Reading Times

Lord of the Flies
12/3- 35 min.
12/4- 35 min.
12/7- 45 min.
12/8- 65 min.

Student Prompts

What is a book that has made you think or changed your mind?

There were two books that I have read that have really made me think about my life and others during the times of slavery and the segregation. Those two books were To Kill a Mockingbird and Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. 

These books really made me think about how colored people during that time period must have felt and treated. As I read To Kill a Mockingbird, I took Scout's advise and really tried to stand in other people's shoes and walk around in them. As I read Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, I realized the fear that they had. Both of these magnificent novels really made me think about others during this hash time period.

My Visit to the Writing Center

I went to the writing center to get suggestions on my literary analysis on the short story, "At Sea" by Guy de Maupassant. My writing fellow Mrs. Spaht helped me tremendously. She expressed to me that I needed better transitions as well as better sentence structure. I completely agreed with her about the revisions that I would need to improve my literary analysis.

First, she told me to read the story out loud to her so she could suggest revisions. She said to highlight the errors that I found as I read. This helped me a lot because I could put the sentences in my own words as I read. The thing I liked most about my visit to the Writing Center was that she gave me suggestions, not demands to help revise my paper.

Reading Times

Lord of the Flies

11/26- 45 min.
11/28-30 min
11/29-60 min
12/1- 35 min

170 min.

Free Post-The Philippines

Could you imagine 160 mile per hour winds coming through your town and completely demolishing everything in sight? This was an awful event that just happened in the Philippines recent. Towns and towns were leveled by a cat 5 typhoon Because of all the damage health, clean water, and food has been cut off from some of the natives affected by the storm.
Since we are around the Thanksgiving time I think it is a good time to reflect on what things that we have in America. We think something like water or food in a frivolous thing but in some extremely poor countries that is blessing if they have clean water for the day. So we should be thankful for all the blessings that we have in or country and apart of our lives.

Reading Times

LOTF
11/13-35 minutes (Chapter 3)
11/16-65 minutes (Chapter 4)
11/18-25 minutes (Chapter 5)
125 minutes

Blog Prompt

If you could spend time with one person for a day that has ever lived who would it be? What would you ask him? What would you do together for that day?

If I could meet one person it would be Jackie Robinson. I want to meet him because of his courage and toughness he had during the segregation time periods. I would take him to see a baseball game and go see the new movie about his life called "42". I would ask him how he was so tough even when people called him horrible names and even gave him  death threats so he would quit Major League Baseball.

 I think we would have a lot of fun because we are both love the game of baseball. He is one of my role models because of his courage and toughness. That is why I would choose him out of all the people in the entire world to spend a day with.

Free Post

The other day I watched this movie called The Blind Side. This movie was about a teenage boy that was picked up off the streets by an affluent family. He was very big, very athletic, and protected his family. He then went on to play in the NFL for the Ravens. His name was Michael Oher.
This movie taught me a  two valuable lesson about my life. The first one is about to never take for granted what you have. This lesson is expressed because this teenage boy has nothing. In our lives something as simple as a hamburger at McDonalds may not be significant to us but to a homeless person it can be a treasure that they have obtained. The second lesson is that you should always protect the ones you love. Michael saves his little brother in a bad car crash and in test we scored in the 90th percentile in protection instincts.  I would recommend this movie to anybody that likes deep movies with valuable life lessons.

Reading Times

Lord of the Flies By: William Golding
11/9- 1 hour Chapter 1
11/10-35 minutes
11/11- 55 minutes (in-class)

Total:145 minutes

Reflection to LOTF

I think that if teenage boys were trapped on a deserted island that it would be chaos and constant fighting. Because just like in our present day lives it is a fight for power whether it is government or between countries. Even in our simulation even though Trevor was chosen as leader Eli kind of took charge and if this was a real situation there would probably be problems.
I think there would be a lot of fighting between the leaders and the opinions of others within the group itself. I do not think our class would do well because of the big leadership personalities of our fellow classmates. Challenges we would face is that there might be a lot of arguing between each other and all talking at one time. Because of all the bickering we would not get anything done in words of survival.

