Name:Eliana Salinas

Date: 2/20/17
Person # in Group: 4

Little Tree Jigsaw Notes Sheet

1. Chapter Title: Little Tree

Point:
The point of this chapter was to establish the plot, setting, and characters, allowing a foundation
for the entire story to be built and the reader to feel acquainted and comfortable with its
happenings.

Illustration:
“He stood above the rest of the folks; tall, six-foot-four with his big, black hat and shiny, black
suit that was only worn to church and funerals. Granma had kept her eyes to the ground, but
Granpa had looked at me, over the crowd, and so I had edged to him across the yard and held
onto his leg and wouldn't turn loose even when they tried to take me away.

Explanation:
This passage clearly illustrates the characters, setting, and plot in a sly showing not telling
manner laiden with descriptive and strong imagery. The importance of the protagonist’s
grandparents is established with the amount of time spent describing his actions with them and
the sentiment they each hold, Granma more reserved and Granpa still quiet but seeming to have
more power and wisdom. The setting and plot of a funeral and his mother dying is established in
the last sentence of the passage in which he talks about looking “over the crowd” and not turning
loose “even when they tried to take [him] away.” The sense of admiration he displays for his
grandfather is also telling of a strong and if not, at least significant relationship with him in the
following chapters.

Rhetorical Term: Personification

“And i could hear the wind talking, and Lay-nah, the spring branch, singing about me and telling
all my brothers (Carter, 5)”.

Definition of rhetorical term:

Personification: giving characteristics of life to inanimate objects.

Effect of rhetorical term:

Carter’s use of personification in this sentence pronounces the profound and deep sentiment the
protagonist boy is experiencing in being pronounced the Little Tree. It emphasizes the
connection he begins to feel with the nature around him by giving it the human characteristics of
being able to sing and be familiarly related to the boy.

2. Chapter Title: The Secret Place p. 60

Point:
This chapter was written, in my opinion, to illustrate the importance of introspective reflection in
the midst of the steady stream of chaos that comes throughout all one's life, with a special
emphasis on deciphering and deepening one’s personal connection and interpretation of nature.
This passage shows a great amount of traditional concepts and beliefs for the native characters
providing a neat perspective on the importance of reflection, something oftentimes blown over
and disregarded in modern white culture.

Illustration:
“Granma said I could watch some of how it worked from my secret place. In the spring when
everything is born (and always, when anything is born, even an idea), there's fret and fuss.
Their’s spring storms like a baby borning in blood and pain. Granma said it was the spirits
kicking up a fuss at having to get back into material forms again (Carter, 60)”.

Explanation:
The title itself is a symbol of one's place in which they can go and be reflective and away from
the chaos be it physical or mental. In one passage, Little Tree talks of his grandma's belief of
everyone having two minds, which regardless if that was stated as a physical belief or an
analogy, the latter being more likely, it demonstrates the importance they hold in separating
personal reflection and one's true emotional state from the general chaos of life. Ppl trying to
pretend they love things when they don't understand. A key aspect of this chapter is the use of
seasons as models for humans tendencies to fluctuate in emotional well being and degrees of
growth. This is so significant because it models the value they hold their connection with nature,
as portrayed through the amount of attention they find needed in connecting with the trees.
Building upon this principle of belief, a story of an Indian who feels concerned and sympathetic
of a certain tree’s pain which goes on to be chopped down along with many others alludes to the
closeness of the conservation and respect of nature in an even deeper and more modernly
applicable manner.

Rhetorical Term: Asyndeton

Sentence from the chapter:
I would go far up the spring branch, wading the clear water, bending low through the green
feather curtains of the weeping willows that hung down, trailing branch tips in the current”
(Carter, 57).

Definition of Asyndeton: the deliberate omission of conjugations in sentence construction in

which they would normally be used.

Effect of rhetorical term:

The use of asyndeton adds a degree of depth and drama to Little Tree’s fantasy of exploring the
spring branch that would not be possible with a standard syntax structure involving the use of
“and” before the final listed action.

3. Chapter Title: Granpa’s Trade

Point:
This passage is about having immense pride and care in what you do whatever it be. In this case,
for Little Tree and Granpa it’s making whiskey but this moral is alluded to in the beginning
when talking about a few other trades such as being a tailor in which one can have pride in their
work or not, therefore stating that no matter the trade anyone can be bad and anyone can excel,
it’s just a matter of effort and care.

Illustration:
“Granpa said such fellers ought to be hung. Granpa said you could make bad judgements about
any trade, giving it a bad name, if you judged by the worst that was carrying on the trade”
(Carter 65).

Explanation:
The anger and sarcasm in the first sentence of this passage displays Granpa’s immense pride in
his method and final product of is trade in making whiskey. The passage then builds into
capturing the message of the chapter that it is up to the individual doing the “trade” or task to
make it good or bad, that each individual is different and will put in different amounts of effort
with different methods such as the those of Granpa and Little Tree thoroughly described in this
chapter, all of which are factors into the final quality of the product.

Rhetorical Term: anecdote

Sentence from the chapter (with citation):
“In 1930, when I was five years old, a bushel of corn sold for twenty-five cents; that is, if you
could find anybody that would buy a bushel of corn. Which wasn't likely. Even if it had sold for
ten dollars a bushel, me and Grandpa could not have made a living at it. Our corn patch was too
little (Carter, 64).”

Definition of rhetorical term: a short narrative of an incident; often used for humorous effect or
as grounds.

Effect of rhetorical term:

This short anecdote about prices of bushels of corn creatively sets up the grounds of a more
lengthy story of making whiskey. The anecdote creates a solid foundation that Little Tree and
Granpa were not rich, for their corn patch was small, but that the patch did in fact have some
significance to him as he decided to include a short story about their standing in regard to that
industry. Later on, this anecdote is circled back to in an artful way making the fact that they
made a whopping two dollars a gallon of their whiskey product from their corn patch much more
impressive and evoking a deeper sense of pride in their work.