Fourth Summer Reading Post

I chose the book, John Lennon All I Want is the Truth because out of all the books on the provided list, that book seemed the more interesting out of the bunch. One personal connection that I made while reading the book is when John ran to his mother and decided to live with her after initially deciding to not live with her, but to live with his father. One thing that drew my attention to the book was that it was about one of the most famous figures of the 1960's, and supplied a very detailed biography about the life, and death, of John Lennon.
          I would recommend this book to any Beatle fan or memorbilia collector in this world, along with anyone who is a big fan of pop music, and wants to know about some of the most popular music from the twentieth century. I would recommend this book to those people because it fits the topic that currently captivated the imagination of those people. I did not like the book alot because I am not a major fan of pop music or a fan of music at all. One thing I did like about the book was the inclusion of pictures and their captions, especially when they had content that did not have EVERTHNG to do with the topic being discussed in the words on that specific page.

Summer Blog Post

On November 15, 1969, two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered in Washington D.C., to protest the Vietnam War. In England, the demonstration was broadcast on television. John Lennon watched as the enormous gathering of people, stretched as far as the eye could see, sang his song. He was amazed. They seemed to sing "forever, and not stopping," he said. "It was one of the biggest moments of my life."
          In the months and years to come, his song would fill the air at rallies, marches, and candlelit vigils around the world. In a flash of inspiration, John had written an anthem for the peace movement.(Elizabeth Partridge)


I chose this as a hook for my book because it has the proper start to it that would normally be used to hook people to read a book, like those things that are in the front flap or on the back cover. There is also a kind of, feeling, that you get from reading this that makes you think that the subject of the  hook, John Lennon, has accomplished all in the world that he has wanted to and he has completed his goal in life. This is proven by the quote by Lennon when he says that it was the biggest moment of his life.

Summer Reading Post #2

There are no underlying themes in John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth, due to the fact that the book is an autobiography and is about the life of a person, and is factual, giving it the potential to have NO themes in the story. All characters want something in this story, as it is human nature to want. Freddie wants to live alone with John. Julia wants John to live with her sister and her husband. Mimi wanted John to be raised in a proper, English way. The least complex character of the bunch is by far Freddie Lennon. His true intentions are never revealed and his motivations arent shown either, this is most likely due to the lack thereof general information about Freddie.
The book is structured in a way that it appears to idolize John Lennon as the superstar that he was, as if every move he made was that of a superstar. It also has time specific photos of John while he was growing up with captions that say what the photo is of John doing, with specifications as to which person in the photo is John, and can have an additional person in the photo with a fun fact about them.

Summer Assignment Post #1

The main characters in John Lennon:All I Want is the Truth are John Lennon, Mimi, John's aunt, Julia Lennon, his mother, and Freddie Lennon, John's father. The setting is in Liverpool, Great Britain during the earlier stages of World War 2. The main conflict showing up in this part of the story is who will hold custody of John while he grows up. What i think might happen is that John will ultimately be in custody of his mother while he grows up because that is what mother's do best, they raise their children. Some real-life works this might relate to is a typical romance story where a couple might have fight over who will get to keep their child after they split up, but they usually get back together in those stories, and in this one i do not predict John's parents to get back together. One thing that i wonder about his parents' relationship is why they split up in the first place, the author does make it appear that they split up because of work, but that is not a normal way that a married couple might divorce due to. One other thing I noticed about the title of this book is that the name has a musical tune to it, is that one of the Beatle's songs?

Blog post

So remember last week when Firestar was faced with the decision to either leave the forest, or risk fighting for it and losing? Well after lots of thought and consideration, Firestar ultimately decided to stay and fight. So several days later, when the day of the battle came upon them, the two giant groups of clans clashed, and while this was going on, Whitestorm, Firestar's appointed deputy, died in the clamour. When Firestar was fighting the opposing group's leader, he ended up losing the first of his nine lives. What do these things have in common? Courage. And that is what my ramble will be about.
          Courage is something that not many people have. It is the opposite of the freeling you have when you are about to go skydiving for the first time, or are about to go on a rollercoaster you have never ridden on. Courage is something that must be obtained instead of inherited. The only way to become courageous is to have a last resort or to be nearly certain to lose. Courage is power.

