No more homework: graphic organizer

1: What is the authors purpose?
    Expository/informative

2:what is the author's main idea within this article?
To inform us how Maryland school is taking away homework and is replacing it with reading for 30 minutes.

3: Provide evidence to support his/her main idea.
The title and the first sentence

4: With what ideas do you agree?
Mostly just reading more.

5: With what ideas do you disagree?
The no homework- The kids will not be ready for high school or college.

6: what connections can you make with the text?
world

7:how can i become more participant in my learning? How can i take responsibility for my learning?
Pay attention more and not get syracted

technology!

 The article is deffinently informative.. now i agree with more technology to some extent. For me i still think its better to take your own notes then to text them with a phone or something... I think it is alot to go back and make changes when need to be then backspacing alot.. just my opinion though. Also what if they lose power in the middle of taking notes? The tutor is a really really good idea.. but i dont really know about the rest. Who knows maybe i will use it somewhere down the line.. but for now i will stick with a pencil/pen and paper. old fashioned but oh well.

books I want to read before i kick the bucket

1: matched - ally condie
2: crossed - ally condie
3: A thousand splendid suns - khaled hosseini
4: the book thief - markus zusak
5: the hunger games (all)
6: all the harry potter books - j.k rowling
7: the list -
8: delerium,pandemonium,requiem - Lauren Oliver
9: leaving paradise - Simone elkeles
10: return to paradise - Simone elkeles

Time Goes By Fast: JR/SR

Here we are the last week of school but it doesnt seem like it should be here already! Time has went by so fast it's unbelievable, next thing we know it will be next year and we are graduating!


My junior year was so much fun, I feel like this year i have talked to more people and have gotten over being really shy. I have also learned who my real friends are, which is a big thing. Prom was a lot of fun. Being a junior and dealing with teachers who give you a lot of work and excpect a lot of you was stressful but it taught me a lot of things like managing my time and to be more organized and to also pay more attention in class ecspecially in algebra 2, and english.


I am hoping that my senior year will be fun and I just want to make the best out of it, because it may be the last time we ever see our classmates again.. thats kinda sad. I have taken a lot of important and hard classes so I know I will be studying alot. but I think next year will be a lot of fun!(:

CLASS OF 2013

Knock out Discrimination

You need a job, you go to the local grocery store to apply... but when you get there the manager says “I’m sorry we are not hiring right now, but the next day they hire someone on the spot but of a different ethnicity. What do you do? You ignore it and move on, but it doesn’t always have to be like that.

            In this essay I will be telling you three ways you can survive discrimination starting with the first way. Ignoring discrimination is the first thing most people do. When you are faced in a situation where you are lost on what to do you normally ignore it at  first right? If leaving the situation does not help you can also tell them to go away, that you are not bothering them. Although you can walk away, unfortunately that does not always work. This means there are more things you can do. Let them talk; just let them say whatever they have to say. As long as you do not respond they will most likely get tired of talking and just stop. Leigh Keller Spanish teacher at BHS says as long as the one who is being discriminated against and the discriminator both speak their minds everything should go pretty smooth, hopefully. Walking away and letting them talk may sound hard to do but it can be pretty easy. Do not worry there are more you can do and I will explain to you what they are.

            To respond against discrimination can be scary and difficult to do but anyone can do it as long as you do it the right way. You have to be careful when you respond to make sure you do not start a physical fight. You can always start by telling the discriminator how it is wrong. Always try to stay calm, staying calm is good  because when you’re dealing with someone who probably doesn’t like differences it is easy to make an argument if the discriminator does not like what you are saying. So be sure to make no kind of argument, if the discriminator still does not understand you can do the switch effect on them. The switch effect works by basically switching the roles. Show your discriminator how it feels. Ask him how he would like to be called names or to not be accepted because of his race. This can either go one of two ways. 1: he can realize that what he is doing is wrong and stop and if they do understand, be sure to ask how they would feel, deeper thinking can change a lot.  2: the discriminator witll get more mad and just keep arguing. Jennifer a student from California says that it is morally wrong to judge someone by their skin color and that you should judge them on their personality only.  In the “Call of the Wild” buck and the other dogs were kind of discriminated against because some of their owners just treated them like nothing they did not care how they felt or if they were getting the right treatment and they did not care that they had feelings as well at them.

