4/19 Scribe

Today I was the scribe for my group. First Andrew asked why has Katie become so lenient with the kids fighting? McKenzie answered by saying that she doesn't really care anymore and she's used to it. Then Andrew asked why did Francie take a long time to inspect her surroundings once she had read the article concerning World War 2? McKenzie responded to this by saying Francie wants to remember it forever and she wants to relive it whenever she thinks about it. The Andrew asked why did Francie insist on buying the little tree near Christmas when they couldv'e saved the money for later? McKenzie answered by saying she probably didn't know thye needed the money. We all discussed how Francie got fired from her job at the factory and we talked about how Katie chose Neeley to go to school over Francie becasue she wants him to become a doctor. We also discussed Ben and how he helps Francie plan out her life. We discussed Lee and wondered whether he really loved her or his fiance. I brought up how I think the tree represents Francie's life growing up in Brooklyn, and how it was chopped down at one point but then grew even taller. The fall of the tree represents Johnny's death and how that brought Francie down, but then the other events in her life made her stronger, like the tree growing taller. Alyssa talked about Katie and how she's becoming less and less controlling of her life and her kid's lives. We weren't all prepared today and that led to a lot of breaks in discussion.

4/7/10

This group discussion was interesting for me. We really focused a lot on talking about character developement from the beginning of the book up to where we are now. One of my questions was why does Katie not want Francie and Neeley to cry for Johnny when he died? Mckenzie answered my question by saying that Kaite wants her kids to be stronger than she is becasue Johnny's death is affecting her in a very negative way now that she's pregnant. We talked about the part in the book where Katie says that from now on she will be her kid's mother and father. I participated well to this part of the discussion by explaining to my group members why she says this. I said Katie says this because she knows that Johnny was a good father to her kids and she doesn't want them to be missing out on having only one parent. We also discussed about how the Nolans were split up into two teams before Johnny died. Katie and Neeley were together and Franice and Johnny were together. I said that I think Franice is taking his death the hardest even though she doesn't always show it. Overall, I think I participated well today and my classmates cleared up a lot of questions I had.