Outside Reading- Week 6- Post A

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Section 6: Pages 275- 333

2 Vocabulary Words

loom (p. 283)- v.
A) To come into view as a massive, distorted, or indistinct image
B) To appear to the mind in a magnified and threatening form
C) To seem imminent; impend
Example from the book: “On a night when what I’d done, or not done, was suddenly looming large, this seemed like a tiny way to somehow, in some distant way, make up for it.”
My example: Monsters seem to loom children’s nightmares.

ostensible (p. 304)- adj.
Represented or appearing as such
Example from the book: “While Kirsten had talked about coming for Thanksgiving, she’d opted instead to stay in the city, ostensibly to work some extra shifts and catch up on schoolwork.”
My example: With a pout on her face, it was ostensible that she was upset.

3 examples of figurative language

1. Irony: “I saw that there was a girl behind him. She had shiny black hair and was wearing little retro glasses, a red sweater and jeans, a beaded bag pulled across her. But I didn’t need to see any of these things, really; I knew her with one glance. ‘Wait,’ I said, turning back to Rolly. ‘The girl… it’s Clarke?’” (281). I know that this is the literary element irony as it was completely unexpected to both the reader and the main character, Annabel, that the girl Ronny was “in-love” with was Clarke, who happened to be Annabel’s ex-best friend from when they were in kindergarten to 6th grade.

2. Simile: “the cold air hit me like a smack” (295). I know that this is the literary element simile because Annabel compared two unlike objects, cold air and a smack, using the word “like” to show how they relate in her story.

3. Imagery: “When my mom and I finally headed out into the Mayor’s Market parking lot, I was surprised to see it was snowing. The flakes were the big, fat kind, too pretty to stick or last, but we both stopped still for a moment, looking up at them as they fell. By the time we got in the car and pulled out of the lot, they were already slowing, some catching the wind, blowing in circles. My mom turned on the wipers as we sat at a stoplight, watching the flakes hit the windshield” (311). I know that this is the literary element imagery because it uses descriptive words, like big, fat, and pretty, to describe the beautiful, fluffy snowflakes. In my head, I can picture the image of a mother and daughter sitting in their car, looking up into the winter sky, amazed by the beauty of the snow.