Reading focus

My reading focus is loyalty. I have chosen three examples that I think are important.
Chapter 10 on page 155.
"Piggy are you the only one left?"
"No there are some littluns."
I would like to point out that Piggy has been loyal to Ralph the entire time. Even when Ralph was being mean or when he didn't stand up for him. Piggy is always loyal to him and would never leave him like some of the others did. That's why I admire Piggy. He's such a good friend to Ralph even when Ralph isn't always a good friend to him.

Chapter 9 on page 148
"Where's Samneric?'
"And Bill?"
"Piggy pointed beyond the platform."
"That's where they've gone. Jack's party."
People keep leaving Ralph to go to Jack's group. They're traitors. They're the ones that voted Ralph to be the leader so they should stick with it, and Jack's a mean kid why would they want him to rule? If they want to be rescued than there best bet would be to do what Ralph says. If they want to kill all the pigs on the island and run around like a bunch of savages than Jack's the way to go. But if they keep killing all the pigs at this rate they'll run out of pigs to kill and eat.

Chapter 8 page 126
"I've got the conch. Ralph thinks you're cowards, running away from the boar and the beast."
Jack is being very disloyal here, though i'm not surprised. He's a bad kid. I don't like him. He's trying to pin everyone against Ralph so that they can join his clan just so that he can be the leader. Is it really THAT important to him to be a leader? He's so childish.

Reading

So this semester I read Nation, In Defense of Food, and Split over the Summer. I read Such a Pretty Girl, My fake boyfriend, all of the short stories, Lord of the Flies (still in process), and there's something else that I can't remember. I'm pretty sure i'm forgetting something. I also read 7 Teen Vogue magazines, but that's not the thing i'm forgetting. It'll come to me. Anyways, out of all these books My fake Boyfriend was my favorite. It wasn't a physical book, but it still counts. I think it should be published. My second favorite would have to be Split or Such a Pretty Girl. I cant decide. The teen vogue magazines are pretty interesting, but the clothes aren't the cutest. They're actually really ugly. Like I don't understand why anyone would want to wear that. Just because it's in a magazine doesn't make it cute.
I've noticed that I don't read well with books that have a bunch of symbolic stuff. For example LOTF. I don't pick up on every single symbolic thing in the book, but if it's obvious that it's symbolic i'll pick up on it.
By the end of the year I would like to be able to be better at this. I'd like to understand the true meaning behind a book. I'd also like to read at least 10 books. I don't really like reading, but it's good for you. I'd also like to read the watersong novels. I saw an ad while listening to pandora one day. They look really interesting.

Reading times ch 6-11 100% Positive i've read way over the 150 minute requirement
So like 5000 minutes

Reading Times

Ch 6- about 35 minutes
ch 7-45 minutes
My fake bf- 70 minutes

Reading Times

It takes me about an hour to read and annotate every chapter, but let's just say 45 minutes. About 225 minutes, probably more..

Chapters 1-5

Throughout the book so far, I've  noticed the colors; pink and green. On any island green is a very common color. It's not different or bizarre. You can find it in the trees, or on the ground. It's pretty much everywhere on a lush island. Pink, isn't a very common color to be found on an island. "Pink granite" is an example of something pink on the island. To be honest I've never seen any pink granite before, and I went counter top shopping with my mom. I have seen all the granite the world has to offer trust me. So this granite must be rare and special. So if the boys do get found would they become wealthy from this discovery?  

Another think I have noticed is Piggy's attitude. Everyone is mean to Piggy and belittles him. I feel sorry for him because they don't give him a chance and I feel that he has a lot to offer. In the beginning of the book Piggy was more...I don't know how to explain it. Quiet? Timid? Like when they were mean to him he'd just take it and be sad on the inside. I feel like he's starting to get more and more irritated. I don't blame him I would too, but I wouldn't have been taking it quietly from the start like he did. I think that one day Piggy is just going to explode and rage. Than everyone will give him the respect he deserves because they know not to mess with him anymore. Than Piggy will give his opinions on things that will help them survive, and he'll end up saving everyone. That's my hypothesis. 

