READER RESPONSE

I am responding to “The Snowman” by R.L Stine. I have read 181 out of 181. This text is fiction.

Introduction

  The main characters are: Heather, Uncle James, Ben (Heathers boyfriend), Snowman (Bill Jeffers), Aunt Belle, and Kim. The genre of this text is horror because the settings used are dark, almost gloomy feeling such as a deserted parking lot, forest, cemetery. The setting is mainly Heather’s house or the restaurant Heather works at. It also takes place in the present time maybe a couple years ago. The conflict is Snowman killed Heather’s uncle James. The theme is safety. The climax is when Heather is kidnapped at night by Snowman and is taken to be buried in a snowman to die. This is the climax of the story for me because this was a tense moment in the story, it was a do or die situation. The protagonist Heather, and the antagonist is Snowman. The author used foreshadowing when Snowman and Heather went to a secret part of a forest and they built a snowman. Right before they left Snowman punched the head off the snowman.

Retell:

  The title of this text says to me that this text has a lot to do with snowmen and winter. The font that the title is written in is slimy, almost creepy looking. That tells me that the genre of it is horror.

  To summarize this text in 1-3 sentences i would say that Heather a fourteen year old girl is in love with a guy name Snowman. Snowman’s a cold-blooded killer that tried to murder Heather’s family. In the end of this text he ends up getting caught by the police and what’s left of Heather’s family lived happily ever after.

  What I want to remember about this text is that you have to be careful of who to trust. Heather wasn’t careful and got her and her family either injured or killed.


  My favourite part of the text is when Heather and Ben tried to steal back the check for 2000 dollars that Heather gave to Snowman as a present. This was my favourite part because as the tension raised the author got more descriptive of how they slowly crept through the garage and everything pitch dark. Any little movement can wake him up. Then the author twisted it a bit so Ben hits into the shovel and Snowman wakes up and waits for them to come up.

  The character I liked best is Snowman. Even though he’s the antagonist he still kept the book interesting to read. His personality kept on changing, at the beginning of the book he’s a cool guy but than around the end he turns into a sick twisted guy.

Relate:

  The last part of the book reminds me of 4 ears ago when a little girl was buried under the snow by her friends because no one knew she was missing until class started. After no one found her, her teacher went looking for her. Then, finally, her friend remembered where she was buried and they got her back.

  As compared to other texts by this author, I think this book is a lot more different. The genre may be the same but there are major differences in the storyline. In his “Goosebump” series it’s a lot more fictional than this one. His “Goosebump” series had to do with fantasy or stupid creatures. In this text it seems like it is a real case scenario.

  If I could be any character from this text I would be the bank guy you see on a page or two because everyone else either got hurt or injured. I would want to be Snowman if it wasn’t for the ending where Heather burns him with a lighter she always kept around. He’s pretty much the only one that didn’t get injured or killed.
     
  Reflect:

  I disliked the beginning of the text because it didn’t introduce the conflict until 60 pages into the book. It took the author one-third of the book just to explain the characters, setting, problem, etc.

  I noticed that he author had to of related this to something that happened to him. Unlike his hit series “Goosebumps” it’s a book he made just for fun. It has no connection to the “Goosebump” series in any way.

 I thought this text is realistic because it contained many elements of real life. There wasn’t any fantasy things like Snowman gets eaten by a dragon or anything he kept it realistic. Also i’ve seen documentaries on T.V about this sort of thing.

 I predict that Snowman will soon be on the loose again because he went to jail and everyone who goes to jail gets a sencond chance of life. In a way I can't really say that because it's been a few years and no second one came out.

Reader Response

Reader Response

I am responding to Biography of Benjamin Franklin by Stephen Krensky. I have read 123 out 123 pages. This text is non-fiction.

Introduction

The genre of the text is a biography because it has photos of the person of interest and it’s based on someone. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. He was a gifted child that loved writing and science. he worked as a young apprentice at his brother’s printer shop. As Benjamin got older he wanted to start his own printer shop, so he set sail for Philadelphia to meet a famous printer, his name was Mr.Bradford. When Benjamin got there he was too late, all the jobs were taking so he just stuck around. While he was there he realized that he was better than most printers so he opened his own printer shop using the money earned from his brother’s. Later on in his life his printer shop was a big success, he was a really wealthy man. He could of retired while he was 50 but he was just beginning. He started to conduct experiments of electricity, his first invention the leyden jar. He used this to experiment with electricity for 9 years. After he finished he moved on with more experiments. As the years passed by he was a part of many important parts of history such as king George’s war, Boston tea party, and much more. When he died in 1790, 20,000 people came to pay their respects to him. He was a man of many things. He was a writer, scientist, politician, and much more. The point of view is from the author and Benjamin Franklin because it’s narrated with parts of Benjamin Franklin’s opinion. The kings like king George’s point of view is missing because king George doesn’t  have any say in . If he did he probably wouldn’t be looking like an antagonist. The pictures are helpful to people visuals because no one for the last 150 years hasn’t seen buildings like the white house in 1790. The chapter titles helped me because whenever i needed to skim through it for certain facts i could just look at the sub titles.

Retell

   The title of the text says to me it’s about Benjamin Franklin. I think it’s about this because in big bold letters on the cover it says “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.” What I want to remember about this text is how much of an impact Benjamin made on the world. I wasn’t really interested  in him that much. All I knew him for was the guy who found electricity, but he was a lot more than that. He’s done more than everyone I know combined. Which is why i want to remember him. The author got me interested when Benjamin moved from home and begun his adventures at such a young age. The book made a huge up-turn from just describing his childhood in detailed description to him sailing away from home. The setting of the text was important because all of his adventures started when he moved to Philadelphia. He was born in Boston then he moved and started his quest to become a writer, printer and many other things.

Relate

  When Benjamin went to Philadelphia reminded me of when people threw snowballs at Santa. After that incident Philadelphia was known as the only place on earth that hates Santa. If I could be any character from the text i would be one of the kings because kings lived such great lives and their are barely any kings left so it would be a great opportunity. I am like Benjamin because science was my favourite subject growing up. I am different from Benjamin because he stuck with loving science for his whole life, I don’t like science now I’m more into P.E now. This time reminds me of history class last year because it mentions king George’s war and how that started and stuff. If I hadn’t learn that last year his biography would have been more confusing and harder to understand.


Reflect
  I disliked the beginning of this text because it started off pretty slow, describing every detail no one would really care about. It didn’t do a very good job of hooking you until the 3rd chapter. I think the illustrations helped because I’ve read what happens but they never gave a description of the scene. An example of one is the Boston tea party, wasn’t there to see it, never got a description of it but the illustrations helped me there. I’d like to read another text by him because I wasn’t interested in biographies but now i am. the way he organized it made it a lot easier to read. He actually added in some fun facts to make it more interesting to read instead of listing facts. He also put more time into Benjamin’s main accomplishments. This text makes me want to read more biographies because it’s interesting to read about everything someone famous isn’t known for.