Paragraph feedback

Year 10 paragraph feedback

Read the following feedback and make sure that you understand it. Ask about anything you are unsure of tomorrow.


Specify the characters you will deal with in the topic sentence.

Usually you should use present tense.

Narrative voice v character's voice - when a chapter is written in third person, you need to distinguish between the character's voice which we see in dialogue when he or she speaks and the narrative voice which might still give us the character's perspective.

Majorly is not a word - it is slang. Substitute another word such as strongly

Do not use & - write the word “and”

Do not write numbers eg 8, write the word “eight”. This does not apply to page numbers which are written as numerals.

Punctuation

 Apostrophes - Geraldine's relationship

                       The reader's experience

                       Readers see Geraldine's ..

Commas - mark off the introduction to a sentence -

 By hearing Amy's voice, ...

Through the use of Amy's voice, ....

Commas - mark off extra information in a sentence, including the name of a text -

 In the novel, Chain of Hearts, the reader ….

 In Chain of Hearts

 Spelling

Achieves

Receives
Opinion

Character Profiles

In groups, you are going to develop a detailed character profile of one of the major characters that we can post on the class blog.

After you have been allocated your character, you need to put together information that provides us with as much detail as possible about this individual. Use the following questions to guide you:

*How would your character describe himself/herself?

* How would other characters describe this character? Try to include as many variations as possible and indicate why there might be differences between characters.

* How would you describe the relationships that this character has with others?

* How does this character change throughout the story? How would you describe him or her?

* What key themes does this character help the reader to understand?

For each of the sections that you address, consider the various positioning techniques that Maureen McCarthy is using and also take the time to include quotations to support your claims. By combining all of these things you are practising your analysis and your synthesis.

Some positioning techniques that you could consider:

Language choices

Plot

Setting

Characterisation

Point of view

Use of first and third person

Imagery

Character list

Daniel is Fran's husband. He has died but Fran has not told us how. Fran describes him as 'the best man she ever met' so clearly their relationship was positive. She is not quite yet over Daniels death and she talks as if it has just happened so we can assume that it was recently that he died. She met Daniel at the school dance classes and she said it 'took a couple of years' for them to become a pair but from this they would still have been quite young so they would have been together a long time.

Lauren Douglas - Sophie's older sister studying medicine in her fifth undergraduate year (p86) Lauren is 4 years older than Sophie and was allowed to go to ballet lessons. Her older brother is 23 years old and also studies medicine. They are all children of Geraldine and Robert.

Fran’s Mum:

·         Molly O’Brien

·         Trish, Jimmy, Monica, Fran and Geraldine’s mum

·         A little dependent on her children

·         Stays around the house and cooks, cleans etc. just a typical country mum

·         Very sympathetic towards her children

·         Likes to please anyone

·         Calm and does not get easily angry

·         Lives in the old house in Ballingo

Mai’s Mother

Mrs Duong is plump round and small lady with a big smile and red face. She got pregnant with Mai in a refugee camp when they where on there way from Vietnam. She speaks very little English but is very welcoming.

Blue

 Jimmy's best friend, Blue, is a young soldier who is twenty-two and he fought in the Vietnam war. He became very traumatised. He fitted in like a brother to Jimmy. Special information is to be found on page 295.

Jimmy

• -   Jimmy is Fran’s older brother but younger than the older sisters
• -   He is absurdly handsome – filed out chest, dark bristle covered chin, deep blue eyes
• -    ‘Jimmy had turned into a heart-throb in a matter of months’ (pg. 29-30)
• -   Fran and Jimmy shared their childhood together
• -    Fran adores Jimmy
• -    Jimmy went to Vietnam
• -    ‘Their brother, Jimmy, at nearly fifty was still wild enough to make people nervous’ (pg. 9) 

Fran is Sophie's aunty and Geraldine's sister. She is an accomplished artist who went to art school in the city when she was younger. After her sister's fiancée falls in love with her and calls off the wedding to Geraldine, Fran and her sister have a fight which lasts many years. Geraldine comes to Fran with her troubled daughter Sophie, who ends up living with Fran for a while. She was married to Daniel, who past away, and is close with her brother Jimmy, and her best friend Amy.  

Sophie is the main character. She is a troubled teenager, where certain past experiences in her life have changed her as a person. All of the characters in the book eventually connect back to Sophie actions and thoughts. Her mother is Geraldine and her mums sister is Fran. She is sent to Frans  when her immediate family could not deal with her. Her connection with Fran becomes stronger throughout the novel and becomes very important.

