Group+One

Book Group Template DATE: March 19, 2010 GROUP #: One MEMBERS: Samantha Figueroa, Dan Garcia, Luke Giegerich, Jesse Karmin

For your reading of Montana 1948, book groups will meet four times to discuss the novel and address each aspect listed below. Take notes on your wiki for each of your meetings and save it to your group’s Wiki, noting the date and members names at the top.

This is the reading/book discussion schedule. Be sure you have completed each part prior to the book discussion day.

1) Part One, Friday, March 19th 2) Part Two, Tuesday, March 23rd 3) Part Three, Thursday, March 25th 4) Afterward/Epilogue, Friday, March 26th

Directions: Write your notes for every category below on your group’s wiki space. Be sure to discuss in your groups:

Part One
"Fort Warren Indian Reservation, the rockiest, sandiest, least arable parcel of land in the region. Its roads were unpaved and many of its shacks looked as though they would barely hold back a breeze" pg. 15
 * • Imagery/ Symbolism**

"Mercer County is plains, flat tabletop on its western edge and riven with gullies, ravines, and low rocky hills to the east..." pg. 16

• Character Behavior or Psychology: For Part one you must focus on characterization of the main characters listed below. 1. What the character says 2. What the character does 3. What others/narrator says about the character** You must use textual evidence for each of these three elements of characterization
 * For each character, discuss all three modes of characterization:


 * Narrator’s Father**


 * 1) He doesn't seem to care about much (pg. 48) when he doesn't really react to being told about his brother who is raping women, even though he //is// the sheriff.
 * 2) He isn't very loyal to his career if he has no intention of punishing his brother who's doing something terribly wrong (pg.54)
 * 3) In the beginning of the chapter the Narrator speaks about his mother's view on her husband, she thinks he should become a lawyer because he is not reaching his full potential by being a small-town sherif. After-all, he did go to school to be a lawyer.


 * Narrator’s mother (Gail)**
 * 1) Gail is clearly a worrier. First, the Narrator speaks about how she makes sure her family never gets sick and is troubled when she hears Marie is sick. (pg.27-31)
 * 2) She calls in a doctor for Marie, which shows that she is compassionate, yet cautious.Also, when she confronts her husband about his brother raping Indian women(pg.48) it's evident that she cares for other people, despite the fact that the people being affected were Indians, she probably sees people are all the same.
 * 3) The Narrator loves his mom, but she obviously can be over-bearing, however, she does try to be helpful (pg. 24)


 * Marie**


 * 1) Most significant thing said by her was that she doesn't need a doctor because of her knowledge of a doctor that rapes native americans.
 * 2) Marie is the family housekeeper and looks over the children
 * 3) The narrator adores Marie but doesn't really think she is meant to look after him. pg.25. The narrator's father doesn't show a strong liking for her. pg. 34


 * Ronnie Tall Bear**


 * 1) Ronnie doesn't say anything during the first part of the story
 * 2) Ronnie is Marie's girlfriend and a star athlete
 * 3) The narrator worships Ronnie for his sports achievements. He was part of the infantry in the Army but he didn't go to college. pg. 26
 * Uncle Frank**
 * Uncle Frank**


 * 1) Says that Marie should stay at the house rather than go to a hospital. He acts like a perfect person but secretly rapes Indian women.
 * 2) He came to the the narrators house to look at Marie when she is sick. He is known as a war hero of world war II because as a doctor he saved many injured soldiers.
 * 3) Before the narrator's knowledge of Frank raping indian women, he looks up to him as a figure in which almost anyone would like to be. pg.46. The narrator's grandfather idolizes his son Frank for all of his accomplishments. pg. 37. Marie knows that Frank is not the person everyone thinks he is and that is why she doesn't want a doctor. Pg 30-31.

"But what I did was not important. Out of town I could simply //be,// I could feel my //self,// firm and calm and unmalleable as I could not when I was in school or in any of the usual human communities that seemed to weaken or scatter me." (Watson 24)
 * • Interesting Passages (at least two passages, cited in proper MLA format)**

"'That's right. Why? Are you telling me this because I'm Frank's brother? Because I'm your husband? Because I'm Marie's employer?' He paused. 'Or because I'm the sheriff?' 'I'm telling //you,// Wes. I'm just telling //you.// Why? What part of you doesn't want to hear it?' 'I wish,' my father said, 'I wish you wouldn't have told the sheriff.'" (Watson 48)

"That was when it came to me. Uncle Frank was my father's brother, and my father knew him as well as any man or woman. And my father knew he was guilty" (Watson 54)

1. Why did his dad take the Job? 2. Why did his grandfather leave it for his dad? 3. Some one is going to do some thing where he has to pick the right thing or his family 4. If he has the qualifications to be a successful lawyer why doesn’t he leave and become one? 5. Do you think his father was scared of his grandfather? 6. Is one of the reasons why he wont be a lawyer is because of his dad? 7. He not going to leave to become a lawyer he going to stay a cop. 8. Some thing bad is going to happen soon.
 * • Questions/ Predictions you have:**


 * • Connections to modern life or your personal life

If today someone openly knew about someone else blatantly raping girls it would be a huge issue/concern.

