Describe Characters by Their Clothing

In a story, clothing can be the author’s way of telling us what kind of character we’re reading about.

What are they wearing?

Judging real people by their clothing might not be too smart, but authors rely on readers to judge characters based on their characters’ clothing.

For instance, someone in a black leather jacket with a skull embroidered on the back and chains hanging from a pants pocket is going to be very different from someone in a light aqua-colored jacket carrying an umbrella with pink flowers on it. We make assumptions of people according to their appearance.

Should He Be Arrested . . . Again?

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

So, Roger gets arrested over 20 years ago for grand theft, but he serves only five months of his five-and-a-half-year sentence. Why?

Because he escapes.

And now, a fugitive from the law for 22 years, he is found in a neighboring state, living with his wife who has brain cancer. And he’s arrested again.

Jennifer Mayfield, who took care of Roger’s wife for a few months, thought it was strange that Roger didn’t have a driver’s license or a bank account, but now she understands why.

Do You Have a Dream? Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let’s get to know King’s most famous speech a little better.

To hear the audio and read the transcript of “I Have a Dream,” click here. To view the speech on YouTube, click here.

This moving speech was originally given August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. As Martin Luther King spoke of freedom for all Americans, regardless of their color, the statue of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln was seated behind him. This gave even more meaning to King’s powerful speech.

What was King’s dream?

Letters from Jail: Apostle Paul and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Jail probably isn’t the optimal location from which to pen a letter. If I were to write one from jail, it would probably say, “Get me out of here!”

Paul’s Message

However, Apostle Paul writes from jail often and exudes no panic. In Philippians, while chained in a Roman prison, Paul tells the believers in Philippi to rejoice. He doesn’t throw it off as an aside; in fact, he uses the words “joy” or “rejoice” at least twelve times. At one point, he even

Dylan Thomas: His Christmas Memories and Yours

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

What is your favorite Christmas memory?

Dylan Thomas, a famous poet and author, wrote about his Christmas memories in the memoir essay “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” in which he remembers friends, toys, hijinks, relatives, and traditions of his childhood. His love of words and of the language makes this memoir a delight to read.

Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from it; you can read the whole memoir here and watch a televised rendition of it on YouTube here. For an extra-special treat, listen to the late Dylan Thomas reading his memoir here in his Welsh accent.
Here’s the excerpt from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”:

The Christmas Account from a New Perspective

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You are probably very familiar with the accounts of Jesus’ birth found in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2:40. They are written in the omniscient point of view. That is, the writers tell us everything about everyone.

What if you read the account from the perspective of one of the Magi? Would the story be filled with curiosity and longing? What if the account were written by the wicked King Herod? How angry would he be that he missed his chance to kill the Christ Child?

Happy Birthday, Joseph Conrad!

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Although author Joseph Conrad was born in Poland as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, he learned to speak and write in English in his twenties.

The fact that he learned how to write in the English language so late in life makes his command of the language, as seen in his stories, impressive.

Joseph Conrad is famous for his novella Heart of Darkness in which the narrator goes on a voyage to the jungles of Africa in the late 1800s in search of a man named Kurtz.

Below is the narrator’s description of a scene he comes upon. You can tell by the words and items he chooses in this description that what he finds next will not be nice:

A Strange Thing to Be Thankful For

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

When Corrie ten Boom was arrested with her family in February 1944 for helping Jews escape the Nazis, she and her sister were sent to the women’s section of a harsh concentration camp. There she found infestations of vermin: lice and fleas.

Instead of being angry about the vermin, she decided to thank God for them. Soon, she found out

What Is Happening in this Yosemite Photo?

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Every so often, it’s fun to forget about essay writing.

Today, instead of learning some writers’ device or essay format, you get to write a story or a journal entry from a photograph.

Here’s the photo, taken in Yosemite National Park:

Good Pirate, Bad Pirate

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses, the deliciously creepy The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde based on a real person, and much more. You can learn more about him here.

Pirate in disguise

In Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins is warned to be on the lookout for and avoid “the seafaring man with one leg.” Yet when he meets a sailor with one leg named Long John Silver, Hawkins is not troubled. Why?

First, he’s had a letter from his friend the squire claiming that Long John Silver is a war veteran who lost his leg “in his country’s service.” Next, when he meets Silver for himself, Silver seems “clean and pleasant-tempered.” Here is the paragraph where Jim Hawkins meets the truly nasty Long John Silver who, at the moment, doesn’t seem so nasty: