Newbery+Award+and+Honor+Books

Newbery Award and Honor Books

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Your Task:

=The **first** fourth of the book = Protagonist:
 * You will choose a Newbery Award or Honors book
 * You will total the pages and then divide the book into fourths.
 * You will calculate the page numbers for 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4s.
 * Next you will find the ends of chapters that are closest to these division sections.

protagonist [prəʊˈtægənɪst]n 1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the principal character in a play, story, etc.

Keep this paper, because you will be using it at the end of the book.
 * Now it is time to read the first section of your book. Pay close attention to the character's virtues and flaws. (I do love a flawed protagonist) Upon completion of this section, download this template and fill it out: (You will use this to predict the lessons learned in the story.


 * Dialogue:
 * What lesson is the author intending for the main character to learn?
 * How do you think the author will have the character learn this lesson?

= Half way through the book =


 * Motif and Symbolism **



If I was introducing a character in a book by a tree and I wanted that character to be strong and heroic, what kind of a tree would I have him standing by?

If you were introducing a character and you wanted to subtly suggest that this character was not to be trusted, what kind of an animal might you place in the background, or use a metaphoric reference about?







A symbol is anything that represents another thing. Sound confusing? It's really simple! There are millions of symbols that you recognize every day.


 * a red light means stop
 * an arrow means "this way"
 * a light bulb means "new idea"
 * the numerals 10, put together, mean ten
 * a heart means love
 * a wink means "just kidding"

See how you really do recognize symbols in everyday life?

When you read literature, you should keep your mind open to possible symbols that may not be so obvious at first. For example, if you read a scene that involves a skunk lurking in the background, you might wonder what that animal could signify.

Is there something that "stinks" in the works of your story, like a breakup or a bit of bad luck? This is how symbols work!

It often helps to practice with imagery, by asking yourself what a variety of everyday objects might stand for. For example, think about emotions or thoughts that come to mind when you see the following:


 * flowers
 * lightening bolt
 * knife
 * spider's web

Symbols
An object can stand as a symbol for something else, like a human experience. A reoccurring symbol can signify a motif in a book.


 * Birds can mean freedom
 * Buildings can mean strength
 * Cats can signify mystery
 * City can represent civilization
 * Feathers can signify lightness
 * Fire can symbolize anger
 * Plants can represent nature
 * Snakes can mean danger
 * Trees can represent steadfastness
 * Water can symbolize life

So What Is a Motif in Literature?
While a symbol might occur once in literature to signify an idea or an emotion, a motif can be an element or idea that repeats throughout that piece of literature. A motif could be expressed by a collection of related symbols. For example, the motif of fragmentation (of a family, for instance) could come from several symbols that appear in a book:


 * shattered glass
 * an unfaithful spouse
 * a runaway (pet, teen, car)

Sometimes a motif can be a contrast, like "light and dark." A series of symbols that could represent this motif might be:


 * moon shadows (shades of darkness)
 * a candle (a light in the darkness)
 * storm clouds (temporary darkness)
 * a ray of sunshine (emerging from darkness)
 * a tunnel (through the darkness)

= Three-Fourths of the way through the book: =

Theme: [|motif] [|idea], [|thought] - the content of cognition; the main thing you are thinking about; "it was not a good idea"; "the thought never entered my mind" [|topos] - a traditional theme or motif or literary convention; "James Joyce uses the topos of the Wandering Jew in his Ulysses"
 * 2.****theme** - a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in literary or artistic work; "it was the usual `boy gets girl' theme"

Now it is time to consider the theme. Decide on a theme or two that is coming through to you as you read. A list of 101 Common Literary Themes:

What is a theme? Finding a Theme of a BookWhen you were young, your parents may have read you stories that ended with “the moral of this story is…”
 * Everlasting love
 * Evils of racism
 * Facing darkness
 * Facing reality
 * Fading beauty
 * Faith versus doubt
 * Family – blessing or curse
 * Fate and free will
 * Fear of failure
 * Female roles
 * Fulfillment
 * Good versus bad
 * Greed as downfall
 * Growing up – pain or pleasure
 * Hazards of passing judgment
 * Heartbreak of betrayal
 * Heroism – real and perceived
 * Hierarchy in nature
 * Identity crisis
 * Illusion of power
 * Immortality
 * Individual versus society
 * Inner versus outer strength
 * Injustice
 * Isolation
 * Isolationism - hazards
 * Knowledge versus ignorance
 * Loneliness as destructive force
 * Losing hope
 * Loss of innocence
 * Lost honor
 * Lost love
 * Love and sacrifice
 * Man against nature
 * Manipulation
 * Materialism as downfall
 * Motherhood
 * Names – power and significance
 * Nationalism – complications
 * Nature as beauty
 * Necessity of work
 * Oppression of women
 * Optimism – power or folly
 * Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
 * Patriotism – positive side or complications
 * Power and corruption
 * Power of silence
 * Power of tradition
 * Power of wealth
 * Power of words
 * Pride and downfall
 * Progress – real or illusion
 * Quest for discovery
 * Quest for power
 * Rebirth
 * Reunion
 * Role of men
 * Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy
 * Role of women
 * Self – inner and outer
 * Self-awareness
 * Self-preservation
 * Self-reliance
 * Social mobility
 * Technology in society – good or bad
 * Temporary nature of physical beauty
 * Temptation and destruction
 * Totalitarianism
 * Vanity as downfall
 * Vulnerability of the meek
 * Vulnerability of the strong
 * War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
 * Will to survive
 * Wisdom of experience
 * Working class struggles
 * Youth and beauty
 * Beauty of simplicity
 * Capitalism – effect on the individual
 * Change of power - necessity
 * Change versus tradition
 * Chaos and order
 * Character – destruction, building up
 * Circle of life
 * Coming of age
 * Communication – verbal and nonverbal
 * Companionship as salvation
 * Convention and rebellion
 * Dangers of ignorance
 * Darkness and light
 * Death – inevitable or tragedy
 * Desire to escape
 * Destruction of beauty
 * Disillusionment and dreams
 * Displacement
 * Empowerment
 * Emptiness of attaining false dream