Overall Semester

Well we've had a very fast semester. I feel like the year goes by fast every year. I definitely need to review pretty much everything because let's face it. I don't remember what I had for dinner last night. Some I need to review more than others, but I definitely need to review. Summer reading, is a must review for me. I need to review the plot and what happened in Nation. I also need to review the argument in In Defense of Food. I do need to review the straights of writing and the writing process because to be honest I don't remember it. I need to review all of the short stories and remind myself what happened in each. Literacy elements I pretty much got. Maybe review just a little bit of it but not too much.
 In Lord of the Flies I feel like I'm not seeing what everyone else does. When i'm reading I don't read into depth. For instance if the author uses the word "blue" in class we'd discuss about what blue means and it's inner meaning. I read it as, the flower was blue. I don't know if that's just me or if other people do that too. That's why when we have class discussions on the book I make sure to pay attention.
If i were to choose a topic to review again in class, i'd pick the summer reading, or maybe the traits of writing and the writing process. These are the topics I least remember, probably because it was so early on. Well, summer reading is easy to review. So i'd pick the traits of writing and the writing process. I know it's in my head somewhere, I just have to dig it up.

Reading Times

I answered the questions on the packet rather than doing a reading blog
but here are my times for this week

LOTF- 50 minutes
My heartbeat- 30 minutes
My fake boyfriend- 80 minutes

In a plane crash...

If block one Dr. D's English class really got in an accident with a bunch of first graders I highly doubt we'd eat the first grades right off the bat. First we'd panic, and than after were done we'd establish a plan. Alex would most likely be the leader, and we'd send off the strong people to find shelter. Everyone else would gather everything that we could possibly use from the crash. The first graders would mostly likely just weigh us down and annoy us, because they think they know everything. In reality they know nothing especially about survival. So I say we first make a pin and lock them in there.
In all seriousness if we were to be stranded on a deserted island i'd really regret not watching all of those survival shows. I'd be scared out of my mind. I saw this movie a couple weeks ago, and it's called Blue Lagoon the awakening. It's about these two students who drift off into the sea. They've know each other forever but never talk to each other. They eventually find this island and fall in love. They survive on that island for 3 months. Well, I doubt that'd happen in real life. I would die of either shock, exhaustion, starvation, stress, or all of the above. I'd miss my family way too much. Just think about it scares me. I hope I never have to go through that.

Reading Response

I have been reading "My Fake Boyfriend" on wattpad and it's actually really good. My friend Avery recommended it to me several times and than I finally decided to read it. It's really long, but at least it's not boring. It has a lot of drama in it too. It's about how a girl named Alexis is a celebrity, but her fame is fading. So her publicist wants her to be talked about again. She arranges for Alexis and Harry to fake date for a year, but once they get to know each other better they start to actually fall in love. But they don't know how they're going to deal with it when they "break up". I also got a new book at the library called "My Heartbeat". I've only read a little bit of this book so I don't really know how I feel about it yet. I think it's a little bit below my reading level because there aren't any new words. I might get a new one because I don't find it that interesting.

My Heartbeat: 15 minutes
My fake boyfriend: 120 minutes
Sucker: 25 minutes

Literacy Narrative Response

Dr. Degravelles,

I read your comment to my narrative and now I will respond to it. Well, first she was my babysitter who was also my cousin. Sorry I failed to make that clear. My relationship with her led me to books i'd never forget because she was my role model and to be honest I never really forgot anything I did with her. So sharing books with her was something I didn't forget either. She was the one that introduced me to the books and got me started on the series. 

She's actually in college right now at LSU studying to be an English professor. She has always been a big reader, but that didn't really rub off on me. I don't really enjoy reading as much as I should. I mean, sometimes when it's an extremely good book than yeah I'll really enjoy it. Alright I need a lot of help with sentence structure. Run-ons, comma splices, and punctuation errors seem to be my enemy. Yes, I'd like to take you up on your offer of help with these. 

Thank you! 

