Gabriela Del Valle

Timed Writing Q3
March 5th, 2019
Period: 4th

In the beginning of the excerpt of the novel ​Under the Feet of Jesus, ​the audience starts

to figure out who Estrella is and what is her purpose in the novel. It can be seen from early on in

the excerpt that Estrella is a very curious girl, who is from a different country and wants to know

everything around her. Whether it is at her house or at school. She is constantly asking ‘What is

this?’ Her tone when she is asking what is this is very curious. She sounds like a child who was

put into a new place and the only thing she knows how to say is ‘what is this.’ By the end of the

excerpt we learn that she now is wanting to read. This shows that in the beginning she was

trying to get other to explain what something is to her so she understands, but at the end she

starts wanting to read on her own, so she can figure out things around her herself and she

doesn’t have to ask for help.

The first sentence of the excerpt is “What is this” and this initially shows the readers that

Estrella is very curious about everything around her. She admits that she she doesn’t like things

hidden from her, so that is why she is constantly asking “what is this”, because she doesn’t want

to things to be kept from her, she wants to know everything. She then opens a tool box and

starts describing the tools in it by how she sees it. On line 4 it says. “She had opened the tool

chest and all that jumbled steel inside the box, the iron bars and things with handles, the

funny-shaped objects, seemed as confusing and foreign as the alphabet she could not

decipher.” This shows what knowledge this girl has and how she views things she doesn’t know.

She used a simile to explain how confusing and weird all the things in the tool box were to her.

She started to get angry because she didn’t know what was in the tool box except for tools but
she didn’t know what they did or what they were called and she got mad for not knowing and no

one is telling her. She then says, “The tool chest stood guard by the door and she slammed the

lid on the secret.” The author calls the tool box a secret because to Estrella, she believes she is

being kept from knowing everything in the tool box.

Later on in the excerpt, Estrella’s teacher, Mrs. Horn, asked her “How come your mama

never gave you a bath?” This question made Estrella feel very sad and upset by the words Mrs.

Horn just said to her because she never realized she wasn’t clean or smelled bad. This was the

first time something negative was said to her and it pained her. On line 38 it says, “for the first

time, Estrella realized words could become as excutatting as rusted nails piercing the heels of

her bare feet. ” This made Estrella think that not everything someone says or writes is going to

be good and happy. The author used another simile to show how painful Mrs. Horn’s question

was to Estrella and how much it changed her way of thinking. This was the first time negative

words were said to her and it showed her that there are new things to find out about words and

how they are said to people. This shows the development of her character because in the

beginning, she thought that people would just answer her question about what something was

and she would learn something new, but after Mrs. Horn asked her if she ever got a shower,

she realized that not everything that comes out of a person's mouth would be nice and

knowledgeable to her.

Finally at the end of the excerpt the readers see how Estrella changed from the

beginning of the excerpt to the end of the excerpt. At the end, the readers find out about another

character named Perfecto Flores. He was the one who used the tools. He made things for other

and he was very good at it. Estrella would try to help him out and he would start teaching her

about the different tools in the tool box and what they did. He starts to explain to her how to do

things like to take hinge pins out of the hinge joints when you want to remove a door. He would
explain this all to her and by the end of the excerpt, she knew all the tools names and what they

did. On line 61 it states, “Perfecto Flores taught her the names that went with the tools: a claw

hammer, he said with authority, miming its functions; screwdrivers, see, holding up various

heads and pointing them out.” This shows the difference of the description of the tools in the

beginning of the excerpt to the end of the excerpt. The readers see how much Estrella has

grown from a little girl asking what is this and pointing out funny looking tools, to someone who

knows all the names and what they do. On line 70 it states, “She lifted the pry bar in her hands,

felt the coolness of iron and power of function, weighted the significance it awarded her, and

soon she came to understand how essential it was t know all these things. That was when she

began to read”. This shows how Estrella developed over the excerpt because now instead of

asking other for help on what something is, she is going to start reading herself so she will know

these things and won’t have to ask for help because she is going to be reading herself and

helping herself. The readers see the difference in the first description of the tools to last second

description at the end of the tools and it shows that she is learning and developing into an

independent women.

In conclusion, Estrella started out as a little girl who was very curious on things and

hated things kept from her, so she constantly asked other to explain something to her and is she

didn't know it, show would get mad, but as she found things out like words can hurt and what all

the tools in the tool box were, she realized that she wanted to read in order to understand

everything around her without the help of other. She grew as someone who asked for help into

someone who found the answers herself.