Written In Bone Summary

Author Study: Jane Yolen The books The Devil’s Arithmetic and Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen, are very similar to each other. In The Devil’s Arithmetic Hannah is a Jewish girl from New York who does not understand why it is important that she acknowledges her Jewish heritage, that is until she is warped back to World War Two. Now a young girl named Chaya in Poland, Hannah is taken, along with the family she had just been introduced to, to a labor camp.

Family In Jesmyn Ward’ novel “Salvage the Bones”, Ward uses a fifteen –year-old girl Esch as narrator to describe the 12-day life of a family living in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, waiting for the hurricane comes. She wants to show that although they are poor, they can still form a family and help each other when emergency happens. She talks about the trivia happened in daily-life of that African American family and how the whole family prepared for the hurricane, in order to show the life and relationship of underclass African American people living in Mississippi.

According to the Macmillan dictionary the definition of social studies is a school or college subject that includes the study of history,government, and world cultures. I believe Written in Bone perfectly fits that description. Written in Bone belongs in a social studies classroom because of the way it transports you decades into the past and informs about the daily lives of the people before us. The book also includes photos and maps which tremendously help explain how life was years ago and how much we have changed.

Todd collected many of the human skeletal remains in the collection; the majority of the remains collected were unclaimed bodies that came from mortuaries and city hospitals. The demographics that are comprised of in this collection consist of both sexes, various ages ranging from the early 30’s to early 80’s, different ethnicities, and being labeled as either “W” or “B” for white and black respectively.

In chapter 5, “The Vanished Settlements”, John Viele reveals information about the 21-year span of life on the Keys. The Civil War, living conditions, mosquitoes, fresh water, and isolation are some of the main hardships that many of the settlers had to experience, but only a few could endure the setbacks and live prosperous lives, as well as their families. Henry Geiger, Temple Pent, and Happy Jack were the most prosperous men during the hard times of the Key West, and through others around them, their stories can now live on.

White and his men dropped anchor off the Outer Banks of North Carolina and rowed toward the island. Crewman sounded familiar tunes on trumpets to alert the colonists, but not a single human figure was seen. The landing party made its way through the woods to the settlement at the island’s northern end. Bracing himself for the worst, White entered the clearing where he had parted from the colonists, including his daughter, Eleanor Dare and his granddaughter, the first child born in the colonies, Virginia Dare (Davis, 2009). He found the settlement deserted, weeds and vines sprouting where houses had once stood. The houses themselves had been carefully dismantled and removed. Gone, too, were the fort’s small cannon; buried chests were found, containing some of the colonists’ possessions. All the evidence suggested a planned and orderly withdrawal (McGill, 2009).

“Written in Bone” is corresponded with the subject of science. The book is associated with the science subject because in the book, the scientists use archaeology to understand the bones and to dig the bones up correctly. Archaeology is defined as the study of analysis of physical remains. The book “Written in Bone” wouldn't have been possible at all without science! Science is the most important feature in this book when the archaeologists spent hours and days finding all of these fossils and human artifacts.

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.” In the novel The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold it that takes you on an expedition that re-lives the heartbreaking moments of a life and formation of new connections between the ones that were affected by the tragedy.

Burial Rites, a novel written by Hannah Kent is heavily based on story telling and the effect it has. Through the course of the novel, readers observe the significance story telling has for both the individual and the community. For an individual story telling can make the speaker feel empowered whereas for the community story telling’s main significance is the entertainment it provides. Since Kent’s purpose of Burial Rites is to tell the life journey of Agnes Magnusdottir in an ambiguous light, story telling also becomes important for the reader.

Burial rituals are discussed in this page of notes. There is a blanket wrapped around the body and a “nice silk handkerchief” placed on the face, blankets are then put all around the body to make sure it stays warm. They did not use a coffin but dis put boards around the body in similar fashion, however, they did not use nails. It also appears that there was interest by one of Harrington’s informants to see a white funeral/burial because she “wanted to see how whites fired corpse.” This tells of their burial practices and that they have an interest in how other people are burring their dead.

2. Compare the portrayal of Katrina in Salvage the Bones to what you saw of the hurricane in the news. Which aspect of the storm’s devastation does this novel bring to life? What does Esch’s perspective add to your understanding of Katrina’s impact?

The book “Written in Bone” was associated with science. I believe this was shown through Archeology, Forensic Anthropology, and the scientists that made the expedition possible. The scientists would not have been able to uncover the bones without the effort and persistence know that they had to continue. A vast amount of work goes into the scientific findings.

     Understanding the Cultural differences can lead one to understand Bone from a new perspective. Expectations of difficulty for the women in the book are much more prevalent and the children’s unstable home environment can be understood. Views of

II: The book and movie give very specific details to show where and when the story took place. The book and movie takes us back to the 1920's after the civil war. There were two odd formations of land off the coast of

Mankind’s history of burial practices and funeral customs are as old as civilization itself. There is no specific way to planning a funeral. Every civilization and culture has provided for their dead in different ways. Religion and personal beliefs play an important role in the burial practices and funeral customs of a given culture or civilization. Furthermore, each civilization and cultured ever studied have three things in common: some type of funeral rites, rituals, and ceremonies; A sacred place for the dead; and memorialization of the dead. As far back as the time of Christ, burials have been noted to take place. In time burial and funeral customs have become very distinct, interesting and