Amy Johnston is Fran's best friend who was abandoned with her aunts by her mother Sylvie as a young child. Amy likes Patsy and, owns the shop that Sophie works at and is a hard worker, a trait she received from her grandfather.

Mihn is Mai’s brother. Sophie develops a crush on him and soon begins dating him. Through the reader’s eyes, Mihn is described as “very thin and quite tall, with badly cut, long, course hair.” (pg.147)

Trish was the second oldest sister of Geraldine, Fran, Monica and Jimmy and is Sophie’s aunt. This character dies of breast cancer when Sophie was 14 or 15. Sophie quotes Trisha as being “reasonably nice”. P70

Interesting Page Numbers:-       P42 –Trish Alive-       P70 –Trish Dead

Mai Duong Sophie’s friend

They are in the same maths and history class. Mai is a Asian girl cropped jet-black hair and clear, very pale ivory skin. Mai is from Vietnam she has 2 older brothers and 2 younger sisters. She is really good at drawing but she is going to become a doctor like Sophie.

Mai’s eldest brother Truc

He is I jail because he was dealing with drugs and he didn’t like school. Truc’s name wasn’t allowed to be mentioned in the house because their parents were too ashamed. And his name was call after their grandfather.

Geraldine

Geraldine is the mother of Sophie and the sister of Fran. Geraldine is a nurse who married well (Robert- Bowell surgeon). Geraldine is jealous of her sister Fran, as she looked at the photo of Fran in the paper “with this tight blank look on her face and turned away”. (Pg 2). She is obsessive, mean minded, controlling and vain. She cannot handle her daughter at the moment as she is out of control so sends her out to her sister Fran’s place for a couple of weeks to try and get the old Sophie back. 

Ruby Mary O' Brien was Fran's only aunt (her dad's only sister). She died at age seventeen, by drowning in the Ballingo river in 1924. Fran did a painting of Ruby in her red dress drowning in the river. (Pg 46-47)

Robert Douglas- Robert Douglas is Geraldine's husband. He works as a successful bowel surgeon and supplies his family (a wife, two daughters, and one son) with large amounts of money (page 1). He was supportive towards young Sophie when Geraldine refused to let her go to ballet classes (page 82-83); however, Sophie still does not like him.  

Mr O'brien

-father of six children

-married to Mrs O'brien

Doesn't support Fran very well in her wedding situation

 

 

Wednesday - homework

By next Tuesday, you need to be about half way through the book, so you should have read up to at least the start of Amy's chapter on page 168. If possible, read to the end of that chapter, page 198, for Tuesday.

Keep adding to your Reading Record, paying particular attention to the positioning techniques and to their effect on our understanding of the characters and the themes of the novel. You should also keep noting these in your novel by using post it notes.

We will have a short quiz on what has happened up to page 168 on Tuesday in class.

Mondays' lesson - Positioning techniques in Chain of Hearts

Positioning techniques in Chain of Hearts

Chain of Hearts uses many positioning techniques to convey its story and position readers to understand its characters and themes.  The most obvious of these is the use of multiple voices but a number of other positioning techniques are used in conjunction with this.

·         First person narration - chapters written using “I” and giving the writer’s point of view

·         Third person narration – chapters written using “he”, “she”. These are still written from the point of view of a particular character

·         First person / Italics - use of italics and first person to indicate a character’s thoughts within third person narration

·         Dialogues – Use of conversation to allow a character’s voice to emerge. This can be within a first person or third person section of narration

·         Letters – Use of a letter from one character to another to allow the character’s voice to emerge

 

Look out for these techniques as you read the novel and make note of their use in your Reading Record.

Friday's lesson

Based on Sophie and Fran’s thoughts about Geraldine, imagine an authentic voice for this character. Write an intervention in the narrative in which Geraldine either writes in her journal or engages in an internal monologue  (her thoughts) on the situation with Sophie. Try writing one entry before Sophie goes to Fran’s and one after she has gone.

 Rememember how effectively the author used a combination of short and long sentences in Chapter 2 and try to do the same.

Term 2 Week 1 homework Tuesday

Chain of Hearts

Read Chapters 1 and 2.

Use post it or other sticky labels to note sections for a discussion of the questions on these chapters on Thursday. See BB for these. Answer the questions below in full and post to your blog before the lesson. Continue to read as much as you can. You should aim to be up to page 93 by Monday next week.

Chapter 1 "Sophie".   Sophie describes her feelings towards her mother and her aunt. What does she tell the reader and how does she feel about each of them?

Chapter 2 "Fran". What two feelings is Fran trapped between?