remember them?  How do they shape one's lives?
**These bell ringers will help Students will analyze the effectiveness of reminiscence in an autobiographical story

Objective: Students will iinterpret literary elements in nonfiction



I. Truman Capote:
-1924-1984
-Born in New Orleans, Louisiana
-Spent most of childhood in the care of relatives in the South. 
-One of these relatives was an elderly cousin.  Her name was Sook Faulk.  (She was the inspiration for "A Christmas Memory"
-Wrote In Cold Blood.


Reminiscence- An autobiographical account of an experience from the past.  Unlike a full-length autobiography, which usually recounts most, if not all of the writer's life.  A reminiscence focuses on an experience of particular significance.  It presents the events and the characters, as well as the special quality or meaning that keeps the memory alive and fresh in the writer's mind.

-Set in the past, the author makes the reader aware of another time and place.

2.  Read the story "A Christmas Memory"
-Copy the story on a Word document.

"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote

Questions:
1. Briefly describe Capote's cousin
2. What are some of the ways the two earn money?
3. What three tasks in preparation for Christmas  Capote and his cousin accomplish?
4. What gifts do Capote and his cousin exchange?
5. How does Capote feel about the members of the household?
6. Why do Capote and his cousin send the fruitcakes to people they hardly know?
7. What are Capote's feelings about leaving and being apart from his cousin?
8. Reread the final paragraph.  What does Capote mean by "a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven"?

9. Why does Capote use the present tense to describe events 20 years old?
10. Explain how the story is a reminiscence

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0vjTfVyZco

CC.1.2.9-10.A: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

CC.1.2.9-10.B: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject