Final Blog Post

In the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Susie Salmon is 13 when she is raped then murdered by her neighbor Mr. Harvey. Everyone in her family deals with Susie's death in their own way. They all don't know how to get closure. Alice Sebold shows how death affects everyone differently.

When Jack Salmon (Susie's Dad) finds out his daughter is dead, he is devastated. At first he denies it and refuses to believe his eldest daughter is dead, but when they find her elbow he has to accept the fact he is never seeing his daughter again. He immediately becomes intent on finding out who the murderer is. When his wife abandons him, he has to be mother and father to his 2 other children, Lindsay and Buckley, and find closure for his daughters death. Throughout the book he has hard times controlling his anger about what has happened in his life. He destroys theses glass ships he used to build with Susie, when he sees someone moving in the cornfield where Susie died, he goes out and attacks them thinking it was her murderer when it was only one of Susie's old friends. He ends up being so sad he doesn't give his remaining kids all the love and attention they need. After 10 years, he learns to embrace his grief and anger and starts giving his kids all his love and attention instead of wasting it on Susie's murder.

Abigail Salmon(Susie's mother), uses her daughters death as a wake up call. When Susie dies, Abigail starts to think about all the thinks she wanted do with her life but never got the chance too. She doesn't want to be a housewife anymore. She still loves her 2 other childen, Lindasy and Buckley, but she despises the word the comes out of their lips everytimes they need her. "Mother". She doesn't want to be a mother when she has lost a child. She ends up leaving her family, and sets out to do all she ever wanted. It takes 10 years and her husband to have a heart attack to come home.By her leaving but then returning it shows how she just needed time to heal from losing her daughter.

Alice Sebold writes about many different ways to deal and accept death. Everyone in the story, all of Susie's friends, siblings, and even neighbors deals with her death differently. Alice Sebold shows us that is okay to deal with death differently and that no one will experience death in the same way.

Poem Essay

Everyone takes pictures these days, whether it's a "selfie", an "artsy" picture, a Polaroid, or a digital camera. People take these pictures a post them on Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, Snapchat. The poem "Photography" by Nikki Giovanni, has a theme which is that photography is a way to show that everything has beauty.

The poet writes "It is easy sitting in the sun to forget the cold exists...It is easy sitting in the sun to forget the ice and ravages of winter yet " The poet is using the cold, ice, and ravages of winter as a symbol for his or her problems. This shows how the speaker has all these problems, he or she needs to forget , and that he or she can find this beauty in sitting in the sun, not having to worry.

Another example is "watching the red sun bleed into the ocean, one thinks of the beauty fire can bring." This shows how the speaker is finding beauty in such a simple thing; a sunset. Earlier in the poem it says, 'The eye we are told is a camera." The speaker is capturing this moment of the sunset. The speaker is also showing how something so deadly as fire, can be beautiful.

The poet also says “If the eye is a camera and the film is the heart, then the photo assistant is god.” When the speaker says this, he or she is saying that although the eye is what captures the moment, and the heart stores it, the photo assistant is the one who develops and prints out the photo. The photo assistant has all the power. The photo assistant has the power to print out the moments, choosing which will be captured forever.

After reading this, I realized that the poet is trying to show how powerful a photograph can be.

Bibliography

Giovanni, Nikki. “Photography.” Poetry Packet.

Writing Off Writing Prompts

Poem based on The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gough


The stars shine brightly in the night sky
like twinkling christmas tree lights.

The never-ending sky stretches on and on.

A black tree looms up on the air
growing taller each second.

The world is waking up.

Poem using/based on Photography by Nikki Giovanni

It is easy sitting in the sun to forget.
To forget all the pain and hurt that was come my way.

To forget the awful things that have sailed right out of their mouths
and crashed into me.

But then the sun is gone.
And it all comes racing back to me
like race cars flying into the finish line.

The eye we are told is a camera,
capturing every second of everyday.

Click.