There really aren't many small-town sheriffs anymore, like the Narrator's dad. You guys did a really nice job compiling information. In future posts be sure to use MLA citations (author page number) whenever you are using textual evidence. Keep up the good work. 19/20. **

Part Two
"Or I imagined that the wide porch was the deck of a ship and the surrounding prairie the limitless sea." (Watson 69)
 * • Imagery/ Symbolism**

"'If you don't like wind,' Grandfather replied, 'you don't like Montana. Because it blows here 360 days a year. Better get used to it.'" (Watson 70) (*Imagery)

"Their bedsprings squeaked rhythmically; I thought I could hear breathing- a sounds spreading through the house as if it were more than sound, as if it were a presence, like perfume, like darkness itself." (Watson 78)

"He was teetering on a branch, his black feathers glistening like oil and his long tail wavering to steady him in the wind." (Watson 81)


 * • Interesting Passages (at least two passages, cited in proper MLA format)**

"I felt strangely calm, as if I had been in a state of high agitation but had now come down, my pulse returned to normal, my breathing slowed, my vision cleared. I needed that, I thought; I hadn't even known it but I needed to kill something." (Watson 81)

"Looking in the dead bird's eye, I realized that these strange, unthought-of connections- sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation-are there, there, deep in even a good heart's chambers." (Watson 82)

"Besides, he was going to face more grief, and this room held all I could handle." (Watson 90)

"The room felt close, full, as though someone else was getting the oxygen I needed." (Watson 95)


 * • Questions/ Predictions you have:**
 * 1) Do you think that his dad will turn his uncle in or will he cover up for him?
 * 2) Do you think that people are upset about Marie’s death?
 * 3) Do you think that there will be an investigation on Marie’s death?
 * 4) What do you think will be the next be thing to happen in the town?
 * 5) I think another key point in the story is coming soon and it is going to stun the town.
 * 6) I think that his dad is going to cover it up for his brother because they are family.
 * 7) Do you think his father should leave and become a lawyer?
 * 8) Do you think that the family with ever leave this rural community?

Dan: ** On pg. 57, David says how his mother loves honey and as soon as I read that, I thought of my father. My father could probably live off honey if he needed to and he puts it on a whole bunch of random things. On Pg. 76, David talks about how his Aunt Gloria talks throughout the whole meal. My Aunt Holly is the exact same way. Every time we go to dinner with her or she is over our house, she talks the entire time. She just loves to talk non-stop.
 * • Connections to modern life or your personal life

**Part Three**

"Though if it was up to me, I'd probably just let it go. Let it go right down to the bare wood. If I had my way, I'd let every house in town go. Let the sun bake'em and the north wind freeze'em until there isn't a town with a spot of paint on it. You'd see this town from a distance and it would look like nothing but firewood and gray stone." (Watson 113)
 * • Imagery/ Symbolism**

"Wesley Hayden and his son were coming with scrapers, sandpaper, paintbrushes and white paint, paint whiter than any bones bleaching out there on the Montana prairie." (Watson 113)

"I crouched down by the register, slowly eased open the metal flap so it wouldn't rattke ir squeak, and laid my ear against the grate." (Watson 117)

"The voices below were going on without me, like a furnace that doesn't care if anyone is there to feel its heat or not." (Watson 121)

"I almost believed that. I almost believed my father had taken his brother to a corner of the basement and- and what? Strangled him? Clubbed him? Shot him with a pistol equipped with a silencer? He had somehow killed him soundlessly." (Watson 109)
 * • Interesting Passages (at least two passages, cited in proper MLA format)**

Interesting because this point of view is coming from a twelve year old boy and he is fantasizing about his father violently killing another family member.

"I began to feel at once dizzy and ashamed and sick because this time, with Loretta, the thought of how Uncle Frank may have abused her did not disgust and anger me as it had with Miss Schott, but stirred me sexually." (Watson 129)

It's odd and sad that this young boy is seeing his Uncle's actions at such a young age because it may very well have a long-term effect on him.


 * • Questions/ Predictions you have:**
 * 1) Why did the grandpa bring guns to the house?
 * 2) Why did they lock uncle frank in the basement?
 * 3) When they locked him in the basement why didn’t they have some one watching him?
 * 4) Why did uncle Frank kill himself?
 * 5) Why didn’t some one go down there earlier to check on him?
 * 6) Why didn’t they take him to the jail first before putting him in the basement
 * 7) Do you think uncle frank had more skeletons in his closet or he just didn’t want to go to jail?

Dan: ** On pg. 110, David’s dad asks him if he understands but he really gives him no option but to say that he understands. I feel parents often do this and that no matter what they say you have to agree with them. I can think of several occasions where I had to go along with my mother or father even though I knew that they were completely wrong.
 * • Connections to modern life or your personal life

On pg. 113, David’s grandfather gives him advice in a way. Before my grandfather passed, he was the exact same way. He would always give me advice and tell stories and he could go on with these kinds of things forever. He loved to talk and I feel that most old people love to talk.