Sarah Nguyen 

Short Story Readings

   For the three extra short stories we were required to read, I read "Hills like White Elephants", "The Sniper", and "The Return". My personal favorite was "The Sniper" because of the unexpected plot twist at the end. In Hills like White Elephants I noticed the element of alcohol and drinking. Many questions come to my mind about this. You see, the author refers to the female as a "girl" so is she of age to be drinking? Hemingway also refers to the male as a "man". This brings up another question, how are they related to each other? Are they together? Is she being held hostage? I also noticed that this story is very mysterious. Hemingway doesn't tell us everything. He doesn't explain who the two characters are or how they're related in any way. He does however explain the physical setting very well with descriptive details.
In "The Sniper" I noticed the suspense building as you read on. I also noticed how the author made the reader be more on the main character's side and made you want for him to win the battle. And in the end O'Flaherty made you feel grief because the other sniper ended up being his brother. I also noticed that O'Flaherty put a lot of physiological setting into the story. The mood was suspenseful and at the end there was a lot of emotion into the one last sentence. "Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into the his brother's face".

The Sniper: 30 minutes
Hills like White Elephants: 35 minutes
The Return: 30 minutes
My Fake Boyfriend: 60 minutes

Reading Times

The Sniper (in the short story book)
30 minutes

Hills like White Elephants (also in short story book)
35 minutes

My fake boyfriend
Monday: 25 minutes
Tuesday: 30 minutes
Wednesday: 10 minutes
Thursday: no reading it's my TVD day!
friday: no reading
saturday: no reading
sunday: 15 minutes

Literacy Elements

My fake boyfriend is a story on Wattpad and it doesn't particularly have "pages" more like chapters so i'll just post how many chapters i've read.

Monday: 3 chapters about 30 minutes

Tuesday: 2 chapters around 25 minutes 

Wednesday: 20 minutes 2 chapters 

Thursday: did not read, watched TVD instead!!

Friday: 1 hour maybe 5 chapters

Saturday: ran a race, than slept all day <3 

Sunday: 20 minutes 2 chapters

In "To Dah-Duh" point of view seems like a strong element. I don't know, maybe it's because it was our groups topic that day. But the point of view is first person. It seemed like she was looking back on it. The grand-daughter was narrating the story. I can tell because on page 129 it says, " She died and I lived, but always to this day even, within the shadow of her death. For a brief period i was grown i went to live alone, like one doing penance, 17 in a loft above a noisy factory in downtown New York...". I think her point of view is omniscient because she's looking back on it so she knows everything that has happened.
My observation matters because if you didn't know what the point of view was or who was narrating the story you'd be very confused as to where the story was coming from. The story wouldn't be the same or make sense if you didn't know who the narrator was. If you thought it was the mother it wouldn't make sense and the same goes for Dah-Duh. I think out of all the literacy elements point of view is the most prominent, and also the easiest.  

First quarter evaluation

This quarter was like a learning experience for me to get into the hang of things. I have been coming to class prepared most of the time. And I've been doing my reading, wordy wise cards, and my blog posts. I have learned that when you are posting a comment you have to scroll down and do the little are you a robot test. If you don't NONE of your comments will be published and it's like you didn't even do it. Yeah, sucks for me. I think this is a pretty tough class, no slacking off here. There's lots of work to be done.

What I would do differently next quarter is keep up with my comment log throughout the quarter. It's not fun to sit there and try to find all your comments. I tried, and failed. I gave up after 2 hours, I said enough is enough. Next quarter will be different though, comments will be published accurately and comment logs will be kept up with. But anyways, yay class of 2016 we did it! We got through our 1st quarter of highschool, and many more will follow..

Reading Time

To Build a Fire: 55 minutes
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children: 25 minutes
Da-Duh: 35 minutes
A&P: 15 minutes
My fake Boyfriend: 30 minutes

Reading Response 10/1

Well i'd like to start this blog off by giving everyone a friendly reminder that it's officially the fall! It's my favorite season and i'm so excited! Okay, now back on topic. I'm going to be explaining the plot for my summer reading book, Split. It's a pretty simple book. There was only one big main plot.
At the beginning the other describes the scene of a young man, Jace, driving away from home into a new place to find his brother. She describes his beat up car, and his brother's apartment. In the rising action Jace emails his mother in private asking her to come over to escape his abusive father. Jace also gets a job at a book store and meets a girl who could or could not replace his former girlfriend, Lauren. Lauren presses charges against Jace because he hit her. Jace almost gets thrown out of his brother, Christian's, apartment. The climax is the two brothers drive back home to get mother and risking running into their father. The falling action is when their mother refuses to go with them because she wants to stay with her husband (god knows why). The resolution is when they go home disappointed and angry without their mom. Jace is the protagonist and Christian is the antagonist.

