Literary Elements And Literary Techniques In The House Of The Scorpion

Miline, Ira Mark. Short Stories for Student. Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories Volume 8Virtual Reference Library. Detroit, Mich: Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2010.

This learning activity has the students looking more deeply into their chosen book using a more critical mind rather than just enjoying the book for its basic story line. It has them taking note of what is happening at each stage of the book and why these events are taking place, then taking this information they have gathered and developing a written report to convey their thoughts and ideas in the book along with developing the skills necessary to produce a piece of writing that is easy to read and understand for the reader. This activity also has a lot of hidden features to the task, such as using the correct grammar, development of sentence structure and use of creative thinking to make the piece interesting to the reader.

When taking English Composition 2 I have learned various things that I can carry through with me throughout the rest of my academic and social life. The class English Composition 2 touched on the components of character, setting, short story, drama, and poetry. With each section and a lecture on each section I have taken away a piece away from each section, one thing that is for sure I will never read literature the same after this class. When talking about character we looked into the story Gorilla My Love and how the story is told through the eyes of a young black girl named Hazel. Concluding from this section of the class I learned that if the characters were to be different characters the story would change as whole. When looking deeper into the concept of setting as a class we had the opportunity to learn how to depict where the setting is, and learn how the setting can make a difference in any type of literature. For the concept of short stories as a student I looked deeper into the story of 20/20. After, a struggle on the topic of short stories I learned the different compontes that go into and are used in making a short story. For an example, the story 20/20 uses the model Freytag’s Pyramid to tell the story line. The component of Drama happened to be my favorite component of the class. I

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.", says Martin Luther King Jr. Truer words have never been spoken, for when ignorance is bliss, there is a steep price to pay. In The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer creates a character named Matteo Alacrán, and for the first half of the book, he is ignorance personified. When Matt learns the truth about his identity, his bubble of bliss is shattered, but perhaps it was for his own good. The great poet Thomas Gray writes, "Where ignorance is bliss, / Tis' folly to be wise." Yes, ignorance is bliss, but it is just as much of a "folly" as wisdom.

In the poem “Choices” by Allen Steble and the book Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers a common theme was presented. Throughout the poem “Choices”, it was explaining that everyone was a choice in life to do what they want. In the book Scorpions, Jamal is a twelve year old boy growing up in Harlem, his brother is in jail for murder, everywhere Jamal goes he seems to get into some sort of trouble. He is bullied at school by a bigger boy, labeled by his teacher as trouble maker and his brother tells his gang that Jamal needs to be the leader of the Scorpion gang. Jamal and his best friend Tito are later found in a dangerous situation. The theme of “Choices” and Scorpions are related. A common theme between these two is making decisions.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer is a great book that everyone should read at some point in their lives, as well as the sequel. The book takes place in the future in a country called Opium. Opium lies in a strip of land between America and Aztlan, used to be Mexico. Opium is a land covered in poppy fields, for the opioid business they run, and is ruled by El Patrón.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer Fascinating and insightful, Nancy Farmer’s book The House of the Scorpion holds the power to captivate any audience with the tale of a young boy named Matteo Alacran. Being a clone, Matteo, called Matt, faces many perilous and persistent challenges that force him to change the way he thinks and acts. Affected immensely by the other characters in the story, Matt learns that not everyone gets what they deserve.

At least every person has felt different or set apart from others before sometime in their life. Yet we all know everyone is different and no two people are the same, and the society constructed by Nancy Farmer in “The House of the Scorpion” is no different- except for the anti-hero Matt. After facing reality that he was cloned from a cow, Matt finds it incredibly difficult to live a normal life. He is consistently mistreated by everyone, especially Rosa, who is supposed to care for him but treats him like an actual animal. In “The House of the Scorpion” Nancy Farmer uses italics, em dashes, and description to stir the reader’s empathy.

Writing is a practice that most of us were taught when we were young. We were taught the basics of grammar, how to form a sentence, conjunction words, how to write paragraphs and more. Although we have learned this skill while growing up and have used the skill every year after entering kindergarten, this does not mean our writing process will ensure the best work. The authors that I chose each encourage their audience to excel in the art of writing in their own way to help with the writing process.

I believe the themes between my two books, The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer and Atherton by Patrick Carman, can be compared. Both of my books have a similar theme that relates to someone having too much power and because of this it results in that person becoming corrupt and selfish. Throughout my books there is a one or more person who has too much power and causes many problems for people below them, these two people are El Patrón and Lord Phineus. Some problems caused are water shortage throughout both books, a whole world ruled by drug lords, poor villages, separated families and devastating wars. However the themes may be related there are still some differences in El Patrón and Lord Phineus’ usage of power because the circumstances

In the story, The House of the Scorpion, written by Nancy Farmer, the main character is Matt Alacran. The main setting is the country of Opium. The story begins when Matt is six years old, living in a little house, having a strong desire to go outside and talk to people other than Celia. The main conflict in the book is Matt being a clone of the lord of Opium, El Patron. The solution is when El Patron dies and Tam Lin took Matt to Aztlán.

Themes for Writers, edited by Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014, pp. 63-65.

By carefully reading the summer reading novel and completing this packet over the summer, which you need to bring to class on the first day of school, you will be prepared to discuss the story in the fall, to take a summer reading quiz and to write an in-class essay using your novel and packet as the basis for your responses. As you read the novel in preparation for the unit, you will first need to understand some of the basic elements of the story.

The stories “The Leap”, “The Trip”, and “The Contents of the Deadman’s Pocket” are all compared through literary elements. The literary elements used are characters, conflicts, setting, and theme. The authors use different elements throughout the texts to reveal different things about the main characters. Through these literary elements the characters have something revealed about th em or they are taught a lesson.

The reason I am writing to you is to explain my development throughout the semester in the Advanced Composition course at Washburn University. The semester consisted of critically analyzing my selected story “Barbie-Q” by Sandra Cisneros through four assignments, the exploration paper, the reading and writing paper, the annotated bibliography, and the academic research paper. The semester began with basic lessons on general writing rules during class and progressed into a much more complex course, including lessons on expansion and development of evidence and supporting details, as well as the argument of the paper as a whole. Although each assignment taught something new, each built onto the last and helped transition my progress through each paper.