Literature Letters: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Revisions due by Friday, Feb. 13th

Common Mistakes Unpunctuated book titles Not including the author Make it look like a letter (Dear Mrs. _____ and a signature at the end) Not including a quote Not having an author’s name or page number with the quote Not following directions about what goes in which paragraph

Voice Paragraph Things you could have talked about: Author’s use of dialogue Author’s use of sentence structures Author’s use of figurative language Author’s use of anything unique or different (creating accents, using slang or texting lanugage) Author’s detail and description

Bad Example I really liked the author’s voice in Hatchet. It was good. There were lots of details so I felt like I was really there. Like things like blood on the knife and lots of snow. He did a really great job with description. I really enjoyed it and I want to read it again and again.

Good Example Excerpt: “ I noticed that at the beginning of the book, Jonathan Maberry didn’t use any real stand out vocabulary. As the book went on, and the main character was forced to mature and grow up, the vocabulary slowly got more and more intense. It made you feel like you were watching him grow, which was a pretty cool feeling. It made me feel present in the story, instead of being just a reader, which I think is one of the most important parts about a book.”

Another Good Example “The voice in this series was really interesting. The way the characters spoke was spot-on in relation to where they came from. Deryn was from England and spoke like a sailor, saying things like ‘aye’ and ‘barking’. Aleksandar (or Alek) was raised as a prince and spoke very proper. The author also incorporated language into the story. They visited lots of different places in the world through the three books, and Alek spoke multiple languages. It was really cool following along the different characters speaking to each other.”

Analysis There is a difference between saying: “Sarah was an interesting character. I was interested in her. She did a lot of interesting things. She really changed through the book.”

Analysis, cont’d And then saying: “Sarah was one character who really grew throughout the book. In the beginning, she was immature and didn’t like when strangers talked to her. As the book went on, Sarah seemed to think more about why she didn’t like it, and started to change her attitude and behaviors. That meant that when a stranger approaches her at the end of the book, she is able to take that opportunity when she wouldn’t have in the beginning.”

So look at your letter. . . What could you have done better? What would have been some simple changes to make it have a higher grade? (following directions, having it on-time, underlining the title) What are some more complex changes that you need to make? How will these skills help you in the future?