27th Blog (DigLitCircs Discussion #2 Summary)

Hello again. I was the host for the second Ottawa-Oshawa Digital Literature Circles discussion for Sketches by Eric Walters, and I now have to summarize the discussion, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it.


In the second discussion for Sketches by Eric Walters, we had a total of thirty comments and here's what went down. Everyone had a lot of great responses, and I thank Andrianna, Arianna, Karran, Haneen, Sara and Hannah for contributing! 


At first, Haneen said that Ashley was being selfish when she found out that Dana gave the Chicken McNuggets to the stray cat, and Karran and I agreed, however Sara disagreed. She thought it was Brent that said she shouldn't have fed the cat which was true. Hannah re-read the section of the book where that happened, page 45, and she agreed with Sara. Hannah read page 46, and suggested that Ashley was being selfish, but it wasn't about the cat. Brent asked Dana if she ever stole anything and Ashley said that Dana didn't have time to steal anything since she was too busy taking piano and tap dance lessons. These were all good points.

I talked about the new words I found such as zine, saunter, squat and mangy, so if people didn't know those words, now they knew. Also, Haneen pointed out that learning new vocabulary is an excellent part of reading.

Haneen asked if we were any one of the characters in the book, who would you be? Karran said that he would be a mix of Brent and Dana, Sara would be Ashley, Hannah would be like Dana, Arianna made us laugh by wanting to be Pumpkin but then she said that if she really had to pick, she would be Dana, Haneen would be confident like Ashley, courageous and aware like Brent and sweet and caring like Dana, and Andrianna and I were undecided.

Andrianna also predicted that if any of those three had not ran away and they met before, they wouldn't be friends at all, because they have nothing really in common except for the fact that they are out living on the streets of Downtown Toronto. Maybe Brent and Ashley would be friends, but not Dana. Hannah also asked why Brent, Ashley and Dana won't stay at a shelter, and Sara thought they felt that an abandoned place would be safer than a shelter.


My question was: In this section, we met Spencer, Anna and their dog Squat, and in the beginning of the second section, Dana was petting a stray cat, and giving the cat the rest of her Chicken McNuggets. The young people have very miniscule amounts of food out on the streets of Downtown Toronto, but they're very caring to animals like Squat and the stray cat, why do you think that is? We thought that people out on the streets, such as Dana, Spencer or Anna care for stray animals while they're trying to survive because they are generous and were being empathetic. They can understand what the animals are going through, and felt like the animals needed care as much as they did. Also, people like Spencer and Anna have Squat because it's like raising their own kid. Also, animals want to feel loved too, and people caring for animals will kind of be like a distraction to missing your loved ones back home. Animals will love and always be there for you no matter what. Stray animals might look a little rough, but they have a heart on the inside.  

There you have it, that's my summary. Please feel free to comment about any of the Sketches discussion, and stay tuned for what's coming up. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!