DISCUSSION DIRECTOR A Break With Charity A Story About the Salem Witch Trials
By Ann Rinaldi Section One: pages 1-26
Your job is to develop a list of questions that your group will discuss about this part of the book. Be sure to include different types of questions. Examples: setting, problem solution, narrator, topic, main idea, cause effect, mood, character relationship, and compare/contrast.
1. Where and when does the story take place?
(1962, Salem Massachusetts (p.1 par.1-2)
Point of View
2. Who is telling the story? How
do you know?
(Susanna English is the story teller,
it is written in first person using “I.”)
Characters
3. How is Susanna feeling in the very
beginning of the book as she watches the other girls?
(Susanna feels left out, and is very curious.
“Something was going on, I was sure of it. And as I stood there,
yearning to be part of it all..” (p 6 par 3)
Problem/Solution
6. All of the following words describe the English family except which one?
A. Well-off
B. Poor
C. Good people
D. Charitable people
(B. poor, "Because my father is a merchant with twenty-one vessels to his name. And because I live in a fine three-story house in Salem Town and not here in the village." (p10 par 5))
A Break With Charity A
Story About the Salem Witch Trials
By Ann Rinaldi
Section One: pages 1-26
Your job is to pick parts of the story that you want to talk about. Choose passages that will lead to good group discussion. Include reasons like: informative, figurative language, descriptive, dialect, funny, scary, suprising, and important.
The Steps:
1. Pick out a passage
you would like to share.
2. Write down the
page and paragraph number.
3. Write down the
first two words and the last two words of your passage.
4. Write down the
reason you chose the passage, and explain why.
5. Ask a question
about your passage, and give an answer.
6. Write down the
Author's purpose: to describe, to entertain, to inform or to persuade.
1. Choose Passage
2. p.14 par. 2
3. “I would take that………no one else
of it.”
4. I choose this passage because
she referred to words as medicine. It proves to the reader how very
powerful soothing words can be in a time of uncertainly. I think
that it is a very powerful like while describing Susanna’s character.
5. Why do you think that Susanna
says she would tell no one else of it?
6. Authors Purpose: To describe how deeply Susanna feels about William.
1. Choose Passage
2. p.15 par 2
3. “I did not…but the Devil's”
4. This passage is possibly foreshadowing
to some big events in the future.
5. Which words make you believe
that it is foreshadowing?
(“I did not know at the time…”)
6. Author's Purpose: To inform the
readers that big events are going to occur throughout the book dealing
with evil.
1. Choose Passage
2.p. 17 par 2
3. “If we waited…would we?”
4. I choose this passage because
I think it is a good quote to live by. I think it allows the reader
to make a connection into his or her own life.
(Answer: I think that people should be able to vote at a younger age. I think that it makes people more responsible.)
6. Author's Purpose: To entertain
1. Choose Passage
2. p. 22 par. 2
3. “Tituba gives them…to Tituba.”
4. I choose this passage again because
it gives insight to the characters. Tituba sheds a little truth on
the society and how it forces young girls to lose their places in the culture.
It expresses people's needs to be important.
5. Do you think the girls are going
to do anything out of the ordinary to get the attention that they are lacking?
(Answer: I think that the girls
may become major characters in the story, since the title leads you to
believe there are witches in the story.
6. Author's Purpose: To inform
A Break With Charity A
Story About the Salem Witch Trials
By Ann Rinaldi
Section One: pages 1-26
Your job is to pick out words from the book that were difficult to understand. This gives you the chance to teach your classmates a few vocabulary words!
The Steps:
1. Write down the word
and include the page and paragraph number.
2. Copy the sentence
from the book in which the word appears.
3. Look up the word
in the dictionary.
4. Using the context
clues and the dictionary definition, write down in your own words the definition
of the word.
5. Write down the
correct part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb).
6. Write down a question
and the answer about the word that would help you teach the word to your
group. Try to ask a question about the would that makes your group
refer back to the text, or write a sentence using the word wizard word.
7. Make your word
wizard card. Be sure ot include in big print your word and the page
and paragraph number. On the other side of your card should be a
picture, the word and the definition of the word.
In this section you should look for the
following words:
parsonage (p. 5 par 1)
scandalmongering (p.5 par. 1)
twoscore (p.5 par. 1)
quincy (p.11 par. 2)
blackamoors (p.16 par. 2)
forebears (p.18 par. 3)
1. parsonage (p.5 par 1)
2. “The day I met Sarah Bibber behind
the cluster of trees the parsonage was not a good day.”
3. A house provided by the church
for it's pastor.
4. It is a place where people who are
related to a clergyman can live.
5. noun
6. Can you find the word "parsonage"
any other places in this section?
(yes, p. 9 par 2: "What would brother
William have to do with me standing here outside the parsonage?”
This too gives a hint that a parsonage is a house or a hut.
7. See card
1. quincy (p.11 par. 2)
2. “But she was down with quinsy
throat this morning, so I came alone.”
3. LOOK UP
4. I would describe quinsy as being
sore, or feeling puny.
5. adjective
6. What do you think it would feel
like if you had a quinsy throat?
(You may feel sore, scratchy, painful
to swallow.)
7. See card
1. countenance (p. 7, par. 4)
2. "And if God was turning His countenance
from Salem Village, as Reverend Paris often said at Meeting, it was as
likely because of my uncharitable heart as because of anyone else's."
3. Look up word.
4. appearance, the face or facial
features
5. noun
6. His countenance was very grim.
7. Make card
1. sojourns (p. 23 par. 2)
2. "I thought of the twinkle in
William's eye when he hinted at sojourns in Barbados or France or England."
3. Look up word
4. a temporary stay, a brief period
of residence
5. verb
6. The traveler sojourns in many
places.
7. Make card
A Break With Charity A
Story About the Salem Witch Trials
By Ann Rinaldi
Section One: pages 1-26
Your job is to find an interesting
character from the chapters you read today. You find three words
that describe the character. For each word, or character trait, you
will give the proof or an example. Next, you will tell one of your
character's goals, or what the character wants to do in this chapter(s).
Then you will find one of the character's problems in the section and the
solution to the problem. Finally, you get to illustrate your character!
CONNECTOR
A Break With Charity A Story About the Salem Witch Trials
Section One: pages 1-26
Your job is to connect the
book to the outside world. This means finding a relationship between
the book and something else that is familiar, like another book or a television
show. Answer some of the following questions:
Does
this part of the story remind you of any other story or book you have read?
Does
this part of the story remind you of anything that has happened to you
or someone
that
you know?
Does
this part of the story remind you of a movie or television show you have
seen?
Write a paragraph, be sure
to include who or what you connection is about, where and when it happened,
what happened, and how it connects or deals with the part of the story
your were reading.
This section of the book reminds me of the NBC soap opera, Passions. I have seen it a few times where they deal with a little mysterious witch craft. One lady on the show is full of tales and predictions like Tituba. Her name happens to be Tabetha, which is sort of similar. Another main character is Charity, which is a key word in the title of this book. Tabetha reads tea leaves just like Tituba does. Many characters in Passions tend to have bad nightmares where they are lost in a forest. The setting is familiar when Susanna is traveling through the woods.