By+Mrs.+O'Malley

__**My favorite poetic devices in literature...**__
 * From //House on Mango Street//: "Then Lucy screams to take our socks off and yes, it's true. We have legs. Skinny and spotted with satin scars where scabs were picked, but legs, all our own, good to look at, and long." I love this alliteration and imagery because it defines that coming of age moment when you're between girlhood and woman.

__**My favorite characterization in literature...**__
 * Claudia MacTeer in the //Bluest Eye:// "I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down that hunched and curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit the misery out on the streets." I like this characterization because it shows what a strong character Claudia is. Because of her upbringing, she realizes what is happening to Pecola and wants Pecola to be strong, too, and to understand her own beauty.

__**My favorite quote in literature is...**__
 * //To Kill a Mockingbird//: Scout narrates, "I noticed not without satisfaction that the mark of my knuckles was still on his mouth." I love this quote because it truly characterizes Scout as the tough little tomboy she is. She just had a brawl with her older brother and is proud of the fact that she left her mark.

__**My favorite dialogue in literature is...**__
 * //Pride and Prejudice:// Darcy's proposal goes, "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Not only does he hurt her pride by telling her that he loves her against his better judgement, but she also recently found out that Darcy ruined her sister's chance at marrying Bingley. She responds, "In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could //feel// gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot--I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration." I think both characters certainly show their "pride and prejudice" here.


 * __My favorite theme in literature is...__**
 * //The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:// The lengthy Trujillo regime turned oppression to tradition that ultimately follows immigrants out of the Dominican to the United States, just as other traditions do, becoming a way of life for future generations as well. Through the Cabral characters, Junot Diaz makes a statement that society cannot continue to simply accept the oppression and exploitation of the weak; we need to question it and fight it just as Oscar did.

__**My favorite line of my own writing...**__

__**My favorite original poetic device...**__
 * So I get that this is a little cheesy, but I like the extended metaphor that I used when I was assigned to write a sonnet about sonnet writing. Because I had to fit the very specific rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter, it seemed that I was putting a puzzle together, each word being a piece of the puzzle. I had to look for a words with particular rhymes and accents.

A Sonnet Puzzle

Each sonnet word is like a jigsaw part, a little piece that makes the puzzle whole. It’s difficult to see just where to start when all the pieces look identical.

I start with rhyme scheme corner pieces first, then fill the rhythm-edges one by one. And when my patience is about to burst, I try to tolerate it till I’m done.

When still some words seem lost or won’t commit, I’m vigilant—I’ll see the perfect word. I twist and turn and spot the piece to fit— the time I’ve spent for flawlessness—absurd.

Then sonnet readers break the puzzle down and put together meaning of their own.

__**My favorite original characterization...**__
 * The characterization of my mom in a sonnet I wrote called "Mothering." **"**No mother mothers like her anywhere: / each waking moment spent to make us good. / At dinnertime she’d shake her silverware / at us— to see her point was understood. / She’d scold us naughty children but then after, / <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">revealed her secret naughtiness concealed." It was actually a bout rime, so I had to use the end words from another poem. I like how I was able to characterize her, and many mothers, in so few words. I think mothers (and teachers, for that matter) spend so much time trying to model perfect behavior, but there comes a time when their children are old enough that they can share those childhood stories of times when they got in trouble.


 * __A setting I would write about is...__**
 * My Grandma K's house. When we were growing up, my Grandma K would watch us all the time. Although I was really young when she still lived there, I have so many vivid memories of the house. I remember making "forts" out of the navy blue couch cushions in her living room. I remember my brother and sister and I having the perfect play place in the closet under the stairs. When you went in, there were a few square feet of space and then the closet turned to the left under the lowest stairs. We would line up our sleeping bags and have sleepovers in there. And I remember on those same stairs we would fill the landing with pillows and cushions and blankets and jump from the top stair to the landing (when Grandma wasn't home and Auntie Ann was watching us!)


 * __A conflict I would write about is...__**
 * The internal conflict of guilt. Maybe if I wrote about guilt, I would have a better time controlling my own! I don't know where it came from, but I have this terrible "guilt" complex. Last year, my brother-in-law was working on my house and had his brand new trailer parked in our driveway. The night he arrived we had a terrible hail storm and, in a matter of minutes, there were a million dents in the side of his trailer. I felt SO bad, as if it was my fault that it hailed that night! Or for another example, our electrician broke one of the glass lights that I hired him to install in my kitchen. He felt terrible, so I felt guilty that he felt so bad.