Today we will begin to both read and annotate Tangerine

As we go through this novel, you will need PAPER AND A PENCIL!!!

NOT the chromebook!!!

On the inside cover or on your device, jot down the 6 reading signposts that we discussed earlier in the weekand a brief definition of each.

Reading Signposts

Contrasts and ContradictionsAha MomentsAgain and Again Tough QuestionsWords of the WiserMemory Moment

Contrasts and contradictions

A point in a story at which a character's actions or thoughts clearly contradict previous patterns the reader would normally expect, suggesting a change or offering new insight into the character.

Anchor question: Why is the character doing that?

Aha Moments

Moments when a character's sudden insight or understanding helps us understand the plot's movement, the development of character, or the internal conflict he faces.

Anchor question: How might this change things?

Again and again

An image, word or situation that is repeated, leading the reader to wonder about its significance. These repetitions may often be symbols.

Anchor question: Why does this keep showing up over and over?

Tough questions

The point when the main character pauses to ask, of himself or a trusted other, tough questions.

Anchor question: What does this question make me wonder about?

Words of the wiser

The scene in which a wiser, and often older, character offers a life lesson or some sort to the main character.

Anchor question: What's the life lesson and how might it affect the character?

Memory moments

A scene that interrupts the flow of the story and reveals something important about the character, plot or theme.

Anchor question: Why might this memory be important?

What does it mean to annotate a text?

What does it mean to annotate a text?

to add explanatory notes to or supply with critical comments. When you annotate, you write critical explanations to add extra insight about something.

But before we annotate the text with your own thoughts, first you will record the thoughts of your partner as he / she thinks out loud...

You will take turns building a monster out of pipe cleaners. While one person is building and thinking out loud, the other person should be SILENTLY recording on paper the builder's thoughts.

https://youtube/NMoKXuKSU0s

We will start by watching the book trailer for Tangerine

After we watch this, write down in 2-3 sentences your initial reaction to / thoughts about the book's plot.

Turn to pg. 1. We will read pgs. 1-3 together and make annotations as I model my thinking

aloud.

The house looked strange. It was completely empty now, and the door was flung wide open, like something wild had just escaped from it. Like it was the empty, two-story tomb of some runaway zombie.Mom called out to me, “Take the bag, Paul. I want to have one last look around.”I said, “I just did. I didn’t see anything.”“Well, maybe you didn’t look everywhere. I’ll just be a minute.”“I looked everywhere.”“Wait for me out by the car, please. We can’t have the new owners thinking we left a mess behind.”I picked up the garbage bag and hauled it out to the curb. We’d already packed up our sleeping bags, suitcases, and two folding chairs—all neatly wedged into the back of Mom’s Volvo wagon. Now only this ten-gallon, self-tying, lemon-scented garbage bag remained, and we planned to toss it into the Dumpster behind the 7-Eleven. But first Mom had to make sure that I didn’t overlook anything. She was worried that the people who bought our house, people who we’ve never met, would find a McDonald’s swizzle stick and think less of us.Once we dump this garbage bag, that will be it. That will be the last evidence that the Fisher family ever lived in Houston. Dad and my brother, Erik, are already gone. They’ve been living in Florida for a week now, with the sleeping bags, suitcases, and chairs that they stuffed into Dad’s Range Rover. The rest of our furniture left yesterday, professionally packed by two guys who came to really hate Mom. By now it should be over halfway to our new address—a place called Lake Windsor Downs in Tangerine County, Florida.

I set the garbage bag down and leaned against the station wagon, staring east, directly into the rising sun. I’m not supposed to do that because my glasses are so thick. My brother, Erik, once told me that if I ever look directly into the sun with these glasses, my eyeballs will burst into flame, like dry leaves under a magnifying glass.I don’t believe that. But I turned back around anyway, and I looked west down our street at the receding line of black mailboxes. Something about them fascinated me. I leaned my chin against the top of the station wagon and continued to stare. An old familiar feeling came over me, like I had forgotten something. What was it? What did I need to remember?Somewhere behind me a car engine started up, and a scene came back to me:I remembered a black metal mailbox, on a black metal pole.I was riding my bike home at dinnertime, heading east down this street, with the sun setting behind me. I heard a loud roar like an animal’s, like a predator snarling. I swiveled my head around, still pedaling, and looked back. All I could see was the red sun, huge now, setting right over the middle of the street. I couldn’t see anything else. But I could hear the roar, even louder now, and I recognized it: the roar of an engine revved up to full throttle.I tilted up my sports goggles to unfog them. Then I turned back and saw it—a black car—just an outline at first, then clear and detailed. It came right out of the sun. I saw a man hanging out of the passenger window, hanging way out. He had something pulled over his face, some kind of ski mask, and he was holding a long metal baseball bat in both hands, like a murder weapon.