I am a writer...

I am a writer who tries her best to put creative words on the page. It may be easy, and it may be difficult. It really depends on the topic and what kind of mood i'm in. Ha, that's my response for almost everything. "What's your favorite candy?"
"It really depends on what kind of mood i'm in."
"Do you like running?"
"It really depends on what kind of mood i'm in"
I don't think that I am a good writer. Sometimes i'll come up with a few good things and i'm proud of myself until we do group revisions. Than i'm like well that wasn't as good as I thought it was. Some people are really good at it and they don't even try. Other people are really good and they don't realize it. Well I used be a writer who absolutely despised it but now i'v grown to just deal with it. I don't really have a choice so why not just accept it.

Free Post

       On Saturday we had our third cross country meet of the season. It was in Robert which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from Baton Rouge. I love this meet because it's different from the usual meets at highland road park. There are more hills, it's in the woods, and it's at the same place we had our sixth grade retreat. There is actually one part of the trail where you're running on top of this hill and on your right there is the lake with the long bridge over it and the house we stayed in. I remember walking across that bridge and staying in that house. It brought back many memories and good times.
        I'm in j.v. and we usually run two miles at the meets. Well this meet was different. About 20 minutes before our race started Taylor told me that we were running three. I wasn't prepared for three miles physically or mentally! I was flipping out and I was really nervous. I usually listen to music really loudly on my headphones to calm myself down, so that's what I did. I plugged them in and blasted Mercy. It didn't really work, but I was a little bit better. Everyone was reassuring me that I was fine and that I could do it. I was still really nervous. Coach Cole said that we could stop at the two mile mark if we wanted to, but I was determined to finish it. And that's what I did. I was so proud of myself when I crossed that finish line. I'm really glad that I didn't quit. "Pain is temporary, but pride is forever."

Literacy Narrative Process

 I'm not going to lie when we first got assigned this assignment I wasn't too pumped. I was like "ugh another essay", I've never been a great writer. I might have had a few good essays here and there, but nothing too extraordinary. That's why I don't usually like writing assignments, but I should get over it because I have a feeling that I’ll be doing a lot of writing this year. Writing comes naturally to some people, word choice, organization, sentence fluency, and ideas seem to just bounce off their fingertips like it's nothing. It's really like a sixth sense to them, but not for me. I could sit there for hours and write nothing compared to what others do. 

 I really liked the writing group, they really helped me edit my paper to be better and focus on my weak elements. I also liked hearing their stories, although it didn't give me much confidence in my own paper. Hearing other scenes gave me ideas on my own. Not exactly copy their words but more like get inspiration. Like from their scenes and word choice, I could hear a very vivid word and maybe think of another word that has the same meaning that I can use in my own paper. Overall I think my narrative is coming along pretty good so far. 

Literacy Narrative:
1 1/2 hours
My fake Boyfriend:
about an hour

Reading Response 9/17

            I finally finished Such a Pretty Girl this week, yeah I know I read slow. I thought the ending was great, it was a happy ending! This is just another example, though it may be fiction, of my theory. My theory is "It will all be ok in the end, if it's not ok it's not the end". One of my friends said that once and it kinda just stayed in my head. Whenever someone comes to me upset and they don't know what to do I just say "It will all be ok in the end, if it's not ok it's not the end". I'm not really good at helping people when they're crying, I just hug them, listen to them babble over their sobs, and try to comprehend.
           I started reading this other book called Stealing Bases. It's a romance about a teenager who wants to play baseball in college and be good and everything. She's also trying to get over her ex who cheated on her while he's trying to win her back. It's hard because she still loves him. I say, once a cheater always a cheater. I'm liking it so far. This book was recommended to me by my friend. She just randomly read it and really liked it so she told me to read it. I'm still reading it, but i'll let you guys know how it ends!
            I also read three narratives from the norton book. I read "Always Living in Spanish" "Proficiency" and "Se Habla Espagnol". To be honest I really didn't want to read them when it was assigned. And I was really surprised when I actually enjoyed them! They were really good! Maybe the term literacy narrative throws it off...