Reading Times

Insurgent
10/30- 40 minutes
Re-read At Sea
10/31- 35 minutes
Thesis
11/1- 45 minutes
11/3-15 minutes

Reading Response

The past week we had to read and annotate three short stories. I chose "At Sea", "How the Leopard Got His Spots", and "The Magic Bon Bons".  This assignment was based for a future literary analysis. Out of three stories I think that "At Sea" will be the best for a literary analysis. I think it will be a great story for this paper because it can be interpreted in different way. For example, the theme of the story can be processed differently by one person than from another person.
I can relate to the story "At Sea" because on my baseball team we had an injured player and we all came together and helped him get back and playing again. I really liked the plot to "How The Leopard Got His Spots"and the symbolism that went along with that question throughout the story. The short story "The Magic Bon Bons"was very hard to understand the point of it. I got the obvious part if you eat these magic bon bons you will have a beautiful talent ,but I had a hard time trying to find the deeper meaning to it.


Reading Times
The Magic Bon Bons By: L.Frank Baum
10/25-45 min.
At Sea By: Guy de Maupassant
10/26-30 min
How the Leopard Got His Spots By: Rudyard Kipling
10/26-30 min
Insurgent By:Veronica Roth
10/22-30 min.

Free Post

Well the first quarter has been tough but I finally got through it. The work load after football practices have been tough but again I got through it. The study hall has been a life saver especially since of practice that end late on some nights. At this point I don't really have a favorite subject. I like them all really! Some of the fun things that have stood out to me this past quarter was the labs in Biology. I also enjoyed the short story. I had a ball making up my own characters and the plot line they followed.

The football team is a lot of fun and I enjoy the routines leading up to friday under the lights. We are undefeated but we still have a couple teams left on our schedule that are tough competitors. So we must bring our A game to them if we want to become district champions. Even though the past quarter had its challenges I got through it and had fun doing it also!

Personal Questions

What genres do I enjoy most and why?
          Based on the few books that I have read I have figured out that I prefer dystopian adventure stories like Divergent and The Hunger Games.

Think about question that you could answer through reading you choose this year.
          How can I enjoy reading on my own?
                   Find the genres that I love and force myself to begin reading. And once I get into the novel I will read for a long time.

What would it be like to be in the same situation as Katniss in The Hunger Games?
          I think it would be extremely terrifying that you will have to fight to the death in order to win.

The author used a lot of descriptive detail in The Hunger Games and it made the story very intriguing.

Reading Times

Siddhartha
10/8- 30 min
10/9-30 min
10/11-45min
10/12-30 min
10/14-15 min
Total- 150 min.

Reading Log

Siddhartha By Hemann Hesse

10/2- 60 min

10/4-15 min

10/5-30 min 

10/6- Short Story 15 min

Short Story Plot

The exposition of my story will be about characters and setting. The characters are Matt, Jane, and their kids James and Sarah. They are a lower middle class family that lives in a very small home. Matt and Jane work seven days a week at there convenience store called, Johnson's Market. On weekends the kids help work at the store bagging and restocking shelves.
The rising action is when the store burns down unfortunately. They are deeply saddened about this and are forced to move into an apartment because their house was foreclosed. But the family never gives up. Matt gets a job at the local butcher shop. And Jane got a job as a cake decorator.
The climax is when one day after work he stopped to get gas and went inside to get a Powerball ticket. Because the jackpot was at 600 million.That night he looked at the winning numbers and he won! His numbers were 3,8,19,25,38,and 18 as the Powerball.
The falling action is that he buys things lavishly. Because he had never been had a lot of money he never had save money before so. He bought a Lamborghini, a Viking yacht, a condo in Florida, and could fit his family. After a couple of years of lavishly spending his bank account became low and ran out of money. So he was forced to sell all of his things that he got and with that money he reopened their store.
The resolution was that he had to pay a very big price for not saving his money. But when he reopened the store he started to save up money for James and Sarah's college fund.