            If none of these survivor skills seem to work you can always involve people.  Involving people is the best thing you can do. After you have tried to do it by yourself the only thing you have to do is get help. You can get your friends to help. That way they can help explain everything that has happened and to report it to someone you know and trust. You can also tell your parent to help support your situation. All the people you can get will help in this situation.

            Some might say they are not discriminating just “saying what is right.” For example in Arizona teachers are getting fired if they cannot speak English fluently or even if they do not pronounce certain words right. Ali Bradley/Nimitz from Irving Tx says The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against anyone in the workplace in regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It is not discrimination to ask a teacher to improve his/her pronunciation skills or grammar; the motivation to speak English well should come with the job. Teachers are expected to teach and sometimes heavy accents or a deficiency in grammar can get in the way. Also, teachers are role models children and teenagers are exposed to every day. The correct use of the English language is already bad enough in today's society (I hear it every day from students and teachers)— if a teacher often makes grammar mistakes in front of a full class, it is likely that some bad habits will wear off. This law says nothing about firing teachers for this problem, but only to “monitor” it, and there is nothing wrong or unlawful about that.

            I don’t agree with that, students are going to be around people all the time with different accents all the time if anything it is making them listen more and be able to understand someone who does not speak exactly like them. Even if one does learn a language fluently they are still going to have an accent it is who they are. Even people from Arkansas speak differently from people who are from New York but does that mean that they do not speak English fluently…?

So judge someone not on the way they talk or where they come from or their ethnicity but who they are on the inside their personality, their ambition in life how far they want to make it in life. Because if you judge someone on how they look you might as judge yourself for all of your flaws. If you think about it when you are older and you have a career you might be working next to someone who is a different ethnicity of you, we live in a generation where it should not matter on what your ethnicity is or where you came from but where you are going. Who knows maybe your boss might be of a different ethnicity of you. So you might want to think on getting used to things that are different cause after all, nobody is the same.

The Call of the Wild: Book Review

Jack Londons "The Call of the Wild" is about a dog named buck who gets takin away from his comfortable yet boring home and sold to a man in gold mining. Buck is constantly put to the test of his mental,physical and emotional strengh. Buck succeeds in all he is put to because he has that ambition of always being at the top.

To be veracious when I first started reading "The Call of the Wild" it did not catch my attention because I do not like books about dogs.. or animals but later on in the book when jack started using Anthropomorphism the book started getting interesting. I also like the way that jack showed the dogs will to survive all the sacrifices and arduous tasks that the dogs went through to survive, was just  incredible. "The Call of the Wild" will probably be the only book about dogs that I will read and actually enjoy. When Jack started to talk about the love between john and buck and the ministrations they gave and recieved it warmed my heart cause buck had went through so much and had been beseted on many times but still abtained pertinacity.

I suggets this book to people who like reading about the wilderness or animals.

Frankenstein vs Robert Walton

Robert Walton and Frankenstein both came from very similar high society and well educated backgrounds. In a way they are both explorers. Robert, who is a failed writer sets out to the North pole in hopes by expanding his scientific knowledge that he will soon find fame. Robert is very responsible for his crew and takes good care of them. When Robert Walton's ship gets trapped in ice there is where they come across Frankenstein almost frozen to death and where they began to hear the story.

Frankenstein is also an "explorer." Frankenstein lived in a very wealthy home/surrounding when he came introduced to science when he seen how lightening knocked  down a tree.. from there Frankenstein went to a college and when he found out that he could shock a dogs heart and bring him back to life he wanted to try it on a human. He did, and that is when he made the "monster" but he was not responsible for the monster like Robert Walton was responsible for his crew. Frankenstein did not teach the monster the correct way to live.. I believe that since the monster was made from a hateful and selfish man he to became hateful.

anthropomorphism

The water is my home

the water is where I stay

but the water is not always safe

I will not always stay

the water has evil creatures

creatures that haunt you, hunt you, want you, dead.

I am only a lost dolphin, in a sea full of sharks, trying to find my way.

