Poor, Poor Mayella

We had a lot going on today! Our Do Now had everyone working in pairs to create a paragraph based on Chapter 17's role play. "As a witness, Bob Ewell comes across as..." It was your job as partners to create a paragraph that answered this question while maintaining proper MLA format. This included a proper heading and the proper structure for a paragraph. Remember, it should look like this:

TS--topic sentence

CD--concrete detail (evidence)

CM--commentary (summary and analysis)

CS--concluding sentence

In order to get full points every time, you need this proper format as well as making sure to keep in mind all of the -2 grammar rules. For homework, make sure you are following all these guidelines when writing your paragraphs.

After that, we graded our fellow actors on how well they did on their performance. Remember, a 3 is average. That means that the actor did what they were supposed to do, but didn't go above and beyond. A 5 means that their acting was fantastic, that their performance moved you, that you were fully engaged watching them. I would give only one of you a full 5 points. If you just gave 5's to everyone, that's just laziness. That lack of criticism will be reflected in YOUR grade. Be wary.

Today's acting performance was much improved from the first round. I saw a lot of my actors much more connected to their characters and understanding of the material. Mayella is brought to the witness stand and she's an absolute mess. She's tripping over her words and is greatly intimidated by Atticus. Does Atticus intentionally want to scare her? We know that Atticus respects everyone, so we know that that's not the case. He's just trying to get her to tell the truth. Does she do so? That's up for you to decide. The most important piece of evidence that we found out today is that Tom's left hand is useless. Tom was in an accident when he was younger and his arm was severely injured. It never grew properly and that is why it is much shorter than his right arm. What does that tell us? Was Tom physically capable of beating and raping Mayella? The evidence shows us that Mayella was probably beaten by a lefty. Tom's left arm is dead. Evidence also shows us that Mayella was choked by two hands all around her throat. With a useless arm, Tom wouldn't have been able to strangle her with two working arms. Things are not looking great for Mayella and Bob Ewell...

For homework, you must write a paragraph about how Harper Lee creates sympathy (feeling sorry for someone) for Mayella. Cite at least one piece of evidence explaining why.

Do your work and do it well! We'll go at this again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it!

DEETS:

In-class:

--Do Now Partner Paragraph

--Grading Actors for Chapter 17

--Chapter 18 Role Play

HW:

--Finish reading Chapter 18

--Write a paragraph explaining one example of how Harper Lee creates sympathy for Mayella. Be specific and follow the format!