A&P

Last week for homework we read a short story called A&P. I really like this short story for two main reasons. The first reason was that it was very descriptive. I loved the description of how the boys reacted to the girls walking into the store. They were appalled of them walking into the store with bathing suits. They thought that they were very pretty. This is shown when Sammy says, "Darling... Hold me tight." I thought that was very funny.
The second reason was the ending. Sammy quits because he disliked the way that the manager, Lengle,  treated the girls. Sammy is an unmarried nineteen year old that is probably looking for a girlfriend. He tried to take up for the girls hoping that they would fall in love with him because of his bravery. But actually when the girls are asked to leave they leave without saying a word to Sammy. So at the end of the story Sammy was jobless and without a girlfriend.

Reading Times-7

Siddhartha By: Hermann Hesse

30 min- 9/23  (A&P)
15 min- 9/25 (AVery Old Man with Enormous Wings)
45 min- 9/27 (Dry September)
30 min- 9/29 Siddhartha

Reading Times-6

Hunger Games: By: Suzanne Collins
9/18-45 min Short Story
9/20-45 min Short Story
9/21-35 min
Total-125 min.

Character, Matt

It is Sunday after a full week of my the first days of a new school. I lay in my bed I think about my success on my first Calculus test. Also, I think about  how it each event the start of the new classes and teachers. The first day I met all the wonderful teachers and learned all the curriculum we will learn that year. My Calculus class (that was taught Mr. Johnson) looked very hard. It was a major step up from Geometry and the next day we would start the first lesson. And later that week we would have our first test.

The material was so hard that I thought that Mr. Johnson was taking in a foreign language. I had absolutely no clue about how to do the problem. He said to the class,"we will have a test on this tomorrow." I started freaking out and new I had to study really hard. So after school I went to talk to him and he helped clarify the material. That night I studied really hard and that night I prayed that God would help me do good on the test. So I put my worries in his hands and when I began the test I had a sense of confidence. I went through the test answering swiftly and was ready to see my grade. The next day I got the test back and was very happy about my grade I got a B+.

To conclude my thoughts before I fell asleep I thanked God for the Helping me get through the test and then fell asleep  

Short Stories

This week at home we read three short stories. The titles were Harrison Bergeron, A&P, and To Dah-Dah in Memoriam. The one that I felt was the best was Harrison Bergeron. The short story was about a dystopian society that is equal in every way...literally! They are equal because if a person has any strengths they have a thing called handicaps.These handicaps bring the strength level back down to average.
The main characters George and Hazel are the parents of Harrison Bergeron. Harrison is a man with an enormous amount of strength, good looks, and pretty much he is great at everything. George is a smart and strong man. His handicaps is that he has to have a heavy bag of bird shot around his neck. Also, he has a handicap on his ear that makes him lose his thoughts when he is thinking. Hazel was a very challenged lady, but was very sweet.
So George and Hazel are watching TV as they see a news anchor  say that Harrison has escaped from prison. He was in prison because he is to powerful for any handicaps. Well Harrison barges into the news station and chooses a ballet dancer with a mask -because she was very pretty- as his empress. They begin to dance and levitate then they get shot by  the handicap officer. I really liked this short story because of the action and the characters.

E-Book Thoughts

The past week we wrote  literacy narrative and we are going to publish our writings together in an E-book. This is an electronic book that is formatted like you want. I feel that my paper that I wrote in class  will be perfectly fine when we publish it in the E-book. I don't think that I will need my paper back for anything because I am confident that it will be okay for the E-book. But I might want some pictures a gavel for the trial scene to enhance my writing better.
 Some suggestions that I have for the E-book cover is to be gold with black text. I like this idea because I like the Saints and those are there colors. Our title could be "Our Love for English" because the literacy narratives show how we found our love for reading and writing in English class. I do like the wordle idea but we could put that as the back cover of the E-book to show the names of the authors of each narrative. Or after each literacy narrative the author could make a wordle about his/her literacy narrative.

Revisions

This week in class we had to revise our classmate literacy narratives. We would circulate the narratives around the class and revise them.  Each student would get about three papers and revise them for grammatical, comma, and quotations errors.  Two papers stood out to me when I was revising. They were both written perfectly and really expressed how they found the love for reading and writing.