The world is my home

the world is where I stay

but the world is not always safe

I will not always stay

the world has evil creatures

creatures that haunt you, hunt you, want you, dead.

I am only a lost girl, in a world full of hate, trying to find my way.

Zeal to survive

Zeal (will) to survive.
The way you accept death or what you would do in order to live. how much would you fight or sacrifice in order to survive


In Titanic the people's zeal to survive was very different. Some launched to their death in the cold sea and others risked others life's for their own.. while the others accepted it and decided to die together with their loved one.. death was just something they knew would come and they decided that it was time. Some know that if the captain would have listened to the warning signs that all their lives could have been saved. while others believe that it was their time or that everything happens for a reason.


In the book "The Call of the Wild" buck's zeal to survive was very strong, every test he was put through he went through it with a strong attitude and he strived to be the best. Buck was not originally in the "wild" he did live in a very comfortable home where he was almost like a "king" but he got sold and ended up in the wild where his king actions turned into survival acts. Are all of bucks owners to blame for how he changed or is it the wilderness?


Maybe no one is to blame for how people turn out, or how one's life is ended. Maybe that is the was its supposed to be that way, its "meant to be." however you want to look at it us as people we have an effect on ourselves how we look at life and how we approach things.

To Create Life

No, I would not create life like Frankenstein because creating life would have a lot of pressure being put on you. To create something and make that life right and not hard for them. You would have to be pretty lonely to want to create a life.

  The first reason is because if you mess up by making that life extra hard for them, that all on you. You could mess up and make that creation really mean and end up hurting other people you know. In my opinion i think that Frankenstein had a hard childhood and it made him want to create something.

  The second reason is that I just would not want to create a life not knowing what to do with it after i was done, do I become his/her friend. Its just weird to me to make a creation like that. I would never do anything like that.

2012 Theme Word

Successful. A Successful Present.  A Successful Future.

 I chose the word successful, because I want to be successful in everything I do. Every time I go to do something I want to have that thought of success, because if you think about being successful rather than giving up you will get far in life, and I want to go far in life. For me I want to go far in life to prove to everyone that I am better than they expected. I think everyone should have that mental thought to get farther than everyone expects them to, to prove not only to them but yourself that you can do anything you set your mind to. To be successful in everything I do is very important to me, it is a sense of accomplishment.

Success can have a lot of benefits like; Happiness and less stress. Success can bring these because if you have success you are more than likely doing what you want which makes you happy and less stress because you probably will not be worried about as much as if you had a job or life that you did not have in mind. In my opinion I think everyone should have a certain goal in mind to push where they are wanting to go. To work harder, and achieve the life they want, not to just get by cause its the easiest thing to do.


"It is not where you came from that matters, it is where you are going."

My Antonia

How would My Ántonia be different if it were told from Ántonia's perspective?
If the story was told from Antonia's perspective, i do not think that very much would change. The outcomes and hardships would be different because they would be more in the point of Antonia and not of Jim. However the overall theme would be the same. Both Jim and Antonia would still have to overcome all the hardships in their childhood.


How effective is Cather, a woman, at narrating a story from the point of view of a man? Does Jim sound like a man writing, or does the narrative sound like a woman pretending to be a man?
I think that Willa Cather does an excellent job at narrating My Antonia. Jim sounds like a man writing, even though he sounds calm, and very certain of his thoughts, he sounds very carefree.


Why do you think Jim changed the title from Antonia to My Antonia?

I think he changed it to show how important Antonia was/is in his life, that she was the main reason he became the person he ended up being.

The Effects of Setting

 

Author Willa Cather embedded literary devices, such as metaphors, similes, and personification, within her writing.

"As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."

"The grave, with its tall red grass that was never mowed, was like a little island."

"Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie. The wind that sweeps in from the open country strips away all the leafy screens that hide one yard from another in summer, and the houses seem to draw closer together. The roofs, that looked so far away across the green treetops, now stare you in the face, and they are so much uglier than when their angles were softened by vines and shrubs.


