Research-Related TEKS

• brainstorm, consult with others, decide upon a topic, and formulate a major research question to address the major research topic.[20A]

What is Literary Analysis?

What is Literary Analysis?It’s moving fromthe shallow endof reading…

What is Literary Analysis?It’s moving fromthe shallow endof reading…

…to the Deep end.

What is Literary Analysis?

The House On Mango Street“Four Skinny Trees”By Sandra Cisneros

“Four Skinny Trees”

Take a few minutes to read the vignette in The House On Mango

Street, Page 74

“Four Skinny Trees”

Now let’s analyze: What’s going on here?

What does this vignette mean?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

On your copy, circle the pronouns

in this paragraph

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Who are THEY?

Who is ME?

???

Who is Nenny?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

On your copy, underline examples of

personification

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Why are these examples of personification?

Who does the personification really refer to?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Now, draw boxes around expressions of

imagery…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things. Can’t you just see

this image in your mind’s eye?

Who else was PLANTED here, but by her parents?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Now, draw boxes around expressions of

theme…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

What theme do these top two lines convey?

What theme does this line in

the middle convey?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

This is an example of what literary device? (It starts with a “P”)

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Wow! You’ve analyzed the first paragraph of this vignette and already you’ve found examples of:•Personification•Imagery•Theme•Paradox

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

THIS is literary analysis!(Not difficult at all, huh?)

This is exactly the kind of thinking you’ll use to write your research paper.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Let’s do the second paragraph together

now…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

First, who can tell us what diction is?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Let’s look at how diction helps set the

tone of this 2nd paragraph…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Considering Cisneros’ word choice (diction), what is the TONE of this part of the passage?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Now Let’s look at how personification helps set the tone of this

2nd paragraph…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Where are some examples of personification in this paragraph?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

See how Cisneros uses both diction and personification to establish TONE?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here, but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Finally, let’s analyze which parts of

paragraph #2 illustrate theme…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Where is the strength of the trees?

In what way is this secret?

Where is Esperanza’s strength?

In what way is this secret?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

“secret strength”…“this is how they

keep”…What do you infer the

theme to be?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, eah with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep.

Let’s move on to paragraph #3 to

analyze other ways Cisneros conveys

theme…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being…

If someone “forgets his reason for being”, what is happening in their mind? What does this mean?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other.

If the trees “all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around each other”, are they doing? What does this mean?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other.

Can you spot the simile in that sentence?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other.

Can you spot the simile in that sentence?(Remember: similes are comparisons that always contain the words “like” or “as”.)Here Cisneros uses simile to convey a theme of mutual support, a tone of compassion.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.

While she sleeps, Esperanza imagines that the trees are urging her to “keep, keep, keep”.What does this mean?What theme does it suggest?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on the street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

Last but not least: let’s analyze Paragraph #4 for tone and theme…

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks…

How is Esperanza/Sandra Cisneros feeling here?What does that tell you about the tone?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees.

Why is it that when Esperanza is feeling weak and sad she looks at the trees?What do the trees give her?What does this suggest about theme?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on the street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on the street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

Why does Esperanza repeat the word “four”here?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on the street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

What does this say about the trees?What does it mean to Esperanza?

Four Skinny TreesSandra Cisneros

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is that I look to the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on the street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

“…whose only reason is to be and be.”What does this suggest about theme?