“The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”

By Mark Twain

What is a FRAME NARRATIVE?

In a nutshell, a frame narrative is a “story within a story.”

Shorter Story

Story

Examples of FRAME NARRATIVES...

• Titanic – (the movie) The story of “Old Rose” revisiting the site of the Titanic “bookends” the love story of Jack and “Young Rose” onboard the ship in 1912.

• Forrest Gump – Forrest (in the present) is telling his life story (of Forrest in the past) to various citizens on the park bench.

• Can you think of any others?

DIRECTIONS

Create the double box diagram.

As you read:

In the outer box, summarize the “outer” story.

In the inner box, summarize the “inner” story (the story being told within the story).

Local Color and Regional Dialect

Regional Dialect Ex. “Thish-yer”        

StandardEnglish

Ex. This here        

Local Color- the use in a literary work of characters and details unique to a particular geographic area

Regional Dialect- language specific to a particular area of the country

(Put examples in regional dialect dictionary chart from the story)

Animals

Animal Deceptive characteristics that made people think it would lose.

How the animal won bets for Jim

Fifteen-minute Nag

Andrew Jackson

Dan’l Webster

Literary terms

Term Definition Example from Story

Characterization act of creating and developing a character

Point of view perspective from which a story is told

Personification a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

Simile comparison using like or as

Stereotype thought that may be adopted

about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things

Satire Writing that ridicules or critizes

POST-READING…

Questions

Which stereotypes lead to satire? Explain.

Which are larger than life characters? Explain.

How does vernacular and exaggeration add to the humor? Explain.

How does the regional dialect highlight the differences in the characters? Explain.

Grammar Focus •Double negatives are created by using two negative words in a sentence where only one is needed. In effect, two negatives cancel each other out, thereby changing the intended meaning of a sentence. Double negatives are not accepted in Standard English, but they do appear in some regional dialects.

Here, Simon Wheeler speaks with a double negative:  Examples: “…he hadn’t no opportunities to speak of…”

“there couldn’t be no solit’ry thing mentioned but that feller’d offer to bet on it…”

Practice: Rewrite the following sentences from the story, revising them to eliminate double negatives.

1. Why, it never made no difference to him…  2. …you couldn’t fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match you.  3. …maybe you’ve had experience and maybe you ain’t only a amature.  4. ...it warn’t no use—he couldn’t budge.  5. …a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail… 

Optional extension activity…

Go to Mrs. Campbell’s website under Origami Frog Instructions to make an origami frog to “race” in class FRIDAY

Winner receives a special prize!