Courtney W's CyberEnglish blog

Friday was our last reading circle discussion with our group. I believe our discussion went pretty good. We have learned through this experience to ask questions to expand knowledge on the books instead of just going off a sheet. I was prepared for discussion but wished the rest of my group members were. Everything we talked about was good though, as we are getting to the end of our books. That means the mystery or conflicts will be resolved soon. All the little pieces are now coming together. We also talked about what we like or dislike about our books and if we would recommend them to someone.

Overall I like the reading circle idea. I feel like it is an informal, relaxed way to find out our peers interests and how they react to reading different pieces. I learned a lot about the people in my group and about different genres in books. Being in a group, they can recommend books for me to read too which is always good. I can get their opinion and see if I agree or not. I liked the post due every Monday too, and how we prepared for discussion and had all weekend and Monday to get our thoughts together.

Our discussions keep getting deeper. Our last discussion was about setting. Two of the people in my group are reading older novels about poverty and how their characters had a rough life and overcame it. Jon’s book is about sports and how when something goes wrong, your whole dream can be crushed.

Characters so have relationships with settings. Sometimes characters have special memories from certain settings or in my novel have dreams that involve a setting. Happy settings make characters feel good but if the scenery is unfamiliar or has had a bad reputation then it could make the character uncomfortable and scared.

The settings between Corrina’s and Ashley’s books are similar because they are both in a ghetto and living a hard life without anything to live for. It is definitely a harsher setting. It would be considered scary. For my book and Jon’s the setting is more happy and feeling free. In our books the main character has dreams involving sports. In mine, the main character Syrah wants to be a snowboarder so she spends her days on the slopes. For Jon’s novel his character wants to be a professional baseball player and he used to spend all his time on the field.

I can remember Corrina’s setting the most. I think I remember it because it has such a negative impact on the character’s lives. The setting is in a rough ghetto, food and other necessities are scarce. The author of her book used good details to make it feel like the reader was actually experiencing what the characters were.

Settings that are harsh, or unfamiliar make me upset. Life obviously isn’t fair but I can feel how the characters are feeling. It is unfair that people don’t have the same opportunities and are stuck in a ghetto where they feel unsafe, lost, and uncomfortable.

In my book, Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley the main setting is on their favorite snowboarding mountain. This place plays a huge part in the story as it is the only place my main character Syrah feels like she can be herself. But yet the other minor settings like the Cheng house and school make Syrah feel unloved, invisible, taken advantage, all negative things. There is both of these so we can see a diversity in setting.