Such a Pretty Girl
152-158 10 min
158-167 10 min
167-212 55 min

Norton
20 min

Stealing Bases
1-42 50 min
42-60 25 min

Literacy Narrative

                For my literacy narrative I am writing about the first full series I ever read, The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. It took me about two years to read the entire series with other school books interrupting my personal readings. I remember seeing the array of books with the same author listed on the covers in the library but never thought too much about them, but one day I found some of the novels in a different setting. I was at my babysitter’s house when I stumbled upon her book shelf. I asked her about the first three books from the collection, she told me how great they were and told me to read them.

She let me borrow the three that she owned and I began reading. To be honest I still have the books, and I “borrowed” them years and years ago. Whoops! But I kept reading the rest of the series which consists of 13 books which I have noticed get gradually larger and larger as you go. The series is about these three orphans who get sent off to Count Olaf, their parents’ friend whom they have never heard of, they soon realize that Olaf is just trying to kill them so that he can get there fortune. They escape and go to different homes but Olaf follows them around in disguises. Olaf kills off most of their new foster parents, including Uncle Monty who they grew to love. Along the way the three siblings find out more and more about their parent’s secret life. This pretty much goes on for about thirteen books. I really enjoyed these books, and the movie. I would definitely recommend the series to my younger readers out there.

Comment

In one of my first posts I didn't write very much and we are suppose to write at least two paragraphs. I've been trying to make my blogs longer by adding more detail and ideas. I've also found that sometimes you can twist your wording around and it'll make your sentence longer thus adding more to your paragraph. So I will be revising one of them in this blog.
Hi, I'm Sarah! I'm 14 years old my birthday is November the 14th. I like to have fun, if i work all the time and don't take a break i'd probably go insane. No scratch that, I would definitely go insane. Throughout the week i'm pretty busy especially now during cross country, but on the weekends is when I try to fit in my social life.I'm probably only going to use this blog for english. Blogs are like an online diary right? That's what I think it is, but diaries are supposed to be kept private. I guess it more of a journal? I don't know, but i'm excited to find out all about blogs throughout the year

 I also like to take pictures, I really got into photography on Coach Dupe night at the football game. I'm in year book so I had to take pictures. It was really fun! All the different angles, shots, and colors fascinate me. Something as simple as photograph can turn into something beautiful. You just have to know when and where to take the picture. I'm still learning how to take good pictures, I want to get a professional camera one day so I can expand my horizons. It is definitely on my Christmas list.

Reading Response 9/10

         I did something I don't usually do this week, I read two books at once. I usually only like to read one book at a time because I get kind of confused but it wasn't too bad. I read Such a Pretty Girl at school and the rest of Pretty Little Liars at home. I finished Pretty Little Liars but i'm still working on Such a Pretty Girl. I'm almost done with it so i'll need to start looking for a new book.

 

          I guess i'll compare these books...so both of these books are full of suspense, and contain strong female leads. It's just in Pretty Little Liars there are four different perspectives and in Such a Pretty Girl there is only one. The characters all have problems, except in Such a Pretty Girl Meredith knows what and where her problem is coming from. In Pretty Little Liars the girls are being terrorized by an unknown person...or group... I as a reader don't know yet. Both of the books show lives of regular teenage girls who face problems, their problems however may be a bit more extreme.

PLL

pg 153- 217 66 minutes

pg 217-244  25 minutes

pg 244-269 27 minutes

pg 269-286 23 minutes

Such a Pretty Girl

pg 133-151 10 minutes

Reading Response 9/4

 WARNING: if you're reading the Pretty Little Liars books don't read this
       I kind of took a break from my other book so that I could read Pretty Little Liars because I heard that the books were even better than the TV show. Since I've already seen the show I get the gist of the story and what happens, but in the books there are different details and events. I kind of get confused when I watch the series and read the books at the same time, it also gets repetitive because some of the important events do happen in the series so i'm just like yeah I know what happens. Since i'm reading the first book everything that's happening was from the first season so it was like refreshing what has happened.
        I really like these books so far, they're really suspenseful so I don't want to put it down! The authors word just pulled me in, I really enjoyed it! I love how the author uses writes in different perspectives, it's like multiple stories in one book! The plot was really thrilling and had lots of twists and turns which is what drew me into the book to begin with! I would definitely recommend this series to my friends and anyone who hasn't read it, or if you don't like reading you should definitely watch the show. Sara Shepard, the author, also has another series called The Lying Game. It is also a television show. 