Everything I see, becoming a part of me.

A part of me that will never leave.

It's up to me to decide whether it will make me,
Or break me.

The Selection By Kiera Cass

The Selection By Kiera Cass is told from the main character, America Singer's point of view.She is currently part of the selection, a competition for Prince Maxon too choose his wife. America is having a hard time because she is falling in love with Maxon but is still in love with her boyfriend(ex-boyfriend) Aspen from back home. America puts Maxon through so much, and as the book goes on we hear all of America's thoughts,struggles, and feelings but we never get to see Maxon's thoughts.
Maxon's perspective is missing from The Selection.

America's emotions are going crazy the whole book. She is in love with Aspen but it starting to fall in love with Maxon. She puts him through so much, and its clear Maxon loves America. In one scene America is telling Maxon how she can't love him, there is someone back at home but she needs to stay in the competition because her family needs the weekly pay. Maxon agrees to keep her there as long as he can.
                               Maxon leaned toward me. 'Is there any possibility of you having any sort of.......of loving feelings toward me?' 'You're very kind your Majesty, and attractive, and thoughtful. I'm...I'm afraid my heart is elsewhere.'.....'The thing is I don't want to go home. My family needs me to be here.' 'For the money?' 'Yes. Even a week here would be wonderful.' 'Don't worry my dear, I will keep you here as long as I can.'(Cass,129)

This shows how if we saw Maxon's perspective, it would be a different feel for the scene all together. From America telling it, it shows that she feels bad about not being able to love Maxon, and how she really is there for the money.  It shows how Maxon has feelings for America and there is a lot on his side of the story we don't know, just from this small scene.

Maxon has lots of scenes where it is unclear what he is thinking. You hear America worrying what he is thinking. Maxon has has lots of layers. There are so many sides to him. He is sweet Maxon who cares so much about America, his country, the other girls in the selection, There is war Maxon when he has to go away and make plans. There is Maxon with his father. He and his father have a strained relationship. We never get to really see Maxon through his own eyes, just Americas.

Kiera Cass developed a great character but you only get to see him from America's point of view, which is always so conflicted. You never really get to know the real Maxon. If Maxons point of view was shown they book would be so much better.

Revised "Push" Reading Response

In the book Push by Sapphire, Precious has a very hard life. Precious is a obese girl, pregnant with her second child by her father,is not smart enough for her grade, and gets abused at home by her mother. She hates life. Through out the book she learns very important lessons. She learns to stand up for herself, to do what she loves, and to live her own life. The main theme in the book is taking charge of your life leads to many positive things.

One example that you have to take charge of your life is Precious gets sexually abused, physically abused, and pushed around at the beginning of the book. She's been told and treated she's worthless countless of times,so of course she believes it. She is 16 but in the 8th grade. She finally decides to start to go to a school where she first takes a pre-GED class then will later on take GED class. She meets people who change her life such as her teacher, Ms.Rain, and her friends.She learns to read and write, and starts to write poetry. She learns to have a real relationship with someone.Taking charge of your life leads to many good things.

Taking charge of your life leads to good things, so when Precious finally leaves her house and abusive mother things start to go upward. She puts the last 16 years of her life behind her. The only reason her mother let her be in the house, was because her mother got money from welfare because of Precious and her kids and she goes to live in a half-way house. When she decided to take charge and move out and leave all the bad things behind so many new options opened up for her. 

Taking charge of life leads to something good. Precious had a horrible life and with one decision everything turned around. Precious shows us how even when the cards you got handed in life aren't good, you can take new cards, and make your life better.

Critical Question #5

    *contains spoilers*

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Everything is labeled in groups. If you don't fit in one group, find another. When Junior decides to leave his school on the Rez, everyone hates him. He is purposely leaving their group and joining a new group that has never been kind to Indians. At first Junior is an individual on the Rez because he abandoned them, and at his new school Rearden he is a individual because he is the poor Indian in the middle of a white rich kids. Everyone has to be in a group, and everything has to be a competition.