Now read pg. 3 together with your partner. Discuss parts of the text about which you had questions or insights.

Annotate your texts together.

Then the gears ground, the tires squealed, and the car leaped forward at an impossible speed. I swiveled back, terrified, and pedaled as hard as I could. I heard the roar of the car closing in on me, louder and louder, like it had smelled its prey. I shot a glance into my bike mirror, and there it was—half a block behind, then ten yards, then one yard. The man in the ski mask leaned farther out the window. He pulled the bat back and up. Then he brought it forward in a mighty swing, right at my head. I dove to the right, landing on my face in the grass, just as the baseball bat smashed into the mailbox, exploding it right off its pole. Voices inside the car screamed—animal-fury screams—as the crushed black metal clattered across the street.I scrambled back up. I left my bike there, its wheels spinning, and ran for home. I ran in absolute terror, listening for the sound of the car squealing back around to come after me again.I burst through the front door, crying hysterically. My goggles were twisted back around my head. I spun around and around looking for Mom. Then Mom and Dad were both in front of me, holding on to my shoulders, trying to calm me down, trying to understand the word that I was saying over and over.It was “Erik.” I was saying “Erik.”Dad finally understood. He looked right into my eyes and asked. “What do you mean by ‘Erik’? Erik what, Paul?”I stammered out, “Erik. He tried to kill me.”Mom and Dad let go of my shoulders and stepped back. They looked at each other, puzzled. Then Dad raised his arm up and pointed to the right, into the dining room. There was Erik. He was sitting at the dining-room table. He was doing his homework.Dad eyeballed me for a few seconds, then he went out front to look for my bike.

Now read pg. 4 on your own and annotate the text with your own thoughts.

Erik called over, “There he goes. Blaming me again.”Mom took me into the kitchen and got me a glass of water. She ran her finger under the strap of my goggles and slipped them off. Then she said, “Honey, you know how it is with your eyesight. You know you can’t see very well.” And that was that.But I can see. I can see everything. I can see things that Mom and Dad can’t. Or won’t.

Mom's voice broke into my remembrance. "Paul?"

My chin was still pressed against the car. She was standing next to me. "Paul? Are you with us?" I leaned back as she beeped the auto alarm and opened the tailgate. "You're remembering all the good times you had here. Aren't you?"

I shook my head to clear it. I reached to pick up the garbage bag. My arms felt weak. I muttered, "I was remembering. I was remembering something that happened."

She held up a white cigarette butt and said, "You don't know anything about this, do you?"

"No."

"I found it in the garage, behind the water heater."

I opened up the garbage bag enough for her to slip it inside. I said, "Good work, Mom." She walked quickly back up to the house, laid her keys inside the foyer, and pulled the door firmly closed.

And that was that. The keys were locked in. The zombie was locked out. And we were on our way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2fDwG9gPg

We will start by watching the book trailer for I Am the Cheese.

After we watch this, write down in 2-3 sentences your initial reaction to / thoughts about the book's plot.

I am riding the bicycle and I am on Route 31 in Monument, Massachusetts, on my way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and I'm pedaling furiously because this is an old-fashioned bike, no speeds, no fenders, only the warped tires and the brakes that don't always work and the handlebars with cracked rubber grips to steer with. A plain bike - the kind my father rode as a kid years ago. It's cold as I pedal along, the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves and into my jacket and my pants legs, too. But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling.This is Mechanic Street in Monument, and to my right, high above on a hill, there's a hospital and I glance up at the place and I think of my father in Rutterburg, Vermont, and my pedaling accelerates. It's ten o'clock in the morning and it is October, not a Thomas Wolfe October of burning leaves and ghost winds but a rotten October, dreary, cold, damp with little sun and no warmth at all. Nobody reads Thomas Wolfe anymore, I guess, except my father and me. I did a book report on The Web and the Rock and Mr. Parker in English II regarded me with suspicion and gave me a B-instead of the usual A. But Mr. Parker and the school and all of that are behind me now and I pedal. Your legs do all the work on an old bike like this, but my legs feel good, strong, with staying power. I pass by a house with a white picket fence and I spot a little kid who's standing on the sidewalk and he watches me go by and I wave to him because he looks lonesome and he waves back.I look over my shoulder but there's no one following.