Blog post

So there has been shocking news throughout the forest recently. Tigerclaw has been made leader of ShadowClan! Even though ThunderClan is the only clan not to know of Tigerstar's treachery against Bluestar, the whole forest is surprised to hear the news, with most of them believing Tigerstar is dead. But soon after Tigerstar is made leader, he creates a double-clan with RiverClan and tries to force the other two clans to join his TigerClan(forest term for group of tigers). To help him achieve this, Tigerstar enlists the help of rogue two-legplace cats, BloodClan to help him convince the other clans of joining him. Unfortunately, his plan backfires and the leader of BloodClan, Scourge, uses his super-sharp claws to take all of Tigerstar's nine lives'. Before leaving the confrontation, he tells the newly formed LionClan(alliance of the clans not formed by TigerClan) that they have 5 days to leave the forest or they die. The leader of LionClan, Firestar, has a big decision to make, leave, or let lots of cats die. This is what I want to talk about today.
          Decisions are something that is very hard to make, they can make us, break us, complete us, or consume us. While for some people decisions are clockwork, for some it can be agonizing to pick either the red pill or the blue pill. In my example Firestar ultimately decides to fight BloodClan, and he succeeds and fight them off, but he loses a bunch of good cats in the process. That is a good example of a risky choice where double the pressure is put on to where nobody would want to wish that kind of pain onto somebody.

Blogging Assessment #1

  Tragedy. It happens. Just how bad it is is only changeable by how you react to it. One character, though, has reacted to tragedy in a terrible way. This character decided to change their personality and M.O. entirely. This character of course, is Bluestar reacting to Tigerclaw's treachery and attempt to kill her to become ThunderClan's leader. When the fire broke out around the forest, Bluestar only accepted the offer from Crookedstar to shelter ThunderClan for a few days, not giving them the proper time to recover. This is only furthered by her accusing StarClan of waging war against ThunderClan

          Bluestar does not appear to be getting much better in her psyche at all; it would be wise to assume Bluestar's mental injuries are permanent. The only solution for something this bad is to wait her out until either these permanent injuries miraculously heal or she inevitably reaches the end of her lifespan. This is one of the more stressful parts of the series where the books aren’t as enjoyable because the relationship of Bluestar and her clan.

1.       Some words that are uniquely used by me are ones such as ‘miraculously’, ‘M.O.’, and ‘inevitably reaches’. These show my personality as a writer by being complicated and advanced vocabulary that most people would not use on a regular basis. These words being used in the order that they were (not as a phrase, but chronological order) specifically makes up the train of my thought.

2.       One example of diction, or more specifically, Elevated or informal diction is, “until either these permanent injuries miraculously heal or she inevitably reaches the end of her lifespan”. This is elevated diction because it used above average amount of medium-advanced diction. An example of Syntax is when I say,” Just how bad it is is only changeable by how you react to it.” I used the word ‘is’ twice in a row in this sentence. I used it twice because the first ‘is’ is tied to the word ‘it’ that appears first, because the first ‘is’ is tied to a word, it cannot be tied to another word that proceeds it at the same time. If I had done the latter I would have been incorrect with my grammar.

 

Blog Post

          Tragedy. It happens. Just how bad it is is only changeable by how you react to it. One character,  though, has reacted to tragedy in a terrible way. This character decided to change their personality and M.O. entirely. This character of course, is Bluestar reacting to Tigerclaw's treachery and attempt to kill her to become ThunderClan's leader. When the fire broke out around the forest, Bluestar only accepted the offer from Crookedstar to shelter ThunderClan for a few days, not giving them the proper time to recover. This is only furthered by her accusing StarClan of waging war against ThunderClan.
          Bluestar does mot appear to be getting much better in her psyche at all, it would be wise to assume Bluestar's mental injuries are permanent. The only solution for something this bad is to wait her out until either these permanent injuries miraculously heal or she inevitably reaches the end of her lifespan. This is one of the more stressful parts of the series where the books arent as enjoyable because the relationship of Bluestar and her clan.

