Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence"
“Grace” is a short story written by Darcie Little Badger. This story is about a girl, Grace, who is trying to find her identity after she was forced off her native lands. The author decides to highlight one important part in her life: when a boy, Brandon, tries to kiss her. They were getting along, but after that moment, Grace created a hatred for him. The story continues to a group project where Grace and Brandon are forced to be partners. Brandon doesn’t want to take Grace’s advice so she decides to stand up for herself and ask the teacher for a new partner. This is where the theme of, if you don’t stand up for yourself, you put an extra burden on your life, starts to shine through. In this essay, I will explain how I found the theme by using the character’s inner thoughts, their actions, and figurative language.
ReplyDeleteGrace has many inner thoughts throughout the text. Some of her inner thoughts before she stood up for herself show how she had a lot of burden on her. When her mother is telling her about moving back to Texas, her first thought is about avoiding Brandon. A little later in the text when they are in class, Grace has another negative thought about Brandon. She claims that he is, “The kind of student who didn’t wait to be acknowledged before speaking.” She continues to say that she used to think it was because he was excited to learn, but she doesn’t agree with that statement anymore. In other words, Grace is burdening herself by always thinking about Brandon. Lastly, when they are working on their schoolwork together, Grace thinks of it as a race. This is because Brandon immediately started working on the project. Once again, this shows that Grace continues to worry about Brandon and his actions which in return is causing her extra stress.
After Grace goes up to the teacher and stands up for herself to work on her own, her actions change. The author decides to talk about the next project they did to show that Grace was better off without worrying about Brandon. The text tells the reader how Grace works on the next assignment with a group of three. They end up finishing the work quickly and then continue to talk about their interests. The ending of the story also shows that Grace is happier without Brandon. The author states, “It was a reminder of my real ally on Paiute land,” with ‘it’ referring to her graded assignment. Although it could be argued that the theme has to do with Grace’s identity, it’s still about standing up for herself. This is because the graded assignment was a result of her actions.
The author also uses figurative language to support my claim, when you don’t stand up for yourself, you put an extra burden on your life. I noticed that Darcie Little Badger put onomatopoeias into the story. Both times this type of figurative language was used, it was the words of, “screech screech,” as the sound of Brandon moving his desk to work on their project. The first time we see these words, we get the feeling that both characters don’t want to work together. The second time we see this onomatopoeia is after Grace stood up for herself. At that time, it shows Brandon backing down and how Grace is breaking off her ties to him. This also makes me wonder how the rest of her school year looked. Did they both ignore each other or did they have other small disputes?
Throughout the story, the author uses many different ways to show the theme. Some examples include the characters’ inner thoughts, their actions, and figurative language. All of these together show that the theme of “Grace” is if you don’t stand up for yourself, you put an extra burden on your life.
Your analysis of figurative language was REALLY good!
DeleteYou have very good Grammar G00d job 👍👍👍👍
DeleteI like how the actions of Grace show the theme
DeleteI like the way your introduction paragraph really helps us visualize the theme
DeleteI liked how you stated the theme and used your supporting details to back yourself up. You also used a ; !!
DeleteGrace is a short story written by Darcie Little Badge. Grace and her family have moved from place to place, never having a place to call home. The main event throughout the story is when a boy named Brandon tried to kiss Grace causing a whole load of events to boil up. Throughout the story Grace finds herself trapped between the life she lives in and the problems all around her. The different pieces of dialogue and Grace’s actions cause different key details that form throughout the story. This short story focuses on Grace and the different obstacles she faces to find her identity and where she belongs.
ReplyDeleteBy taking a closer look at the dialogue in the story we can find different things that the author wants us to see. For instance, when you look back in the story to the point where Grace first arrives at the chess club she never really shares any of her own opinions. With this in mind we can infer or guess that Grace may not want to make a bad impression or she may not feel comfortable in the new school yet. Another important piece of dialogue would be when Grace looks at Brandon and says, “We’re working by ourselves now.” Although this may not seem like an important piece of dialogue, in my opinion it is. If you look back in the story as stated before Grace never really spoke what was on her mind ; rather what she thought would be better for that specific moment. To put it differently, we can see that Grace no longer held her thoughts and rather spoke more confidently. Although Grace doesn’t necessarily add a lot of dialogue to the story, her actions and thinking add some important key details to the story.
When we look closer at Grace's actions throughout the story, we can make inferences about what she is thinking. In fact, when we compare the beginning of the story to the end of the story we can find many ways that support the idea of Grace changing throughout the story. In the beginning of the story Grace would be more held back because she was having a hard time figuring out her identity and who or what she was meant to be. One key event that happened in the story was when Grace first met brandon. Later on we can see that Brandon may have liked Grace, but instead tried to hide it by saying Grace was in the wrong. The way that Grace reacted may be seen as a form of missed experiences since Grace never has a lot of time to get used to one place before she has to move to another. In my opinion this event and many others such as when Grace said, “I’m Lipan Apache. No matter where my family travels and who I encounter, I am Lipan,” can show how Grace has a hard time finding her identity and where she belongs.
When analyzing this short story you can see that the main theme is identity and how Grace has a hard time finding where she truly belongs. The main piece where the author shows this is in the beginning of the story when they wrote, “But, until then, we gotta live like a pair of dandelion fluffs in the wind and drift around until the day comes to settle and grow.” This small piece carries meaning throughout the entire story from the beginning when Grace first stepped foot in the chess club until the end when Grace finally spoke for what she thought and not what someone else thought. Another key detail is at the end of the story when the author wrote, “I folded the neon-pink sheet of paper into a photograph-sized rectangle and tucked it inside my scrapbook of mementos.It was a reminder of my real ally on Paiute Island.” This other short piece shows how in the end Grace was proud of what she had accomplished throughout her time there.