Passage Picker

Come On, Rain  Section 1  (pages 1-10)



1.    "I am...hot potato."   p.3
This is a great example of figurative language, specifically, a simile.
This passage is a simile type of passage because it compares a persons body temperature to that of a frying potato.

Why would the author want to compare something that is very hot to a sizzling potato?
The author wants the reader to really understand how hot it really was for the characters in the story.

Do you think it was as hot as a sizzling hot potato?
No, because if a person gets that hot, they would burn.

Why did the author include this passage in the story?
The author wanted the reader to really capture how hot it was for the characters in the story.
 

2.    "Miz Glick's...her room."  p.6
This is a great descriptive passage.  It is a descriptive passage because of the word choice.  The words used to describe Miz Glick's room in her house are dim, stuffy, and Tessie refers to it as a cave.

Why might Tessie think of Miz Glick's house as a "cave?"
Miz Glick may be a mean old lady in their neighborhood and her house may be dark and gloomy like a cave.  Whereas a nice old lady's home would be more airy and clean.

What does this passage add to the story?
This passage helps the reader understand more of the setting.  It has been hot and muggy in their town the past three weeks.
 

3.    "The smell...Joyce-Jackie's porch.."  p.7
This passage is a great example of personification.
It exhibits personfication because it gives human traits/qualities, like bullying, to non human items, like hot tar and garbage.

What other items, like hot tar and garbage, can bully the air?  If you could rewrite the sentence, using your own items that bully the air, what would your sentence be?
The smell of dead fish and rotten leaves bullies the air...

What does this passage add to the story?
This passage helps the reader somewhat understand the conditions of the life in that city (setting), and how extremely it has been during their drought.
 

4.    A creeper...my bones."  p.4
This is an "on my own" passage.  I enjoy the way the words flow together to show so much more than just a feeling of hope. The description is so surreal.

This passage shows some dialect because it uses an apostrophe for the "a" in the word around.

What would it feel like to have hope running through your bones?
It would feel like a swishing, swooshing feeling running through your body, around the internal organs in in one's blood.

Why did the author include this passage in the story?
The author included this passage because it follows the theme of the book and its valuable descriptions, and figures of speech.  We all know that hope is only a mental feeling and that it has no real scientifically proven attributes, so it adds to the rhythm of the story.
 

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