That moral was a **message** that you could glean from the overall story. For instance, from //The Three Little Pigs// we learned about the importance of planning a project well. We know this, because we learned that building a brick house works, while building a straw house is short-sighted. In a book report, you could state that one theme for//The Three Little Pigs// is that good planning can lead to success. But we could also say the theme was about making smart choices. As you can see, a theme isn’t something that's stated outright; it often appears as a lesson or**message** that the reader understands by reading between the lines. A book of fiction can have many themes. Why? Because different people can find different meanings in books. You may [|find a lesson] that others don’t see. **Finding a Theme in Two Steps** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">1. When you finish reading a book, ask yourself to sum up the book in a single word. For example, a single word for the book Little Red Riding Hood could be //deception//. Deception is the subject of the book. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">2. Next, stretch that single word into a message: innocence can lead to deception. This is a theme for //The Three Little Pigs//. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">Symbols Can Be Clues to Your ThemesLiterature is an art, and the beauty of art is that it can be interpreted differently by everyone. The message of a fiction book is much like the message of a beautiful painting. It is not something that is stated in a particular sentence and easily located; it is something that is comprehended upon reflection. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">Sometimes an object such as a bridge or a large body of water will appear over and over in a book. The object could actually be a [|symbol or motif] which represents or sheds light on the theme. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">If you notice that an object does seem to be a strong and meaningful symbol in a book, try to determine any possible deeper meaning of that object. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;">A bridge represents a crossover or change, doesn't it? If you notice a few bridges, and you notice that your main character is going through a big change, you can be sure that the bridge is being used as a symbol.

Finding the theme of a book is tough for some students because the theme is something you determine on your own, not something you find stated in plain words. The theme is a message about life that you take away from the book, which can be derived from a set of symbols or a motif that keeps appearing and reappearing throughout the work.

To determine the theme of a book, you should select a word that expresses the subject of your book and try to expand the word into a a message about life. Below you will see words that have been expanded into a message.

Life Lesson Themes
Life Lesson Themes are my favorite kinds of themes.

A theme should be a statement that expresses a universal message.

Can your book’s message be summed up by one of the words or phrases below? One of these words my lead you to understanding [|a message that comes through] in your book. The words themselves may constitute a [|symbol or motif].


 * Birth - life after loss, life sustains tragedy
 * Death - death as mystery, death as a new beginning
 * Heroism - false heroism, heroism and conflicting values
 * Escape - escape from family pressures, escaping social constraints
 * Love - love sustains/fades with a challenge
 * Journey - most journeys lead back to home
 * Coming of age - boy becomes a man
 * Patriotism - inner conflicts stemming from patriotism
 * Peace and war - war is tragic, peace is fleeting
 * Hope - hope rebounds
 * Hopelessness - finding hope after tragedy
 * Generation gap - experience versus youthful strength
 * Home - security of a homestead
 * Betrayal - fading bonds of love
 * Power - Lust for power
 * Isolation - the isolation of a soul
 * Judgment - balance between justice and judgement
 * Fortune - a fall from grace and fortune
 * Family - destruction of family
 * Sense of self - finding strength from within
 * God and spirituality - inner struggle of faith
 * Good and evil - the coexistence of good and evil on earth
 * Duty - the ethics of killing for duty
 * Survival - man against nature
 * Conformity - industrialization and the conformity of man
 * Individualism - choosing between security and individualism
 * Deception - appearance versus reality
 * Race relations - learned racism
 * Suffering - suffering as a natural part of human experience
 * Alienation - creating emotional isolation
 * Loss - loss of innocence, loss of individualism
 * Discovery - conquering unknown, discovering strength

Dialogue: **The End of the Book**
 * What are the themes that you are coming up with in your book?
 * What elements in the story lead you to this theme?
 * Books have more than one theme. What is a secondary theme in your opinion and why do you believe that this theme is valid too?
 * [[file:three-fourth of the way through the book.docx]]

Now it is time to think about the first task. Let's look at the paper about the protagonist's virtues and faults:

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; font-size: 180%;">Dialogue: <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Reflect:
 * Fill out another paper with the virtues and faults as you see them from the last fourth of the book. Be careful not to think about how this main character acted at the beginning of the story.
 * How has the character changed?
 * Why do you think the character changed?
 * Did the character learn something from the experiences presented in the book?
 * Do you think that the author planned to write a story with this lesson in mind or do you think that the author developed it while writing the story?

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">How well did you like this book on a scale of 1-10? <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Why do you think you rated it as you did? <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">What other Newbery book might you read?

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