Grade 7: Short Story Exploration (Response due: Thursday 9/19)

This week we have begun our Short Story Unit. Students will be studying: literary devices, setting, plot diagrams, characterization, mood, theme, conflict, and other key concepts. We will be reading and analyzing short stories along with creating our own. Please click the link below to review our notes/activities Google Slides presentation. (Please note: This presentation is a living document –> It will be updated daily)

Grade 7 English Unit 1: Short Stories

Homework-Choose one of the following short stories to read. Answer the following question by commenting your response below:

After reading the short story, explain your interpretation of the author’s central message. What lesson can the reader learn from the story? Be specific and refer back to the text  (Min. 3 sentences)

Amigo Brothers

Click Clack the Rattlebag

Eleven

Charles

Lamb to the Slaughter

 

15 thoughts on “Grade 7: Short Story Exploration (Response due: Thursday 9/19)

  1. I read the story “Charles”. I think the author wanted the central message to be that you should always be honest because the truth usually comes out in the end. Laurie made up Charles to cover up his misbehaviours. The end is a cliffhanger, it says “We don’t have any Charles in this kindergarten.” so you don’t know if his parents found out if it was him or not, but assuming he did, he would probably be in big trouble and learn his lesson.

  2. The main idea of the story is to not be bad. That some people just making up the story so they can get attention. At the end of the story, the teacher said there is no Charle in kindergarten.

  3. I read the story “Click Clack The Rattlebag” and I think that the message was that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The child seemed very innocent and asked the man to bring him up to his room. On the way up he described the click clacks and rattlebags the click clacks were horrific monsters and the rattlebags were the bones of the humans that the click clacks ate on a string. When they got to the room it was very dark and the man heard “click clack” in the room and felt a small hand pull him into the darkness.

  4. I read the story “Lamb to the Slaughter”. It was relatively disturbing but I liked it nonetheless. I think that the main idea of this novel was to keep your anger under control. In this novel, Mister Maloney asks for a divorce with his wife. The wife (Mary Maloney) shattered his skull with a leg of a lamb.
    She then dialed the police and told them that someone broke in, and killed her husband.

    • I read the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter”
      I think that the main idea of this story is that if you make a commitment to stay with it. In the story, Mr. Maloney said to his wife he was leaving her even though she was pregnant. He made a commitment to their marriage but did not stick with it. He didn’t even ask for a divorce. He just left. She then took the leg of the lamb out of the freezer and promptly shattered his skull with it.

  5. I read the short story “Eleven.” This text can be relatable to everyone. In the end, even though Rachel was a birthday girl, she felt like she was still ten. She didn’t wake up feeling older, smarter, matured, nor bigger whatsoever. She couldn’t speak up for herself when the sweater dilemma in class occurred and in her words she “ended up crying like a baby.” From this story, we can learn that mind growth takes a much longer time than physical growth. Even if we turn a year older, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will feel as older right away., and that’s okay. Everything takes time. We need to be patient and wait for our brains to develop, and we will get wiser eventually.

  6. The short story I decided to read was “Amigo Brothers”. This story definitely put me through an emotional roller coaster. I believe that the central message of this story was that friendship is more important than winning. This story was all about two best friends. Felix and Antonio are boxers, and are going to have to fight each other to see who would be the champion. As you can imagine, it would be very difficult to hurt your best friend, although, Felix and Antonio decided that they were going to go head to head. At the end of the match, they were both completely destroyed. Right as they were going to announce the winner, the announcer realized that they had both left, and didn’t want to hear who had won. As they said in the story “I mean, we both are cheverote (the greatest) fighters and we both want to win.” I think that this means that yes they both want to win, but they also don’t want the other person to lose.

  7. I read the book Eleven by Sandra Cisneros. The author is basically saying in the book that when you turn eleven you are still 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, because on your birthday morning there isn’t a dramatic change that happens. You don’t feel like your eleven you still think your 10. “You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today”. Even tough sometimes you could act like 5 year old, and you don’t end up feeling eleven until your almost 12.

  8. I read the book “Eleven”. it was a about a girl who was turning eleven and a red ugly sweater. The sweater was like an embarrassment. she decided to make a big deal out of the sweater and caused a lot of disruption. Even though she was eleven didn’t mean that she felt like it. her brain was still on ten year old Rachel (which is her name). the lesson of this story is that age doesn’t represent what age you act like. No matter what age you are doesn’t mean you always act like it.

  9. I read the story click clack the rattelbag. I think that the author’s central message is that he was inside a kids shoes and pretending that there’s a real monster. The author is describing it to make it sound real and scary and the setting was described as large and scary to make the reader more interested in the story. Overall I thought that it was a really good story.

  10. I read the story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. I liked this story. I think the author’s message was that all of your ages are still in you. I think this means that you have to work around the things that happen in your life. Sometimes we don’t act our age. When you are silly or you cry, you are acting younger. The story talks about the rings on a tree trunk and how new rings grow on the outside but the older ones are inside. The rings with the bumps never leave and new rings grow around which means the tree is growing with the bumps which are the problems it faces. The rings represent the years we get older. The reader can learn that as we get older we get smarter, stronger and we face new challenges.

  11. the central message of the story that in every age you don`t only this age you are also all the other ages that you already passed them and that’s okay to cry and scared end all this stuff it isn`t make you little it`s make you hymen.

  12. I read lamb to the slaughter. This book is about a woman who is wanting for her husband too get home. When he does he is tired andante drinks some alcohol. His wife offers to make him dinner but he insists that he has to tell her something. He tells her he needs to borrow money. Then the wife went to go make dinner which was a lamb leg but the husband yelled at her so she came into the room and hit his head with the leg of the lamb. She called policeman and after a long investigation offered them to eat the lamb. As they finished the lamb and where talking about the weapon used to kill the ladies husband, the lady was in another room giggling.

  13. Eleven

    Eleven was a story about a girl named Rachel and he was very upset by her classmates and her teacher making her put on a sweatshirt that was not hers. In the book, it says “sometimes I feel ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one”, and sometimes I think I feel like that, too. I think the main message in the story is to always listen to the other person and what they think so that you don’t force them to do something they don’t want, because the teacher wouldn’t let her say “listen, it’s not mine.”

  14. I read the story “Eleven”. The main message of this story is that even if you are a certain age, you still also act younger than your current age. In the story, Rachel turned eleven, but still felt like younger versions of herself. When her teaher, Mrs. Price, thought a sweater belonged to Rachel, she was embarrassed and started to cry in front of the whole class like a three year old would. In life sometimes you will be in situations where it is hard to control your feelings and always act your age. This is a part of life . It is sometimes difficult to be mature all the time.

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