Page 127

"He began to shuffle idiotically and talk to himself and then he broke and just ran.  He put out his legs as far as they would go and down and then far out again and down and back and dout and down and back,  God! God! He dropped a book, broke pace, almost turned, changed his mind, plunged on, yelling in concrete emptiness, the beetle scuttling after its running food, two hundred, one hundred feet away, ninety, eighty, twenty, Montag gasping, flailing his hands, legs up down out, up down out, closer, closer, hooting, calling, his eyes burnt white now as hid head jerked about to confront the flashing glare, now the beetle was swallowed in its own light, now it was nothing but a torch hurtling upon him; all sound, all blare.  Now- almost on top of him! He stumbled and fell. I'm done! It's over!"

My favorite thing about this passage is the way the author propels the scene forward and forward and then it suddenly stops.  Like we talked about in class, this author effectively uses sentence length variety.  In the middle of the passage, you can see the repetition he uses to create this mass sentence building all the tension.  Then he starts to decrease the length of the sentences and ends with "I'm done! It's over!"  The author frequently uses repetition and parallel sentence structure to propel his writing forward.  By using this technique, the author has the reader experiencing the scene like the character is; second by second. When I read this, my brain tends to skip over some of it, probably because it's waiting for the main event the repetition is leading up to.  I think some use of repetition is good, but overusing it isn't as effective.  I think one reason the author used frequent repetition was to show how insane and frantic this character was. 

Page 93

"He was eating a light supper at nine in the evening when the front door cried out in the hall and Mildred ran from the parlor like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius.  Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their hands.  Montag stopped eating.  They were like a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes, he saw their Cheshire Cat smiles burning through the walls of the house, and now they were screaming at each other above the din."

The figurative language I thought was effective was the use of imagery and similes.  These vivid descriptions like "vanished into the volcano's mouth" create tension in the reader's head while reading.  I love when the author compares the women to a "monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes."  I believe this almost confuses the reader.  But then in the next line it says, "their Cheshire Cat smiles burning through the walls of the house."  I absolutely LOVE this line.  For me, "Cheshire Cat" made it clear these women were like the Cheshire Cat in the sense that they are sneaky and don't reveal their true identity.  By analyzing the figurative language, I can conclude the author sees these women as mischievous and evil; like burning machines.

Blog Post #4 (THIRD QUARTER OF NOVEL)

1.  Always title your blog post with the PAGE # (this will help others avoid reading spoilers).

2.  You will have 4 blogs- each blog will be about a quarter of the book- this second blog should be from the THIRD QUARTER of the book.

3.  Blogs will have 2 parts- Part 1:  passage from the book  Part 2:  analysis of the passage.

4.  Don't forget to comment/interact with your peer's posts!

5.  You CANNOT choose the same passage as someone else- the first one to post claims it!

For your third blog, I'm giving you FREE REIGN.  You may post about ANYTHING.  Just make sure you pull a passage and then comment/analyze/question that passage.  Happy Spring Break!

--
Ms. Melin

https://sites.google.com/site/mselmer114/

Blog Post #3

1.  Always title your blog post with the PAGE # (this will help others avoid reading spoilers).

2.  You will have 4 blogs- each blog will be about a quarter of the book- this second blog should be from the SECOND QUARTER of the book.

3.  Blogs will have 2 parts- Part 1:  passage from the book  Part 2:  analysis of the passage.

4.  Don't forget to comment/interact with your peer's posts!

5.  You CANNOT choose the same passage as someone else- the first one to post claims it!

For your second blog, I would like you to analyze the author's use of figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification).  Some writers are extremely figurative  .  As you read the second quarter of your novel look for the BEST example of figurative language the author uses.  

In part one, write out the example of figurative language (include the surrounding text so that we can have the context of your example).  If your author uses NO figurative language in their writing- instead find a passage where the author could have used figurative language   Include the passage where the figurative language COULD have been.

In part two, explain why the figurative language was so effective.  Think about the feelings it creates in the reader, the picture it shows, or the idea it represents.  You also want to think about the figurative language IN CONTEXT.  How does the figurative language work within the scope of the story?  IF your author has no figurative language, explain how you would have incorporated it into the text OR talk about why his style works literally instead of figuratively.

--
Ms. Melin

https://sites.google.com/site/mselmer114/

Page #43

He tried to count how many times she swallowed and he thought of the visit form the two zinc-oxide-faced men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths and the Electronic-Eyed Snake winding down into the layer upon layer of night and stone and stagnant spring water and he wanted to call out to her, how many have you taken tonight! the capsules! how many will you take later and not know? and so on, every hour! or maybe not tonight, tomorrow night! And me not sleeping tonight or tomorrow night or any night for a long while, now that this has started. And he thought of her lying on the bed with the two technicians standing straight over her, not bent with concern, but only standing straight, arms folded. And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.

