Dialectical Journal Instructions to Accompany: House of Dies Drear

Name: Hour: Dialectical Journal Instructions

Setting up your journal pages: 1. Draw a line down the center of your paper. Use the left column for quotations and paraphrasing from the text. Use the right column for your own response to what you read. 2. In the left margin put the page number of any quotation. 3. Since this journal focuses on character development, make sure to include any quotations from the text that reveal information about the characters’ personalities, internal conflicts, etc.

Guidelines: - Take time to write down anything in relation to the text. If you find a particular quote or description memorable, or if you are attracted to characters or issues or problems, write your response.

- Make connections with your own experience. What does the reading make you think of? Does it remind you of anything or anyone? Do you see similarities with this text and other texts?

- Ask yourself questions about the text: What perplexes you about a passage?

- Think of your journal as a place to carry on a dialogue with the writer of the text.

- Write down striking words, images, phrases, or details.

- Describe the author’s point of view. How does the author’s attitude shape the way the writer tells the story?

- Find quotations that help you analysis the main characters in the story.

- Find quotations that show the literary elements in the story: imagery, figurative language, foreshadowing, etc.

- Relate the actions in the story with events in your own life.

Example:

“Jonas was careful about language. Why is it important to be careful not like his friend Asher, who talked to about language? This quote seems fast and messed things up, scrambling to show that Jonas is the intellect words and phrases until they were while Asher is the class clown. barely recognizable and often very funny.”

Minimum requirement: 8 entries per chapter. Focus on character analysis.