pg 1-97 102 minutes
pg 97-153 60 minutes
total: 153 pages and 162 minutes

Hurricane Isaac

          The day before Isaac struck we were driving around town preparing for the worst. Buying water, food, and other supplies. Everyone was getting ready for the upcoming hurricane, the shelves were empty! People were like squirrels stalking up for the winter. Hurricanes are nothing new to the old residents of Louisiana so we were well equipped with generators, and emergency kits. We know how to survive a hurricane.
          On Tuesday morning I woke up and checked my phone, everything seemed fine it was just a little windy outside. I didn't realize the power was out until my mom came in and told me. It was a good thing I charged my phone over night. It was only about 9 o'clock so the hurricane hasn't stuck us yet. I looked outside and I knew the weather wasn't the same. Leaves were flying, there were no birds in sight, and the sun wasn't shining like usual. As the day progressed the wind seemed to get stronger and stronger as more leaves were falling off the trees leaving them bare. Trashcans were knocked over and so were trampolines. All of my surroundings were normal to me, just another hurricane. It wouldn't have been too normal for someone from California though because they rarely ever get hurricanes, just like we rarely ever get earth quakes.
             The hurricane didn't do much damage to our house, just had to do some raking is all. Our neighbor wasn't so lucky though, one of there trees fell over, and someones trampoline was in the street! Overall Hurricane Isaac had nothing on us compared to Katrina. God bless everyone who was affected or has died because of Katrina in 2005.
           

In Defense of Uniforms: A student's Manifesto

        To be honest I don't mind the uniforms. Yeah, sometimes they do get annoying but trying to look cute at 6 am every morning while following a dress code would also get real annoying real fast. I don't know about you but I don't think I would be able to pick out something cute while I'm half asleep. If we were allowed to wear Nike shorts than it'd be a completely different story, but no we still have a dress code. Having the dress code is pretty much like having a uniform with a little wiggle room.

        Uniforms also save time in the morning and over all save money. If we didn't have uniforms we'd have to buy different outfits a lot more often (it also saves closet space) which in time would cost more than buying new uniforms every year. Uniforms also prevent students from judging or picking on other students. It's just another thing to talk about.  It would just add to the drama that we already have and I don't think anyone wants more drama. So in conclusion uniforms really aren't that bad, so stop complaining.  

Reading Response

           Before I started reading the book that i'm currently reading I read a different book called Wake. It's part of this trilogy that's pretty popular. I started reading it and i was about 2 chapters in when I stopped. I didn't like it because it was really below my reading level, I also got bored. So I went to the library and got a new one.
            Right now i'm reading this book called Such a Pretty Girl. It's really suspenseful which I love, but it's also really messed up. Her dad was in jail for molesting children, including herself. He's a different kind of molester he attacks both genders which is really strange. I didn't even know people like him existed. There are lots of twists, like the fact that her dad also molested her current boyfriend. Talk about awkward. The book is really weird, I considered to stop reading it but I was already half way through so why not? Plus I wanted to know what happens. I'm almost done with it, i'm on the hunt for a new book hopefully my next book won't be as strange!
   
Such a Pretty Girl:
P. 1-31 45 min
31-49 20 min
49-105 1 hour
105-133 30 min

IDOF packet over the weekend - 35 min

Wake:
P. 1-13 11 min

Free Response

Hi, I'm Sarah! I'm 14 years old my birthday is November the 14th. I like to have fun, if i work all the time and don't take a break i'd probably go insane. No scratch that, I would definitely go insane. Throughout the week i'm pretty busy especially now during cross country, but on the weekends is when I try to fit in my social life. I'm probably only going to use this blog for english. Blogs are like an online diary right? That's what I think it is, but diaries are supposed to be kept private. I guess it more of a journal? I don't know, but i'm excited to find out all about blogs throughout the year.

Summer Reading

For my free read I thought we had to pick from a list so I picked a book called Split. It went by really fast, and I didn't like the ending. To be honest I didn't like it but I didn't hate it either. It was kinda just there. There was no point to it really. Over all it was a pretty easy read, nothing like the food book. I like books that are suspenseful. If they're suspenseful I won't be able to put them down therefore i'll read more and easily get the required reading time done. So if you know any good books tell me about them!