I think this captures the authors descriptiveness because he describes the feeling of apathy. He is able to accurately show what it's like for someone to feel so empty, to live a life like everyone around you is inanimate. My favorite part about this paragraph is the last sentence. This was the woman Montag was supposed to be in love with, but he didn't even know  her enough to be able to cry at her death. This paragraph shows that all he ever wanted was to have something real, he wanted to care and he wanted to love, but he couldn't because something was holding him back. It's mainly the way he describes it, it's simple, and complicated, and hard to explain, but it gets the point across and it does it beautifully. It might have something to do with the way Bradbury puts it on the paper. I've noticed that he has a lot of really long sentences, there are pauses in between, but his thoughts are never really 'finished', it almost tires the reader out and shoots them into oblivion to think about what they've just read. It works really effectively.

Page 37

"Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his upturned face.  A book lit, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, wavering light, a page hung open and it was like a snowy feather, the words delicately painted thereon.  In all the rush and fervor, Montag had only an instant to read a line, but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if it stamped there with fiery steel.  "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine."  He dropped the book.  Immediately, another fell into his arms."

One of the reasons I love this passage is because of the comparison between the book and the white pigeon.  I've noticed that Bradbury compares opposites to engage and almost surprise the reader.  When you think of fire, you don't think of a pure, white pigeon.  Using these type of comparisons makes the reader think a little bit more.  You have to uncover the "top layer" of the words, and discover the meaning hidden between the lines.  I also find Bradbury's word choice very thought out.  Not one word is just "there on the page."  It has a specific reason and purpose.  For example, the sentence, "...but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if it stamped there with fiery steel," demonstrates this technique.  The words "blazed" and "fiery steel" are used to create the vivid image in the reader's head.  It builds the intensity of the moment.  I think that's a good way to describe Bradbury's style.  He produces some of these unfamiliar words, and comparisons, and vivid descriptions to build constant intensity.

Page #45

    A great thunderstorm of sound gushed from the walls. Music bombarded him at such an immense volume that his bomes were almost shaken from their tendons; he felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes wobbly in his head. He was a victim of concussion. When it was all over he felt like a man who had been thrown from a cliff, whirled in a centrifuge, and spat out over a waterfall that fell and fell into emptiness and emptiness and never-quite-touched-bottom-never-quite-no not quite-touched-bottom...and you fell so fast you didn't touch the sides either...never...quite...touched...anything. 

    The thunder faded. The music died.


I like this passage from the book because it uses so much description I can see what's happening. the author does this a lot and I think it's his style because almost every passage I read is description. If they wanted to make a movie just tell someone read the book, you can already see what is going on. He has some vocabulary in here that I had to look up because I wasn't sure what it meant, but It helps explain better what's going on. Also the way he described the aftershock of the concussion was amazing. I've never had a concussion but if I did I hope it isn't how he seemed to explain it because it sounds awful. But I find it cool that he went off into explaining the whole concussion and then drew all his ideas back together but bringing in the thunder storm again. 

Page #50

The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.
Montag slid down the brass pole. He went out to look at the city and the clouds had cleared away completely, and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the Hound. It was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself.
"Hello," whispered Montag, fascinated as always with the dead beast, the living beast.
At night when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned loose. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat, cat, or chicken caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then tossed in the incinerator. A new game began.

I like this passage because it has very descriptive language like it does throughout the whole piece but I like the way he describes and incorporates the hound making it seem very dark and scary and big. Still knowing that Montag is just very afraid of the Mechanical Hound. He uses complicated vocabulary that just seems to fit into every sentence and doesn't feel to overdone. He connects his ideas very fluently with appropriate transitions. He also uses repetition to emphasize specific words. The passage is covered with metaphors and similes that all relate and sound good instead of a random simile that doesn't even make sense. An example is like "and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the Hound. It was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself". In this he relates lighting a cigarette and bending down to the hound to a great bee coming home from some field where the honey is full of poison. He actually really makes you think about that and what that would look like in your head. He does this consistently throughout the whole story as far as I've read it.

Blog Post #2 (First Quarter of Novel)

Blog Quick Facts:

1.  Always title your blog post with the PAGE # (this will help others avoid reading spoilers).

2.  You will have 4 blogs- each blog will be about a quarter of the book- this first blog should be from the FIRST QUARTER.