The first literacy narrative was about how he was struggling in a new school and relied on reading and writing to get him through it. He then wrote about how he thought the teacher was out to get him. But then an event happened when he wrote a great paper and found his love for English. The second narrative was about how a big test was coming up and she was really nervous about the paragraph portion of the test. She said she had never really had an interest in English and writing before the paper. When she got the topic of the paper, she expressed  that the words jumped onto the paper and she felt really great about the paper. When she got the paper back she got the best score in the grade. After this paper she found the love for writing. Both of these papers were great papers and expressed how they found the love for reading and writing.

Reading Times-5

The Hunger Games By:Suzanne Collins
8/12- 30 min. (Literacy Narrative)
8/13- 60 min. (Literacy Narrative)
8/15- 45 min.
Total- 135 min.

Reading Response-4

I am continuing to read the Hunger Games and it is the most action packed book so far I have ever read. The theme are beginning to become more clear. One theme is that someone always has power. The government over the district is that they want to show the people that they have control over them. They force the chosen tributes to compete in the Hunger Games. The other theme is sacrifice. The Gamemakers consider the Hunger Games as sacrifice to get the point of hope across. The hope of winning the Games so that they can get back to their families.

My literacy narrative was really fun to write. It reminded me of how my liking of reading was sparked. The only struggle I had was that I could not put my thoughts into words. But overall that was one of my favorite papers I have written. 

Reading Times-4

The Hunger Games By:Suzanne Collins

 9/3-15 min.

9/4- 30min.

9/5 (Literacy Narrative)- 60 min

9/8-15 min

Dialogue

"I can't wait for the LSU football season" I said.
"I just love the anticipation of tailgating and watching them," my Dad said. " Connor, help me get this tent and the ice chest into the back of the car."
So we pack the car and my family and me drive to LSU campus and set up the tent and tables. Some other friends bring some golden fried catfish that was to die for. I had a large plate of that with a refreshing Coca-Cola.  A few hours pass and then four of my friends from my old school show up out of know where. They were Brandon, Michael, Ryan, and David.
"What are y'all doing here."
 "We just came to come tailgate with you."my friend, Michael said.
"So how do y'all like Catholic High.
"It's great and the food there is awesome."my other friend, Brandon said.
So after we caught up with each other about sports, school and other things, we threw my new leather Spalding football that I got for my birthday.
"Y'all should come spend the night at my house and we can watch the game." I said.
"Yes, that is a great idea!" Ryan exclaimed.
"I'll ask my parents."So I walk over to him and say, "Is it okay for Brandon, Michael, Ryan, and David to come over." I thought he would say no because of the amount of people.
"Sure,"
"Oh thank you so much, Dad."
So we went back home and we rode bikes around the neighborhood, played ping pong, and played NCAA football. But then it was time for them to leave. We said our goodbyes and told them, "come back to my tailgate."

Reading Response- 3

       After the skills show to the Gamemakers the tributes are ranked on their skills. Katniss got an eleven because of the wonderful show and Peeta got an eight.  After this all the tributes get interviewed on things about the Hunger Games and also about them themselves.The man that interviews the tributes is named Caesar Flickerman. Katniss stuns the crowd by having a beautiful dress that is on fire. Peeta said that he has always had a crush on Katniss. This infuriates Katniss and she pushes him down. Peeta then explains his reasoning behind that Haymitch, District 12's mentor, told him to do that to get sponsors. The next day was the start of the Hunger Games.

       The start of the Games was when Katniss get the backpack full of a sleeping bag, crackers, dried meat, a bottle of iodine wooden matches, coil of wire, sunglasses and an empty water bottle. She is on a quest to find water, but she nearly dies of thirst  before she finds it. After a few hours of sipping the water the Gamemakers light the woods on fire bringing her back to the other tributes. She then runs into the Career tributes which are the ones that train for the Hunger Games and they chase her up a tree. With the Career tributes is Peeta and KAtniss feels betrayed because of this event. They soon decide to wait her out. As Katniss is in the tree she sees Rue in another tree.

       At this point in the book it is loaded with action and it is making me turn pages.

