Walk Two Moons

Elements of Fiction

Character

A character  is a person, animal, or imaginary creature that takes part in the action of a story.

An author develops a character by describing: physical appearance speech, behavior, and actions thoughts and feelings interactions with other characters

Types of Characters

A STATIC character is a character that stays the same throughout the story. Also called a FLAT character. Ben is an example of this type of character.

A DYNAMIC character is a character that changes throughout the story. Also called a ROUND character. Sal is an example of this type of character.

Types of Characters cont.

Main characters-crucial to the story Sal and Phoebe

Minor characters-not crucial to the story Ben and Prudence

Characters in Walk Two Moons

Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal), thirteen-year-old narrator who cannot accept her mother’s death until she retraces her steps on a journey to Idaho.

Mr. Hiddle, Sal’s grief-stricken father. Gram Hiddle, Sal’s exuberant, eccentric

grandmother who dies on the trip to Idaho. Gramps Hiddle, Sal’s colorful grandfather and

Gram’s devoted husband who drives his wife and Sal on the journey west.

Margaret Cadaver, Mr. Hiddle’s friend and confidante who was Sal’s mother’s seatmate during the bus accident that claimed her life.

Phoebe Winterbottom, Sal’s imaginative friend, whose mother, under strange circumstances leaves her family.

Mr. Birkway, Margaret Cadaver’s brother and Sal’s and Phoebe’s English teacher.

Mrs. Winterbottom, Phoebe’s respectable mother who keeps a secret about her past from her family.

Point of View

The Point of View is the vantage point from which an author presents the story.

  1st Person – the story is told by one of the

characters IN the story 3rd Person – the story is told by a narrator,

NOT a character in the story

 

Point of View

Walk Two Moons is written in 1st person point of view since Sal is the narrator and a character in the novel.This point of view gives a more intimate feeling between the character and the reader.Personal pronouns such as me, I, and my are used throughout the novel as Sal tells her story.

The reader gets to experience events through the character’s eyes in this novel.

Whose eyes are we seeing the other characters and events through in this novel?

Is this person a reliable source? Why or why not? Answer in the reading notes section of your spiral.

Flashback

  A Flashback  is an interruption in the story’s sequence of events which take the reader back to an earlier time.

A flashback is a useful literary element because it allows the reader to understand something that happened in the past.

Flashbacks in Walk Two Moons

Find and discuss in your groups various flashbacks that appear in this novel.

What do the flashbacks teach us about specific characters and their motivations?

In your own words jot down in your reading notes why these specific flashbacks are important to the novel’s plot and character development.

Setting

The setting of a novel is when and where the story takes place.

Consider time, location, season, year…

The setting of Walk Two Moons

The time period of this novel is left uncertain. Maybe the author has consciously written the novel in this manner to portray a sense of timelessness.

However, the places that are visited in the novel are vividly depicted.

Symbol

A symbol is a person, place, thing, or event used to represent something else

An example would be that a rose may represent love and beauty.

Group Project

As a group, illustrate on your poster paper as many symbols as you can from our society. Think of symbols for things such as freedom, knowledge, and peace.

The Symbolism of Trees

Look for as many references to trees as you can from the novel and list them.

Look at all of these references and see if you can come up with what the author intended for the tree to symbolize in Walk Two Moons.

Conflict

Conflicts are the struggles that a character must overcome.

Four types of conflict are,

1. Man vs. Man a character struggles with another character or characters

2. Man vs. Nature a character struggles with some force of nature

3. Man vs. Self a character struggles with deciding what to do or think

4. Man vs. Society a character struggles with the laws or beliefs of society

Group Project

On your own list as many conflicts as you can from Walk Two Moons.

In your group, categorize these conflicts into the four types of conflicts.

Be prepared to present these to the class.

Antagonist/Protagonist

Protagonist      The main character in the story.

Antagonist       The person, thing, or force that works against the protagonist.

Examples of antagonists are other characters, freezing cold, family, and society.

 

Who is the protagonist in Walk Two Moons?

What are some antagonist that the protagonist faces throughout the course of the novel?

How are these antagonists overcome?

Foreshadowing

Clues that the author gives you about what is going to happen later in the story.

Foreshadowing in Walk Two Moons

What are some examples of foreshadowing that you can find in the novel? What do they bring to the novel?

Style/Tone/Mood

Style is the way an author uses words, phrases, and sentences

Tone is an author’s attitude toward the subject he or she is writing about

Mood is the feeling a piece of literature arouses in a reader (how it makes you feel)

What is Sharon Creech’s style?What is her attitude toward growing up

and death? What is her attitude toward family and friends?

What is the mood of Walk Two Moons?

Author’s Purpose

An Author’s Purpose  is an author’s reason for creating a work

to express to convey emotionsto entertain to tell a good storyto persuade influence someone to

feel a certain wayto inform factual information

Genre

The category or type of literatureRealistic Fiction

Science Fiction

Historical Fiction

Fantasy

Folk Tales or Fairy Tales

Biographies

What type of genre do you think Walk Two Moons is? Why?

The plot is the action of the story

 There are five parts to the plot. They are…

Exposition – setting, characters, background Rising action – series of conflicts or struggles Climax – high point, or turning point of story Falling action – the conflict begins to resolve Resolution – the ending, conflict is resolved

Plot

Plot Graph

Complete a graph like the one below for Walk Two Moons.

Dialogue/Dialect

Dialogue   The words that characters speak, usually set apart with

quotation marks (“ ”)

Dialect   A form of language that is spoken in a particular place or

by a particular group of people

Walk Two Moons is full of colorful language. “whangdoodle” “Trying to catch a fish in the air.” “A hog’s belly full of things.”

These expressions reflect the colorful backgrounds of the characters. Can you find any more? Do you know any from your own life?

Theme   

   The theme is the central idea or lesson about life that the author wants to convey to the reader.

Some themes in Walk Two Moons are the error of prejudging, the maturation process as a journey, and the interconnectedness of life. Explain these themes as they relate to the novel. Are there any other themes in the novel? Be prepared to share your thoughts.