Blog Post

          After reading a little bit more, it is starting to look like Tigerclaw is going to be a traitor to his own clan after possibly murduring Redtail and attempting to kill Bluestar. But when Fireheart attempts to tell Bluestar that Tigerclaw is a traitor, Bluestar refuses to believe him, knowing that Tigerclaw must be a good cat. So because of this, Fireheart decides to put it into the back of his head and to not further pursue it due to Bluestar telling him not to ask her again.
         Another big storyline in this book is ShadowClan has stolen ThunderClan kits. This forces Fireheart and Yellowfang, the current medicine cat for ThunderClan and ShadowClan's former medicine cat, go to the ShadowClan border to rescue the kits. When at the border, YellowFang goes to get some of the elders that are against ShadowClan taking ThunderClan's kits. They then precede to go into the camp in a frontal attack and rescue the kits along with removing the dictator who was terrorizing ShadowClan from power. This is important because this dictator later contributes to the first story about Tigerclaw and the potential for him to be a traitor.

Krista Ramsey Post

          In this column, Ramsey explains why it is a bad idea to give teachers guns to prevent school shootings. "As a board of education, you know better than most how much is already asked of teachers and how far their energy and talents are stretched." This is a powerful line because it clearly lets the reader know that the teachers already have lots of responsibility on them and if this passes they also have to carry a gun! Ramsey has the sentence directed at the board of education that plans on making this regulation, as if the whole article was intended for the board of education.
          Her writing style is one that is patient and takes a lot of time. This is because she takes a paragraph for every point, and always takes the long way around when making a sentence.

Do you think teachers will ultimately have to carry weapons?
What do you think should be done instead of giving teachers firearms?
Do you think there is a great chance that a school shooting could happen to us?

Warriors Book 1: Into the Wild post #2

          After continuing to read this book, it becomes very evident that the abundance of characters starts to become confusing for the author because she uses previous names for characters instead of their current names'. This is not a huge problem, it is obvious when it happens and very easy to correct the mistake in your mind.
          When reading this book, the creativity allows for the story to have multiple themes at once, so far, the theme appears that the theme is warning against over-ambition. This is what the theme must be because one of the best warriors in ThunderClan really wants to become clan deputy and then leader and will stop at nothing to achieve that status. The consequences of this potential theme have yet to be revealed, but it must be fairly obvious that there will be some sort of a consequence sooner or later in the story. I think the author thinks this theme is important because some of the most ambitious people have become very powerful, but were not suited for that power. This is what I believe that the negative result of the ambitious warrior in ThunderClan might be, he will eventually become a clan leader, but be terrible at it or be exceptional but not to the gain of the people that he would be leading.
          The setting of this story in in a forest, but the geological location might be a little bit harder to find. There is snowy winters in the forest, even with references to blizzards that might eventually pop up every once in a while. This must mean that the story takes place a fair distance from the equator. There is also a lack thereof mention of hot summers, so it would be safe to assume that this might be in the northern great plains or in southern Canada.

Warriors book one: Into the Wild

          I have recently started reading the first book in the Warriors tri-series, Into the Wild. So in a forest, there exist these four clans of wild cats, ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan. These clans are highly competitive for food and prey and will stop at nothing to support and be loyal to their respective clans. Bordering this forest is a neighborhood of Two-legs, or humans. In one of the houses dwells a kitten named Rusty, who eventually gets curious and wanders into the forest to only be greeted by members of ThunderClan.
          What I think of this book is that the author is trying to make sense of behaviors of wild animals in an unrealistic, but creative fashion. This extensive creativity and altered realities make it very possible to make multiple stories out of this setting. A.K.A. the two spinoff series created after the first, individual series. The one thing I really dislike about this setting is that due to the fact that the author employs tons of charaters it is really easy to have a lot of them die and because you knew them alot it does make you upset.

Farenheit 451 Characterization

          The most characterized character in Farenheit 451 would have to be the main character, Montag. Montag is a fireman who's task is to burn the illegal book. Montag is characterized as a person who does what needs to be done, but doesn't really care what he is doing while he is doing it. He also is mutually respected by his colleagues at the firehouse. Montag overgoes a dynamic change when he meets Clarisse and she informs him of what used to be and what could be if not for the firemen. He then changes his perspective of life drastically.
          Montag also must have a 'to not care' type of mindset because he does not care how harmless the book is and burns them without thinking first. Another example of this mindset is when his wife overdoses on her medications he does not immediately react in the normal pannicky way that a human being should. What he does is he calls for those men to come to the house and suck the blood out of her body to be replaced by new blood. This mindset is what part of Montag changes when he meets Clarisse.