Review in class

I understand everything that we have been over so far.  I would like to go briefly back over the literary elements so that I will remember to mark them in LOTF, and so that as we get closer to exams, there will be less to have to go over, so I am not in a rush.  I understand all of them, I would just like to review them again.

I would also like to review literacy narratives and traits of writing.  I think that if we review those, it would really help everybody on papers.  I think that is we review the thesis again, it would have a huge affect on our papers.  I think that if the thesis is good, the paper would essentially be good, because that paper is based off of the thesis.

I really understood everything.  I think that they were all explained very well, but if would probably be beneficial to everyone to review some of the bigger topics again, just to make sure we completely understand them and use them in our annotations in LOTF.


Reading Minutes:
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
11/12- 22: Chapters 1-5; 95 pages; 1.5 hours

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
11/14: 194 pages; close to 3 hours
11/15: 122 pages; 2.5 hours approx.
11/16: 109 pages; 2.15 hours
11/17: 175 pages; close to 3 hours

Chapter 5

In Chapter 5 of Lord of the Flies, Ralph calls an assembly.  He plans to have complete control over what goes on during the meeting and achieve order that can be used throughout their stay on the island. The meeting starts off as planned, but as it continues and the kids get tired of all the talking, things start to get out of hand. They get less and less accomplished as people start of fight and argue.  Eventually, the meeting ends and everyone runs off to do their own thing.

This chapter really shows how much power Ralph actually has and how much Jack really dislikes him. Ralph has more power than any other single person.  His has little control over everyone else though, which minimizes his power.  They respect him enough to listen for a few minutes and do what he says for a minute or so.  But after a while, they get restless or bored and they don't do what they were told to.  Ralph makes it so that if they do something wrong, nothing happens.  Piggie knows that Ralph needs to show his power but making the others listen to what he has to say and actually do it.  His power has been "thwarted" when he built the shelters and nobody helped, when nobody was caring for the fire, and when even something as simple as to where they should go to the bathroom.  Ralph gets aggravated easily and would like help, but realizes that nobody will help him other than a select few.  He wants to use the assembly to make things work more smoothly and get people to help him, and therefore have a better, happier life.  Things don't work as easily as he hopes because nobody is really willing to listen to him for long, let alone carry out their tasks.

Jack really hate Ralph.  He wants Ralph's place and power and respect.  He sees himself as the ultimate best.  He thinks that he is perfect and is better than everyone else in everything.  He values singing over the best ways to survive and get rescued.  He believes that he should be chief because he can sing.  This would not ever help anybody get off the island.  The big difference between Jack and Ralph and what makes Ralph a better leader is that Jack acts without thinking and doesn't think of the big picture.  He only thinks about what he wants to do and how to achieve it, whether it would help them survive or not.  He values killing a pig more than the fire and the ship that could have gotten them off the island.  Jack doesn't really seem to realize that that might have been the only ship that would every come by there, and therefore their only chance of being rescued.  Ralph seems to realize this.  He sees what a problem this is and wants to fix it.  This shows that Ralph thinks more of the big picture rather than the individual actions and problems.  Ralph acts more like the adult rather than Jack, who acts more like a kid. THis gains Ralph respect, but also makes people not as keen to have him as their leader, like Jack.  Jack want to have fun and not worry about every little thing.

Chapter 4

In Chapter 4 of Lord of the Flies, the kids catch sight of a ship and realize to late that that might be their ticket off the island.  Ralph runs up to the top of the mountain because the fire isn't producing smoke.  He realizes that the fire tenders have forgotten to keep the fire going and it went out.  He is extremely annoyed with Jack and his men because they were supposed to keep it going.  When Jack apologies and Ralph doesn't except that apology, the boys start second-guessing themselves about whether Jack or Ralph would be the better leader.