Reading Times-3

Hunger Games- By: Suzanne Collins
8/26 - 10 min.
8/28 -10 min.
8/30 -10 min.
 9/1 -30 min.
9/2 -75 min.
Total= 135 min.

Literacy Behind Bars

       For homework this past week we had to read a literacy narrative from Norton's Field Guide to Writing. I  chose the literacy narrative called Literacy Behind Bars. This was an interesting narrative about a man who taught himself how to better read and write while in the solitude of his cell in Charlestown Prison. The narrative was very thought out and had great organization. It began with him in jail being very bored to  him then reading large novels each day to past the time.
       During the story he also expressed how he taught himself to get better and reading and writing. He said that each that  he would copy the dictionary. He learned many new words that he thought h=that had never existed. He also improved his penmanship due to him writing and continuing to practice at each day for hours and hours. After many days of copying and copying he managed to copy the entire dictionary! His word base broadened tremendously and he could better understand the meanings of novels. To this day he said that jail made him a better reader and writer.

Reading Response-2

The Hunger Games

              The Everdeen girls are in a drawing called the reaping.The reaping is a drawing of one male and one female to participate in the Hunger Games, which is a "tournament" to the death. There are twelve different districts and each child from the ages twelve to eighteen are place into the drawing for the Hunger Games. Katniss is the main character in the story. She has her name put in the reaping bowl 20 times because of tesserae which is added reaping entries in exchange for grain and oil. Katniss' sister Prim has her name in only once. At the reaping Prim, who has a one and one thousand chance of being chosen, actually gets picked. Katniss as a protective sister volunteers for Prim. The male who was picked was Peeta Mallark. So Katniss and Peeta along with twenty other tributes will battle to the death at the Hunger Games.
               As Katniss and Peeta go on the train to Panem and once at Panem they get a treated like royalty. They have lavish meals along with flamboyant dresses. At the introduction of the tributes Katniss had a special dress that looked like it was on fire. After the introduction Katniss and Peeta have a few arguments. But they then get along better and treat each other with respect.  The tributes then go to an arena where they are taught different skills and also show there skills off. When Katniss was showing her skills off to the Gamemakers she felt they were not watching here so she shoots an arrow through an apple in a pig's mouth. This event showed that she was the real deal.
               So far this book is very action packed and I am looking forward to the climax of the fight at the Hunger Games.

Reading Times-2

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
8/21= 15 min.
8/24= 15 min.
8/25= 110 min.
Total=140 min.

Exciting Past Weeks

                 Some exciting events in the last few weeks were school related events. The first event was my first day of high school. As I walked through the quad for the first time I was extremely nervous. The seniors at first were very intimidating, but once some of them talked to me about how I was doing on my first day I felt more relived.
                 The second event was my first football practice. This was very exciting because it was a new team and I was looking forward to having a fun season together. My first practice I met some of the other freshmen on the football team, and made many new friends. Although my first weeks at EHS have been a little scary they have been full of excitement and many thrilling events.

About Me

Since I am new to Episcopal High School many people do not know a lot about me. I have many goals about English class and hope that people will get to know me better by the end of the year. One goal that I have for this year is that I will read different types of books. In the past I have only read adventure and survival books. But now I want to expand my choices on types of books to read. My second goal for this year is to improve on my writing skills. I want to put my thoughts into sentences better and to have a larger vocabulary.
Some things about me are my interests, hobbies, and sports. My interests are LSU sports, the Saints, and MLB. My hobbies are fishing, tennis, and golf. Over the summer my family and I went on a charter fishing trip and caught ten Mahi-Mahi. The sports I play are football and baseball. I look forward to this year of making many new friends and learning new things.

Reading Response to Divergent

As I was reading the novel Divergent, I liked the many parts of intense action throughout the entire book. It seemed to me that every chapter had so much action that I could never put the book down.The first bit of action was the aptitude test and Tris' decision on her specific faction. Her aptitude tests say that she was Divergent. After, that she choose the Dauntless faction.
                     The second bit of action is a big portion of the book. Which was the Dauntless initiation. The initiation was a assessment that tested pushed the initiates fighting skills and fears to the limits.