Chunk #1: 
The setting makes it difficult for the characters to survive, they have to work harder and struggle more Than they should. Also their relationships with each other makes it very difficult they are growing more apart and they have to do their own things now. Antonia is growing up she is going to parties and out with her friends, and Jim is still the same as he always was.
Chunk #2:

The setting that effects me is Winter, I have a very weak immune system, like a baby I get sick very easily. Usually during the winter I miss a lot of school because of being sick. This effects me because I get behind in school work and it is very hard to get caught up.

"Argument: Child Abuse"

Assertion Claim

• Child abuse could physically and mentally harm your child.

Evidence/Concrete detail

• Child abuse is not any way to punish a child or try to teach them a lesson, it will only make your child afraid of you, and inundated with everything.
• Commentary 1: In many cases children get hit, or brutally abused from something as little as breaking an item. Some parents leave their kids with babysitters and the babysitters will harm the children or punish them in ways the parents would not like for them to be punished.
• Commentary 2: Most runaways, adolescent prostitutes and teenage delinquent's report having been victims of a form of child abuse, and there has been reporters that violent criminals suffered abuse, either physical and/or sexual abuse.

Evidence/concrete Detail 2

• Child abuse can mentally and physically harm the child in many different ways that can leave them scarred for many years or the rest of their life.
• Children who suffer from child abuse often times see themselves as the way their abuser did if the abuser were to tell them "you are ugly and you will not amount to anything" the abused child would most likely believe that for a very long time.
• any form of abuse is destructive to a child's self-confidence and self-esteem. That can affect a child's emotional development, resulting in a sense of and inadequacy.

Opposing Claim

• What some might say is abuse others might say is just a punishment and is the only way to get their child to listen. They may say that everybody has different ways to punish their child, and that a few bruises wont hurt them.

My Rebuttal

•   I say it is not "punishment" if you are physically harming the child which will affect them their whole life, punishment is not hitting the child 10 to 20 times or kicking them or neglecting them, that is not punishment. Bruises may heal, but the mental damage will not. That will be with them for a very long time.

My Paragraph:

     Child abuse is not any way to punish a child or try to teach them a lesson, it will only make your child afraid of you, and frightened of everything.  In many cases children get hit, or brutally abused from something as little as breaking an item. Some parents leave their kids with babysitters and the babysitters will harm the children or punish them in ways the parents would not like for them to be punished. Most runaways, adolescent prostitutes and teenage delinquent's report having been victims of a form of child abuse, and there has been reported that violent criminals suffered abuse, either physical and/or sexual abuse Child abuse can mentally and physically harm the child in many different ways that can leave them scarred for many years or the rest of their life.Children who suffer from child abuse often times see themselves as the way their abuser did if the abuser were to tell them "you're ugly and you will not amount to anything" the abused child would most likely believe that for a very long time. Any form of abuse is destructive to a child's self-confidence and self-esteem. That can affect a child's emotional development, resulting in a sense of and inadequacy. What some might say is abuse others might say is just a punishment and is the only way to get their child to listen. They may say that everybody has different ways to punish their child, and that a few bruises wont hurt them. I say is not "punishment" if you are physically harming the child which will affect them their whole life, punishment is not hitting the child 10 to 20 times or kicking them or neglecting them, that is not punishment.Bruises may heal, but the mental damage will not, that will be with them for a very long time.

My Thinking: This paragraph is mostly deductive thinking because of the website i got this information from.

Source:
http://www.nccafv.org/child.htm

When faced with fear we all act in different ways.



In The Red Badge of Courage Henry lived on a farm and found himself to be bored all the time so he thought he would enlist in the army because he thought it would be better than living on the farm. Though Henry finds that the War is not quit what he expected. He is afraid and finds himself having an internal conflict with himself always wondering if he will stay and fight or run away from battle. Surprisingly Henry finds himself prepared and fought in a battle. They win that battle and he goes to sleep somewhat satisfied with himself, but the next morning they get a surprise attack, and Henry unable to prepare himself runs away from battle. Henry ran because he was afraid and scared that he would die. He did not have time to mentally prepare himself. So with Henry when faced with fear he runs away because he feels he is not ready.