At home, I didn't wave goodbye to anybody. I just left. Without fanfare. I didn't go to school. I didn't call anyone. I thought of Amy but I didn't call her. I woke up this morning and saw an edge of frost framing the window and I thought of my father and I thought of the cabinet downstairs in the den and I lay there, barely breathing, and then I got up and knew where I was going. But I stalled, I delayed. I didn't leave for two hours because I am a coward, really. I am afraid of a thousand things, a million. Like, is it possible to be claustrophobic and yet fear open spaces, too? I mean, elevators panic me. I stand in the upright coffin and my body oozes sweat and my heart pounds and this terrible feeling of suffocation threatens me and I wonder if the doors will ever open. But the next day, I was playing center field - I hate baseball but the school insists on one participating sport - anyway, I stood there with all that immensity of space around me in center field and I felt as though I'd be swept off the face of the planet, into space. I had to fight a desire to fling myself on the ground cling to the earth. And then there are dogs. I sat there in the house, thinking of all the dogs that would attack me on the way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and I told myself, This is crazy, I'm not going. But at the same time, I knew I would go. I knew I would go the way you know a stone will drop to the ground if you release it from your hand.

I went to the cabinet in the den and took out the gift for my father. I wrapped it in aluminum foil and then wrapped it again with newspaper, Scotch-taping it all securely. Then I went down to the cellar and got the pants and shoes and jacket, but it took me at least a half hour to find the cap. It would be cold on the road to Vermont and this cap is perfect, woolen, the kind that I could pull over my ears if the cold became a problem.

Then I raided my savings. I have plenty of money. I have thirty-five dollars and ninety-three cents. I have enough money to travel first class to Vermont, in the Greyhound bus that goes all the way to Montreal, but I know that I am going by bike to Rutterburg, Vermont. I don't want to be confined to a bus. I want the open road before me, I want to sail on the wind. The bike was waiting in the garage and that's how I wanted to go. By bike, by my own strength and power. For my father.

I looked at myself in the mirror before I left, the full-length mirror on the side of the closet door in my parents' bedroom upstairs. I inspected myself in the mirror, the crazy hat and the old jacket, and I knew that I looked ridiculous. But what the hell, as Amy says, philosophically.

Now read pg. 4 together with your partner. Discuss parts of the text about which you had questions or insights.

Annotate your texts together.

I thought longingly of Amy. But she was at school and almost impossible to call. I could have faked it. I could have called the school and pretended that I was her father and asked to speak to her, saying that there was an emergency at home. Her father is editor of the Monument Times and always speaks with emergency in his voice, his sentences like headlines.

But I have to be in the mood to pull off a stunt like that - in fact, those kinds of stunts are Amy's specialty. And besides, my mind was on the road to Vermont. I love Amy Hertz. It's ridiculous that her name is Hertz - she's probably heard a thousand car-rental jokes and I have vowed never to make one. Anyway, I decided not to call her. Not until I'm away. I will call her on the way to Rutterburg, Vermont. And I will soothe myself by thinking of her and her Numbers and all the times she let me kiss her and hold her. But I didn't want to think about all that as I prepared for my journey.

I went to the kitchen and took out the bottle of pills from the cabinet and decided not to take one. I wanted to do this raw, without crutches, without aid, alone. I opened the bottle of pills and turned it over and let the pills fall out - they are capsules, actually, green and black - and I watched them disappear into the mouth of the garbage disposal. I felt strong and resolute.

I got the bike out of the garage and walked down the driveway, guiding the bike before I swung into the seat. I had my father's package in the basket above the front wheel. I was traveling light, with no provisions or extra clothing.

Now read pg. 5 on your own and annotate the text with your own thoughts.

Finally, I leaped onto the bike, feeling reckless and courageous. At that moment, the sun came out, dazzling and brilliant: an omen of good fortune. I swung out into the street and a car howled its horn at me for straying too far into the roadway - and I wavered on the bicycle, the front wheel wobbling. I thought, This is ridiculous, this trip to Rutterburg. I almost turned back. But I didn't. I thought of my father and I started pedaling away, and I gained momentum and knew I would go, nothing would stop me, nothing.

And now I am leaving Monument and crossing the town line into Aswell. A sign by the side of the road says that the Aswell Rotary Club meets every Monday at noon. I have only gone four or five miles and my legs don't feel strong anymore. My legs are weary and my back sings with pain because I am out of condition. Frankly, I have never been in condition, which is a source of delight to Amy Hertz, who dislikes all kinds of physical exercise.

I keep pedaling despite the weariness and the pain. I am determined to go to Rutterburg. I suck in the cold air and it caresses my lungs. My forehead is damp with sweat and I pull the cap down over my ears. I have all those miles to go.

"Take it easy," I tell myself. "Take it easy. One mile at a time."

And suddenly there's a long hill slanting down before me and the bike picks up speed and my legs are whirling madly, without effort, the bike carried by the momentum, and I let myself join the wind, soaring over the road as I coast beautifully down into Aswell.

Exit question

How does thinking about your thinking as you read help increase your understanding of the text?