Ralph seems to be immature and unforgiving when he doesn't accept Jacks apology about the fire to the boys.  They start thinking that Jack might be the better leader because when he apologizes, he shows that he is mature and forgiving.  In the boys's eyes, this would be better.  Ralph does not forgive Jack for letting the fire die because he knows that that ship might be the only one that ever goes that close to the island.  He knows that that might have been their only chance at being rescued.  Just saying "I'm sorry" doesn't change the fact that that was a terrible mistake that cannot happen again.  In the younger boys' eyes, this is being mean and unfair, which would make them not at sure about their choice of a leader.

Lord of the Flies Chapter 2 and 3

In chapters 2 and 3, the characters change drastically.  In the beginning, they are all terrified and had no idea what to do, so they elect a leader on his looks, his height, and his horn.  Then throughout the story, the boys realize the things they need to survive, like food, clean water, and shelter.  They start to prioritize those and try to gather meat.  They also turn more animal like.  They don't wear shirts or shoes and they are tan with long, light colored hair.

Jack and Ralph change the most.  They both feel the pressure of leadership and the challenges the island sends at them.  Jack especially changes.  When the plane first crashed, Jack was a civilized young boy who was snobby and thought he was the best at everything.  After a few weeks, he is tan and almost animal like.  He crawls on the ground and and sniffs everything.  He uses his senses more than he originally did, and he has trouble with his self esteem.  Jack is extremely focused on killing a pig.  This focus had blinded him from seeing anything else.  He was not able to see the other things needed to survive and was so focused on the pig he neglected to think clearly and was sometimes unkind to Ralph.  Ralph was more human than Jack was. He realized that they really need shelter, but his is also blind to other needs.  He is extremely uptight about his leadership and realizes that nobody is helping get the things for surviving other than Simon and Jack.  Both of the boys are blind to other things that are needed to survive because they are so caught up in their own tasks.  They are also in a love hate relationship with each other.  Jack really wants to be the powerful figure that Ralph is.  Ralph and Jack are almost competing with each other for the position.  At times, they remember the things they did together in the beginning, and they get along for a few seconds.  Both boys also have to deal with the younger kids and their fears.  They are all scared of the "beasty".  They have heard these fears so many times that sometimes, Jack says he feels like he is being watched.  This is said numerous times throughout the chapter by different characters.  They all feel like they are being watched, and it freaks them out.

Lord of the Flies chapter 1

In Chapter 1of Lord of the Flies, Piggie and Ralph find each other on a deserted island.  They had crashed on a plane filled with other kids.  They knew all the adults were dead, but didn't know about the rest of the kids.  They find a shell and try to call other survivors to them.  It works.  The other survivors all come to the beach, and they elect a leader.  Ralph is elected and him and two other boys go to explore the area and see if they are actually on an island.  They find they are, and on their way back, the find a pig, but don't have the heart of kill it.  They return with no food only information that they are on an island.

I think that the fact that a boy's name is Piggie, and in the first chapter there is a pig that they almost killed foreshadows a death.  Piggie will probably die.  I think that Jack will kill him.  When Jack says that next time there will be no mercy towards a pig, I think it foreshadows Jack killing Piggie for food when they are desperate.

I think that at first, the boys will have fun playing survivor, but once they start to face the challenges the island throws at them, they will realize that it is not as much fun as it seems.  All the boys seem to think that they will only be there for a few days, and that it won't be to hard to play survivor for those days.  I think that they will end up being stuck on the island for weeks and maybe even months.  The fact that they don't realize this shows that the book is written in 3rd person omniscient because the reader doesn't really know any more than the characters know.  I am only making logical guesses.

I think that this will turn out to be a very good book with a good lesson tied into it.  The author seems to be a "survival of the fittest" type of person rather than a "everyone helps everyone to survive" type of person.  This will influence the outcome of the book, which will most likely result in the death of a loved character.

