05.08 Free Choice Blog

The begining of chapter four in Their Eyes Were Watching God starts with Logan and Janie. Janie has always been pampered by Logan because he wants to treat her well and make her love him but eventually he grows tired of it. He tells Janie that she needs to start helping on the farm and around the house which irritates her. Logan leaves to go get a second mule so that Janie can help and Janie sees a good looking man come down the road. They began to chat and we find out his name is Joe Starks. He tells her how he is going to a black town and he has saved up a lot of money to live. They meet secretly for weeks and Janie starts to fall in love. Jody (Joe) tells Janie he wants her to leave Logan and go with him to the town. That night, Logan and Janie get into a fight and she talks about running away which upsets Logan and causes him to cuss and me rude to Janie. They get into another fight the next morning and Janie leaves Logan weeping and upset to meet Jody at the place they agreed to. The two run off and get married as soon as they can, which is where the chapter end. In this chapter, the author uses chronological order to organize the information. I thought this chapter was very interesting. Janie's response to being asked to work was surprising to me because I didn't take her to be a character so lazy and spoiled.

04.08 Free Choice Blog

Chapter three of Their Eyes Were Watching God starts with Janie preparing to get married to Logan like Nanny planned for her to do. To ease Janie's worries about not loving Logan, Nanny tells her that eventually love comes with marriage so she will love him one day. Janie and Logan have a big wedding and everything seems fine until a few months later Janie comes back to Nanny and tells her that even though she's  been married she still doesn't love or have any feeling for Logan. Nanny becomes really upset with Janie, scolds her and sends her out. Nanny prays that Janie will have a better life because she has done all that she can to help her. Nanny dies a month after Janie comes to her for advice and the chapter ends a year later with Janie still feeling no emotional fulfillment from her relationship with Logan. This chapter uses chronological order as its organizational pattern. I also feel that in a way it uses order of importance because Janie's marriage is the most important thing in this chapter, and the author chooses to open the chapter with that scene. The author's intent of writing this chapter was continue Janie telling her story to Pheoby of how her life has gotten her where she is now. I really enjoyed this chapter because if gave us a lot of more current information about Janie rather than the story of Nanny.

03.07 Free Choice Blog

Chapter two of Their Eyes Were Watching God begins with Janie telling Pheoby about her life. Janie tells Pheoby that she was raised by her grandmother and never met either of her parents. The name Janie uses in the story for her grandmother is Nanny. Janie and Nanny lived in the backyard of the Washburns who are a white couple that Nanny worked for. The other kids made fun of Janie for living back there so eventually Nanny bought some property for them to live on. Janie tells how Nanny caught her kissing Johnny Taylor and married her off to a wealthy farmer named Logan who can provide a stable life for Janie. When Janie complains about marrying him, Nanny tells Janie about the hardships she went through and why she has such high hopes for her. Nanny was a slave who was raped by her master and had Leafy. When her master's wife saw Leafy she became furious so Nanny ran away and worked for the Washburns. Nanny had really good hopes for Leafy but then she was raped and after she had Janie she got drunk almost every night. So now, nanny has put her hopes onto Janie. This story uses flashback in order to manipulate chronological order as its organizational pattern. The author's intent was to open up the life story of Janie to readers and continute setting the stage for the rest of the novel.

02.07 Free Choice Blog

For my free choice I have chosen to read Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the first chapter of this book, a group of women are sitting on Ms. Pheoby Watson's porch. The women see Janie walking down the road alone and seem resentful and happy that she is alone. They begin to say that Janie left town with a man named Tea Cake who ended up taking her money and leaving her for someone younger after. Pheoby, who does not like gossip, brings Janie some food and tells her what the women said. Janie then tells Pheoby what really happened and why she came back alone. She briefly says that she left because she could no longer be happy in the Everglades and will go into further detail throughout the novel. The main point of the first chapter is to set the stage for Janie's story in the rest of the novel. So far, I am intrigued by this novel. I want to know Janie's story, why she came back alone, and why the other women seem to resent her so much. I am estimating that they don't like her because the chapter hints that the women are jealous of Janie's beauty and strength. Janie is a stunning women with long hair that the other girls envy. I feel like they secretly hoped for her failure since she left with Tea Cake and they are jealous. I would probably use lists to make notes on this novel because I find that making lists just works better for me.

1.03 Materials and Free Choice

                In the "What Kind of Reader are You?" quiz, my results were that I enjoyed reading fiction and comedy. I can relate to the first result of fiction because I have always had a love for books that give you an escape from reality. The best books I ever read were in the "Uglies" series because they were so far away from real life that you felt like you were in another world when you read them. However, I don't understand how I got comedy. I hate reading funny books! I never really seem to find them funny at all. After fiction books, my second favorite thing to read is actually news articles and journals.
              The last thing I read and enjoyed was a journal article from the APA about teen suicide in the 21st century. I know, it sounds like a downer, but I read it for a research paper and actually became intrigued with the subject. The statistics I read in the article were so captivating and the numbers of teens who suffer from depression, attempt suicide, and go through were suicide were extremely surprising. This is obviously a huge issue that will come into the public light some more in the future and this article motivated me to keep learning about the issue even after my research paper was done.