MLA Journal Help
Bone Girl
By Joseph Bruchac
Incorrect Format
• When you do your MLA Journal please do not
number the entries. For example, do not
write:
• 1. “Bone Girl.” Looking at Literature: Twelve
Short Stories, a Play, and a Novel. Ed. Yvonne
Collioud Sisko. New York: Pearson, 2006. 7277.
• 2. The main characters are the narrator,
Russell Painter and the ghost, The Bone Girl.
Correct Format
• Instead, your MLA Journal should flow, like an
actual journal entry For example:
“Bone Girl.” Looking at Literature: Twelve Short
Stories, a Play, and a Novel. Ed. Yvonne Collioud
Sisko. New York: Pearson, 2006. 72-77.
There are two main characters in the short
story: the narrator, Russell Painter and the ghost,
The Bone Girl. We never meet the supporting
characters in the short story who include the
narrator’s creative writing instructor, his nephew
Tommy and his friends, and his wife Mary.
Setting
• Remember what we talked about before we read the
story. The last stories we read were all about
character. This section is all about….what?
SETTING! That’s right.
• Look at question 4. Where does this story
take place? Read the first 4 lines of the story
on page 72, that’s the major part of the
setting. Could this story happen ANYWHERE
ELSE & BE THE SAME STORY? Of course not….
Sequence
• This is a hard story to sequence because the
narrator tells the story in circles. He says he
does this because that’s how Indians tell
stories.
• Just because he tells stories in circles, doesn’t
mean we will.
• The story happens in a line. He tells it in a
circle.
Sequence
Use these questions to help you as you write your sequence.
Don’t just write the answers down as your sequence!!!
• What does the narrator introduce first by
comparing them?
• What story about his nephew and friends
does he tell?
• How is the narrator telling us this story?
(remember he’s in a creative writing class)
• Why does the narrator’s wife leave him?
• Who does the narrator meet on his way
home?
Sequence
• What does he think about the girl as he’s
walking with her?
• Where do he and the girl go?
• What happens when he tries to kiss the girl?
• Who does the narrator think the bone girl is?
• Why is this important?
Plot
• Keep it simple and accurate. Write a one to
two sentence summary of Bone Girl.
Conflict
• What’s the problem here? It’s unusual (it
has nothing to do with Indians being moved to
reservations by the white man!).
Think about what Russell Painter said that
Indian ghosts do for the living.
(hint: look on page 75, bottom of paragraph 8-that’s
not the exact conflict, but it tells you a lot about the
conflict—think about it!)
Significant Quotations
• “But even with that, I don’t think that Indian
ghosts are outsiders”().
• This has got to be an easy one for you-think
about the conflict. Think about how his
experience with the bone girl changes his
behavior—he stops drinking. Think about the
difference between Indian ghosts & white ghosts,
who are restless because white people never stay
“put.” So they’re never connected. THINK 
Significant Quotations
• “I think it is because Indians stay put and
white people keep moving around” ().
• Hmmmmm! Wow, seems like we’ve heard
these ideas before. When the Indians stay
put, who do they stay connected with? When
the white people move around, who do they
lose their connection with? Why might that
be important, in your opinion? In the
narrator’s opinion?
Significant Quotations
• “Huh?’ his friend answered. ‘I don’t know
what you mean. The guys are all here’”().
• Why did the narrator tell this story? What had
his nephew Tommy seen before he called the
guys? If it wasn’t the guys who is the narrator
suggesting it was? What lesson was Tommy
being taught?
Significant Quotations
• “Come on, honey, you want a drink, huh?” ().
• Who is asking whom for a drink? What is the
situation here? Why is it important? What is
about to happen to the character?
Significant Quotations
• “I dropped the bottle and let go of her” ().
• Who dropped what bottle and let go of who?
Why is this important? What lesson was the
speaker being taught? How does this fit into
the bigger message of the story?