Forrest Gump is completely different from Henry. He finds himself in many situations and just "goes with it." When Forrest is in Viatnam he fights relentlessly, he only stops fighting when lieutenant Dan tells him " Run Forrest run." Well Forrest runs and finds himself all alone "which is a very bad thing" so he goes back because "Bubba was his best good friend he had to make sure he was ok." and while he is there he finds other soldiers who are wounded and are asking for help so he carries one by one soldiers back to safety. To me I find Forrest to be very brave, I do not think he thought about fear or dieng he did what he did because he is a warrior. Unlike Henry he does not run from fear but runs to it.

Remembering 9.11

I do not remember much about that day, but what I do remember is blurry. I remember sitting in class when my teacher started crying and turned on the t.v, I still did not know what was going on. I remember just about every teacher and parent I seen that day talking about planes and people dieing it scared me.


When I got home that day I asked my mom what was going on and she told me " bad people crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center, and many people got hurt" to me I still thought it was not true. I asked my mom questions like " why did they do that ", "are they still here" ," why did this happen" and my mom could never answer me she just said " i do not know i do not have the answers to that Hun"
 
The next day we went to school, and everything was the same nothing had changed. Now when I look back everything had changed. I just did not realize it cause I was so young. The security at airports changed a lot, you could no longer carry certain types of accessories and a lot of other changes happend as well.

It is so sad to think about all the wife's, husbands, moms, dads, daughters, sons etc that will never come home and family's who will never see their loved ones again. Those were innocent people and so many peoples lives were affected by this.


 I am sure everyone else will never forget September 11. It will be a day that will always be remembered and will never be forgotten.

Wounded Warrior Project

  The Wounded Warrior Project lets veterans know they have people who care and appreciate what they have done for our country, also it lets us show our appreciation which is something we cannot always do. The mission of the WWP is to " Honor and empower wounded warriors". The WWP also enlist public aid to severely injured service men and women, to help service members aid and assist eachother to provide direct programs and services that fit thier needs.

I think its good that they have so many programs that can be helpful for these veterans.This Project has numerous programs that helps the mind, body, economic empowerment, and engagement. In my opinion I think it will not only help them but also help their familys who are going throught this with them also , to keep their thoughts away from all the bad that has happend to them.

It also shows americans that these soldiers are not just fighting for our freedom they are losing so much more then just thier lives at home, but their arms, legs, and flesh. I think it really opens so many peoples eyes to truly appreciate what they are doing and also gives a way to try and help them.

I think that this should make people proud of these veterans if they are not already, they risk everything for us while we are here living our lives complaining about things that do not even matter at the end of the day like, how much homework we have, or not being able to hang out with our friends or go somewhere. Maybe if we look more into all these veterans have done and what are soldiers are doing right this second, it will make us more grateful.

 I think that it would be great for our english classes to support the Wounded Warrior Project.

Book Review

Andrea Busfields born under a million shadows interested me with its detail about the country and what was going on in the main characters thoughts and lives.

The theme of the book is struggle, I think that the lesson is to inform readers how hard life is for many people and sometimes you learn to trust others to get you through it, also no matter how hard your life is somebody's is probably worse. One reasoning on why I think this is because Fawad the main character always said after telling one of this struggles " But that is just Afghanistan everybody knows pain and death is just death" Other struggles that Fawad had was he lost his whole family but his mother. His mother ended up getting very sick he had to deal with being without her for the first time.

The characters were very believable, because when the author wrote about them she put so much detail into what they were saying or feeling. Fawad the main character was also my favorite character because he was so smart and very sweet. He put a lot of thought into what he said like " This was my family, as complete and happy as it would ever be. Then one by one like leaves falling from a tree they began to die" George was also a very good character she was always calm.

I can compare this book to the Kite Runner because it also talks about struggles in the Afghanistan, its about a little boy as well. And I think The authors had similar ways of writing their books cause they both had so much detail I could really paint a picture as I was reading the books

War is..

War is devastating, ruining our soldiers lives.
War is painful, killing many.
War is expanding, getting bigger.
War is spending, costing a lot of money
War is a argument, nobody wins.
War is destroying, ruining our country.
War is killing, infinently many.
War is abducting, stealing soldiers lives.
War is agonizing, it never ends.
War is "assuring", it keeps us safe.