3.  Blogs will have 2 parts- Part 1:  passage from the book  Part 2:  analysis of the passage.

4.  Don't forget to comment/interact with your peer's posts!

5.  You CANNOT choose the same passage as someone else- the first one to post claims it!

For your first blog, find a passage that capture the author's STYLE of writing.  If your author is descriptive with beautiful language, find a passage from the first quarter that shows that!  For your analysis, explain the author's style using examples from the passage.  (The passage and analysis should each be at least 1 paragraph- your whole blog post should be at least 2 paragraphs).

Hello everyone that is in this blog/group! My name is Mitchell Seeram and I picked Fahrenheit 451 as the book club book because I have heard that it was very good and also a summer reading book for high school. I am in 2nd period of Ms. Elmer's class.

You guys probably don't know me so here is some information about me. I am very athletic and love sports. Mainly Basketball, where i'm on an AAU team called "Team Hot Shots Elite". Basketball is mainly my whole life and I work hard to be at where I am. My mom is a science teacher at this school and she really wants me to get good grades and I get basketball taken away so that's why i'm working hard to keep my grades up. I also play trumpet in the band at millennium.
Since the book is only about 190 pages I think its only going to take us two weeks to read it. So we should read about 20 pages a night for 5 days a week and of course you can read ahead.

Hey, bloggers! I'm Giselle and I'm in Ms. Elmer's 4th period class. From the people I see on the blog already, I know both of you.  If someone adds on that doesn't know me, here's a little bit about me.  I enjoy writing songs, playing percussion and piano, singing...in general: music. And I also play volleyball and throw discus in track.  I'm willing to admit I'm a big talker, and this is the first time I've blogged, so it should be interesting!  One of my favorite books is called Deep and Dark and Dangerous.  I really like mysteries, and kind of "dark" books like murder investigations and things of that sort.  I'm not a big fantasy or science fiction reader, but I'm open to new things.

I did see Sara's post before this, so I saw what she thought we should do for planning out our time.  Though it is a rather short book, it has some complex reading and takes a little time to get the story going.  I do think we should finish it before the 4 weeks, but we should take a little more time to go through and analyze the story, especially some "tough" spots.  I think over these next couple of weeks, we all can pitch some ideas about what book to possibly read next (like Sara did), and hopefully agree on one! I wanted to read Lord of the Flies, but I don't know how long that would take.  It's a shorter book like Fahrenheit 451, but it is complex reading as well.  But as this blog gets started, we'll be able to talk with each other more and hopefully come to a unanimous decision.

Talk to you guys soon! I think this will be a good book, I've heard a lot of good things about it.

Happy Blogging

Hello people of this blog, my name is Sara. It's nice to be sharing a book reading with you. I hope you enjoy conversing with me over this course of reading. I'm not sure how many people will actually be on this blog, I'm in 2nd period by the way. Something you might not know about me? I spend a lot of time on the computer. I'm a huge procrastinator, too much for my own good. I like to read though, and I won't forget to read(Probably). My favorite book/book series is the Edge Chronicles. These are the books that I remember reading and loving the most. They're really cool, and weird, kind of fantasy-type books. The author has such creative ideas and it's a really cool series to read. I highly recommend it. Seriously read it when you're done with Fahrenheit 451.

This book is kind of small, I suggest we finish reading it very early. I'm not sure what books you like, but I suggest Clockwork Angel, I'm not sure what it's really about, but something in it interested me. (And Emily says it's a good book) It would probably be easy to finish this book either this week or next week. Happy blogging.

First Blog Posts (Introductions)

Today you will begin your digital discussions with your peers.  Blogging is EASY.  It really is just like posting and commenting on any other social media website.  The first thing I must do is go over again my expectations on any digital forum.  First, I can see EVERYTHING you post.  Please be responsible and respectful with your posts.  You should not have ANY text slang.  This is not a place for LOL or OMG but rather for meaningful discussion on your novel.  

That being said, I would like your first post to be more of an introduction.  In your first paragraph, introduce yourself, tell your group members something you don't think they'd know about you.  Finally, explain your all time FAVORITE book and why you enjoyed it so much.  

In your second paragraph, pitch out a suggested timeline.  Remember our goal is to finish these books 4 weeks from yesterday.  As a group, figure out how much reading is reasonable.  If your group decides they need more time, I'll take that into consideration.  If your group finishes early, you can always choose another book as a group (I have some great book sets left to pick from).  If someone in your group has already pitched a timeline that you think will work you can just agree with them!  

Finally (this may end up as homework for some of you) engage with your group mates.  I'm not requiring 1 or 2 or 3 comments but respond to their posts.  Maybe they have a similar interest or like a book that you liked.  To make these book blogs work, you must not only post, but discuss!  This will get easier once you get into the novels themselves!

Happy Blogging!