1.
Analyze the items in slide 29 in one of your books according to the
instruction in the latest video.
The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman.
● Visualise mentally what is described in words.
-The fog was thinner as you approached the top of the hill. The half-moon shone, not
as bright as day, not by any means, but enough to see the graveyard, enough for that.
You could see the abandoned funeral chapel, iron doors padlocked, ivy on the sides of
the spire, a small tree growing out of the guttering at roof level. You could see stones
and tombs and vaults and memorial plaques. You could see the occasional dash or
scuttle of a rabbit or a vole or a weasel as it slipped out of the undergrowth and
across the path.
-The gates were locked. They were always locked at four in the afternoon in winter, at
eight at night in summer. Spike-topped iron railings ran around part of the cemetery,
a high brick wall around the rest of it. The bars of the gates were closely spaced: they
would have stopped a grown man from getting through, even stopped a ten-year-old
child…
-He pulled his large, golden teddy bear into the corner of the crib, then, holding the
railing in his tiny hands, he put his foot onto the bear’s lap, the other foot up on the
bear’s head, and he pulled himself up into a standing position, and then he half-
climbed, half-toppled over the railing and out of the crib.
As seen in the examples above, most part of the book is written that way, it is
very descriptive, it gives many details about the characters, events, places, etc.
so while reading it is easy to portray mentally what is happening in the story.
● Respond emotionally to the text.
This story presents a particular situation which many people could feel
emotionally involved with. What will be the fate of a little kid, whose parents
and brother are murdered, and then he is kind of adopted by a new family, a
family of ghosts?. This situation could generate certain feelings in the reader,
such as sadness or maybe memories, since certain parts of the story refer to
murders and orphans; situations commonly seen in real life, some readers may
feel highly identified and any human being would be empathized with.
● Understand the characters’ motives.
At the very beginning of the story, no reason is shown of why the Man Jack
murders the family, however, this aspect may arouse in the reader the intrigue
of knowing, and the need of understanding later, throughout the reading, why
the assassin makes that decision; it is a doubt that is clarified as the reader goes
through the reading. On the other hand, they can be understood clearly the
reasons why Mr. and Mrs. Owens, in spite of being dead, of being ghosts,
decided to look after the kid; first, they had never had a child, when they were
alive, and second, the lad needed to be saved, he had none but them to help him
to survive.
● Make critical and moral judgements.
Does the reason why the murderer killed that family justifies that act? Did the
mother of the kid do right when asking ghosts to take care of her child, and was
it right that dead people, ghosts, adopted an alive kid? Questions like these may
emerge while reading the book, leading the reader to think critically and
morally about the different situations occurring in the story.
● Detect the relationship between the authors and the text.
At first thought, it may be believed that the author could have experienced that
situation –losing his parents when being a child– or that he just witnessed
someone else to have gone through that. But in contrast, having read a little bit
about his life, the author got inspired from a good experience he had at his
house with his son, who liked riding his tricycle near a backyard and a
graveyard. From this he got the idea of a child living and being surrounded by
dead people. He said he wanted to emphasize not in the sense of “death” present
in the graveyard, but in the sense of “life” in a place where no signs of it could
be seen.
2. Find and explain a minimum of 3 puns from the book you are reading
according to the instruction in the video.
The wonderful wizard of Oz.
● ‘‘I did not have the heart to tell you’’: This was said by Tin
Woodman, who was a kind of robot completely made of metal and
bolts, the author is trying to make fun of it since robots do not have
an actual heart.
● King Krewl: This is one of the characters and the pronunciation of
his name is pretty similar to the word cruel; an aspect that he is
characterized for until a certain part of the story.
● Sir Prayse Bocks: Another character from the book. As it is
evident, the pronunciation is almost the same as a surprise box
which perfectly fits on the character since he is an inventor.
Camilo Betancurt
Juan Pablo Rodríguez
Kevin Cadena
Stiven Reyes