    When Junior starts being accepted at Rearden, thats when things get worse on the Rez. On the Rez everyone hates him, because he left them. The only ones Junior has are his Parents, his Sister Mary,his Dad's best friend Eugene, and Grandmother. When his Grandmother, Mary, and Eugene all die The Rez briefly allow him back into their group.
                             
                                  We held Grandmother's wake 3 days later...Almost 2000 Indians came, and no   one gave me any crap. I mean I was still the kid who betrayed the tribe. That couldn't be forgiven.  But I was also they kid who lost their grandmother. Which was horrible. So they all waved the white flag, and let me grieve in peace. (Alexie, 159)

This quote shows how big a deal groups are. How big a deal sticking together is. But it also shows us that we can work together, and everything doesn't allows have to be a competition. This quote really defines that. It also shows us that a competition doesn't have to be all the time. That it's ok to take a brake once and awhile.


In the book Junior is on the Rearden basketball team. When he has to go to his old school gym on the Rez, to play his former classmates, friends and family all hell brakes loose. Everyone is booing him. Someone throws a quarter at his head causing him to get stitches. They make him pass out and go to the hospital, because he has a concussion. This shows how on the Rez competition is everything. How sticking with one another is super important. Since Junior transferred schools, he betrayed his own tribe. They pushed him out of their group and into the Rearden group. Except no one really wanted him their at first. He was an individual hidden in a group.

This is a really good book, that takes teamwork to the extreme. Everyone gets categorized in all these groups, inside other larger groups.  Everything has to be a competition. You have to have the right people by your side in order to survive.

Arguement Essay Draft 2+Work Cited Page

In Middle Schools everywhere kids are being exposed to inappropriate things, and are being peer pressured. Looking for Alaska by John Green is a very mature book, with lots of heavy issues. Looking For Alaska should be banned from middle school libraries because it contains adult content.

One example is  from Looking For Alaska. Lara Pudge’s girlfriend is talking to Pudge about taking their relationship to the next level: “Have you ever gotten a blow job?’..’No.’...We;; I’ve never given one.’” (Green, 126) Because it contains sexual content middle schoolers might feel uncomfortable reading it because they aren’t used to hearing or dealing with it. Middle school is the age where children are being exposed to inappropriate material and start relationships, so this quotation makes kids feel uncomfortable because it is a situation they don’t know how to deal with.

Another example is the characters do lots of illegal things. it says “We’re all gonna puke if we don’t slow down [the drinking]!’....’Let’s slow it down with a drinking game!”(Green 114) This shows how this could influence pre-teens and teens that drinking is ok. Or drinking is fun. Pudge gets peer pressured to start drinking, and middle schools. Also the article Sick-Lit talks about how books will influence kids to do what the characters do. A girl was reading a book about a girl who harms herself to cope with pressure. This girl says: “I finished reading, and immediately reached for my blade.” (Carey 2) This book will set the wrong example for lots of kids.

Some may say that middle schools are at the age where they are learning about everything and that they are mature enough to read about it. Looking For Alaska deals with smoking, drinking, suicide, bad language, porn, stealing, failing school, eating fast foods. Many Middle Schools say that they are mature enough but since that is the age where they start learning about and handling situations like these, it could set them on the wrong track, or even teach them about things before they are ready or mature enough to know about them.

Looking For Alaska is a very good book but it is aimed at a much higher audience then middle schoolers. Kids nowadays are learning about things before they are ready and it can have a negative effect or make them think something is ok when it isn’t. Many Kids don’t know personally whether they are mature enough to handle certain issues, although they say they are. Thats why these books should be banned from middle school libraries.

Works Cited

Carey, Tanith. "Sick Lit." MailOnline. N.p., 3 Jan. 2013. Web. 9 Oct. 2013.

Green, John. Looking for Alaska. New York: Dutton Children's, 2005. Print.