THE SCARLET LETTER JOURNAL PROMPTS

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS State your feelings, thoughts, reactions, and questions about situations, ideas, actions, characters, settings, symbols, plots, themes, and any other elements in the story. You can't be wrong in your responses, so take risks and be honest. Write about what you like and dislike, what seems confusing or unusual to you. Tell what you think something means. Make predictions about what might happen later. Relate your personal experiences which connect with the plot, characters, or setting. Don't just summarize the plot. Let me hear your voice. Remember your response journal is a place to record your reactions and questions, not a place to simply summarize what you've read.

JOURNAL PROMPTS – CH. 1-3 Ch. 1: But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-hush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. Ch. 2: In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. Ch. 2: The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it Ch. 3: What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin?

QUOTE COMMENTARY JOURNAL On this side of the chart, copy down the passage that you chose to comment on. Indicate: the chapter situation and character who is being described or who is speaking if there are no indications in the quote. On this side of the chart, explain: why you selected this passage what its importance or significance is Your reaction or thoughts about this statement This commentary needs to be at least four sentences long. EXAMPLE: At the end of chapter 2, Hester’s thoughts on the scaffold are described, “Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes these were her realities--all else had vanished!” Hester’s mindset that the only reality was her shame is the sort of defeatist attitude that makes me feel like she is not, as some like to portray her, the first “American heroine.” Instead of rising above or moving on, she shouldered the entire responsibility of the community’s judgment. She does not appear to functioning under religious conviction, but rather social martyrdom as her guiding principal. Why raise your daughter in this atmosphere? I would not offer Hester as role model to young woman.

JOURNAL STARTERS Use these sentence starters if you are stuck on how to begin quote commentary

ROLE PLAY Think about how The Scarlet Letter would be different if one of the other characters, such as Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth or Pearl, were the narrator. Re-write a passage (paraphrase) from the story from the first person perspective of one of these other characters. This journal entry must be at least two paragraphs long. Indicate the page number of the passage you are rewriting.

ROLE PLAY – KEY MOMENTS IN THE STORY 1.Hester on the scaffold, ch. 2, page 52 2.Chillingworth visiting Hester in jail, ch. 4, page 65 3.Governor Bellingham instigating taking Peal from Hester, ch. 8, page 98 4.Chillingworth’s discover, ch. 10, page Dimmesdale ascending the platform, ch. 12, page Dimmesdale, Hester & Pearl on the scaffold at night, ch. 12, page The “new view” of Hester, ch. 13, page Dimmesdale & Hester in the forest, ch , page Hester & Dimmesdale prepare to leave, ch. 20, page Dimmesdale, Hester & Pearl on the scaffold at daytime, ch. 23, page 220

QUOTE IDENTIFICATION PRACTICE 1."Wondrous strength arid generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!“ Who said this? 2.“Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live--than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life--so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?” Who said this? 3.“Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?” Who is the speaker talking to? 4."He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Mr. Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart!“ Who said this? 5.“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." Who is being spoken about? 6.“Do anything, save to lie down and die!” Who yells these words? 7.“What a strange, sad man is he!" … "In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder!” Who speaks these words?

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