Surviving

As soon as our class got the assignment to try to "survive" with no grownups after our plane crashed, we all got really excited.  We had no grown ups to tell us what to do and no rules that we had to follow.  We all started talking about what we should do and how we should function.  We split unintentionally into thirds.  One third was a monarchy, one third was a democracy, and one third was a "kingdom" with four rulers.  Everyone was talking at once.  It was hard to know what was really going on.  Nobody had complete control over everybody else, and no official disision were made.  Also, we never thought about what we needed.  We fist started thinking about what type of government we would have, then we started thinking about rulers, and then we started thinking about fantasy football.  None of us ever even thought about food or water or shelter.  We never thought about what we would need to survive.  At the moment, that was ok, but in the long run, that could become a problem and cause us to have trouble surviving.  We really needed to think more about the essentials to survival rather than football and take care of those first, and then we could worry about entertainment.



Gracleling by Kristin Cashore
11/5/12- 184 pages; 2.15 hours (approx)
11/6/12- 103 pages; 1.5 hours (approx)
11/7/12-102 pages; 1.5 hours
11/8/12-60 pages; 1.15 hours (approx)

Reading Minutes

The City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Claire

10/29/12-196 pages; 2 hours

10/30/12-152 pages; 1.5 hours

10/31/12-194 pages; 2 hours

The Things

This Halloween, my family had a theme.  We have started having themes each year.  Last year, we were Greek gods and goddesses.  I was Artemis.  This year, we were the Things.  I was Thing 1, Richard was Thing 2, and so on.  We had red sweat pants and red shirts with our number on them.  The thing that really brought the whole costume together though was the bright red spikey wigs.  We all looked like giant red sticks.  It was pretty funny.  The wigs were extremely itchy, but eventually we all got used to it.

            After a series of what felt like 10,000,000 pictures, we finally started walking.  First, we went to Mrs. Spaht’s house.  It was really funny because she had been in Mrs. Harper’s classroom earlier that day and she knew my brother and me.  It was kind of embarrassing to see a teacher looking like that.  She seemed to like our costumes though, so it wasn’t that bad.  Then we went to my grandmother’s house.  When we walked up, she called me Richard and Richard Aimee Claire.  It was really funny!!  Then later on when we were walking to another house, my mom said that she couldn’t tell Richie and me apart very easily.  It was really weird that they couldn’t tell us apart, but really funny too. 

            I got a lot of candy that night.  Every house we went to, the candy hander outers could always complement us on our giant family costume.  When we would walk in the streets, every family we passed would say, “Look!!  They’re from Dr. Seuss!” or “Look!! Thing 1,2, and 3!”  It was really weird that that many people noticed our costumes.  It was really cool though.  We all had a lot of fun that night I love Halloween and look forward to our costume themes every year.  

The City of the Lost Souls

In The City of the Lost Souls, Clary Morgenstern’s boyfriend, Jace, is possessed by Jonathan Morgenstern.  Jonathan is part demon part shadowhunter, and is the most wanted person in the shadowhunting world.  Clary wants to save Jace before the rulers of the shadowhunter world can kill him, so she goes to join their cause.  This book is the last in a series by Cassandra Claire. 

Most people love their brother.  They would give their life for their brother and do absolutely anything for him.  Clary is the exact opposite of that.  She HATES her brother.  Jonathan has killed people and laughed about it.  He is out to destroy the world with fire and ice, and leave nobody alive but Clary and Jace, who have sided with him.  Clary wants to kill her brother.  She has only known that she had a brother for a few months, and cares nothing for him.  This shows that just because someone is blood related does not mean you have to love him or her.  The people who are really your family and who really love you are the ones that are always with you supporting you in what you do and not trying to tear you down, or in Clary’s case, destroy the world.  In a more realistic view, sometimes a stepfather or stepmother can be more of a real father or mother than the blood related one.  The parent that is always around and helps you with sports and goes to all the things that parents do are the real parents.  They show their love for you and don’t try to bribe you into loving them.  They bring out the best in a you and always encourage you to do your best.