Clue 2

Jesus is God, a part of God, and was with God when the world was created. He created everything. John came and spread the word about the light (Jesus) to people on Earth, but he was not the light. He wasn't received by his own (us) when he came on the Earth. But those who did receive him became Children of God. Grace and truth come through him, and make God known to us.

These details describe the rising action to Christ's life. He's born, unaccepted by the people of our world, but there are some who believe. He preaches about God to the people.

1. The exposition is when the story starts, and we get to see who the characters are and an introduction to the main problem. Then during the rising action, complications stick onto the problem. At the climax, the main character makes a choice or a change, and through that the problem is resolved. During the falling action, all knots are tied and the problem is no more. Resolution is the end, the last words, the happily ever after.

2. Stories need to be structured in a way that has a clear beginning, middle and end. The beginning has to hook us and start off slow and easy. Then the middle has to be interesting and draw us along to the end, where there should be a satisfying ending, or a cliffhanger for a next book. Without organization and structure, stories are a big mess and no one can understand them. If the end is at the beginning, it would be so confusing. If the climax was at the beginning and the complications were all solved by the middle of the story, no one would want to read the rest. When the structure is not there, we don't enjoy the story anymore and just feel confused and lost. As humans we need to construct understanding because we don't like not knowing and not understanding something. Humans seem to want to know everything. To us, knowledge is power. And so, we don't like finding something that's confusing and complex when it's supposed to be so simple.

3. I personally didn't have any expectations for the story. I didn't have any guesses, any predictions as I went along, nothing. And so I wasn't exactly sure what all the stuff about memories and innocence and compassion was at the beginning. And as I kept reading, the part where Lizabeth pulls out the marigolds and has this eye-opening experience with Miss Lottie was just a part of the story. But later as I looked back at the story to make the plot graph of Marigolds, I saw that that part is actually the height of the story: the climax. Lizabeth had found a change in herself as she realized she wasn't an innocent child anymore. Through her immature way of letting out her feelings, she had found compassion for another. Now, the beginning was about: 1) feelings, 2) innocence and compassion, and 3) memories. TADA. The beginning had given us a little taste and a heads-up for the climax. I just didn't realize it because I didn't have any predictions as I read (or you could call it not actively reading ;P) It was because I had to make and see the plot graph for Marigolds that I saw this in the story.

4. The theme of the story is that people lose their innocence as they gain compassion, for once you have compassion for others, there is no innocence. Children are innocent; they don't realize the things they do make a difference to other people. Compassion is when you see anothers' pain and hurt and have the urge to help them. Since innocence requires not realizing others' pain, you can't possibly be innocent and compassionate at once. The structure of the story makes this evident, for it was at the climax when the main character realizes her change from innocent child to compassionate woman. As she hurts Miss Lottie, she sees something in her eyes that she hadn't noticed before. She gains compassion for her, and she sees that because she has compassion, she has lost her innocence. This change is what made the climax the climax, and so the structure of the story shows that clearly.