Books and Bytes

Discussion Prompt: Now that you have finished The Well of Sacrifice, what do you think? Would you recommend it to a friend? How did the novel help you understand the Mayan culture better? List a specific example. Post your comment under the discussion tab.

Chris Eboch, author of The Well of Sacrifice, kept a travelogue during her travels in 1992 in Latin America. For today’s class, please read her travelogue, which is posted here. Once you have finished reading,  go back through the pages of The Well of Sacrifice you have read so far. Discuss with your group what things in the book might have been influenced by what Ms. Eboch encountered on her travels through Latin America. Post your group’s thoughts as a comment.

Thanks for all the birthday well wishes! In honor of my birthday, I decided to post a (pretty embarrassing) picture taken the summer before 6th grade when I was 11. The year was 1992. Bill Clinton was elected President and Barney and Friends premiered on PBS. I bought my first CD that year, but I wouldn’t have internet or email for 3 more years. Wireless internet access was 6 years away.

Where do you think you will be in 16 years? How will the world have changed?

(Please remember to avoid ALL CAPS, excess exclamation marks, and multiple emoticons, even though this is a just for fun post. Comments to this post will not count toward your Well of Sacrifice total.)

Discussion Prompt: On p. 177, Eveningstar remembers “Smoking Squirrel had once said that you have to act fast if taking the time to think would cause you to lose your chance.” Do you agree with Smoking Squirrel? Why or why not? Has thinking quickly helped or hindered Eveningstar up to this point in the book? Can you remember a time when quick thinking helped you?

First Discussion Prompt: Who do you think is a stronger character- Eveningstar or Feather Dawn? Do you think Eveningstar will help her sister? Why or why not?

Second Discussion Prompt: On p. 158, Eveningstar and Smoking Squirrel discuss whether the people of the city have been evil or careless. Do you think the city is evil, careless, or neither? Why? Think about both the people of the city and its leaders.

Discussion Prompt: This reading is intense. Were you surprised by the events of this chapter? What sorts of feelings did the reading bring up for you? What techniques does the author use to create feelings in the reader?

Now it’s your turn. Your homework for tonight is to write your own prompt for p.72-116. (I’ll choose several of the prompts to guide our class discussion on Thursday.) Do not answer the prompts!

Choose an issue or a part of the reading that you thought was interesting or confusing.  A good prompt will have a one or two sentence introduction and then pose one or two questions that require more than a yes or no answer. Here’s an example:

In this section, Eveningstar describes some Mayan ideas about beauty. How are the Mayan practices of making themselves beautiful similar to those you might find in 21st century America?

Several of you have asked how to create smileys or emoticons in your blog comments. Below is a list of the emoticons that I have found that work with edublogs. On the left side you see the emoticon and on the right side you see how to create it. You will need to delete the space between the two characters on the right side if you want the emoticon to show up properly. A reminder that you are limited to 1 emoticon per comment on the blog. We wouldn’t want the blog to be taken over by little yellow faces.

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The story of the Hero Twins is an example of a trickster tale. In their comments last night, several students mentioned the story of the tortoise and the hare (not to be confused with hair). For today’s class, please read the story of the tortoise and the hare as told by the people of Mozambique here (p.19-21). Once you have finished, post a comment which refelects on the following things:

1. Now that you have read a couple examples of trickster tales, what similarities do you think trickster stories share?

2. How is the story of the tortoise and the hare that you read today different than the one you might remember from when you were younger or the ones we heard and watched in class?

If you are interested in hearing Chris Eboch, author of The Well of Sacrifice, talk more about the book and writing in general, check out these two links.

Ms. Eboch made a virtual visit to Cary Academy last year. In this clip, she responds to the question: “One of the important things in the novel was friendships, so why did you make so many people die?”

SPOILER ALERT: This clip gives away part of the book. Don’t watch it if you want to be surprised.

 
In this clip, Ms. Eboch talks about how she came to write The Well of Sacrifice and how she makes a living as an author.