samdrdg0910's Blog

When Kathleen Benner Duble came to our school, she talked a lot about inspiration. In English class we get maybe 2 or 3 writing assignments each week. That means, we need to find a lot of inspiration.  I never thought of English writing assignments as inspirational pieces. But now that someone who has a lot of writing experience has told me that they can be, I’ve realized that some writing assignments I have done, I found inspiration from somewhere to write it.

Vacation: One of the first assignments that I wrote on my blog was inspired by a vacation I took. Do You Really Want to Miss Out? is supposed to be a piece relating to Romeo and Juliet but in some way or another, I incorperated my vacation to Rhode Island with my family in it.

My Own Experiences: One week this year, Mr. Olivo told us to write about things going on in our lives. This week was one of the craziest weeks of the year for me. I got my inspiration for Its All on Me from being in the school play, The Pied Piper, and I was really stressed when I wrote it.

Mothers and Fathers: In the piece Flying High Defying Parenting I talk a lot about the way my parents act towards me. I think it shows a lot about mothers and fathers, especially my mother and my father.

History, Research, Books, Other Resources: I’ve written a lot of posts that were based on books. One example is The Griffin is More “Minor” than the Canon. This writing piece is based on the story “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” that we read in class.

Where You Live: It’s a Secret Hide Out is about a place near my house that I loved to go to when I was younger. So basically, I was talking about a place that I “live”.

Some writing assignments leave you hanging. Sometimes, they don’t give you enough infomation to write something good and interesting. On Friday, the author Kathleen Benner Duble came to our school and talked about her writing. She’s written some novels and some picture books but she gave a lot of advice about how she writes her books. Most of the time she wall telling the school about how she writes, she was referring to how we can write and where we can get inspiration from.

The author started off by telling us about all the books shes written. She said that her book about airplanes was about her sister and most of the events in the story actually happened to her sister. She also said that a fun, easy way to find things to write about whether you’re writing a short story, a novel, or a homework writing assignment is by using real events that occurred in your own life. She mentioned that if you want to learn about a different time period than the one that you’re living in, you can ask older family members what they used to do when they were younger and adventures and stories that they have from that time. One of her novels is based on a story of her grandmother that was crazy and had to hold onto the edge of a bridge when a train was going over the bridge. I think that this idea is a good idea when writing an interesting story.

All of her advice seemed that it could help a student writer. I think that most of the time during the presentation she was trying to make a point about how students should write. She said during a part of the presentation that its hard to start writing assignments for school out of nothing, so the rest of the presentation must’ve been directed toward that. I think that using personal stories is a really good idea because even if the story gets boring at times you can change it up a little to make it fit the topic that the teacher has given you. Overall, I think the presentation could help a student writer im many ways.

Some people are scared of big decisions and make the wrong choices because of the way they act when they need to make a decision. Other people are confident and brave and can make better decisions because of their attitude towards it. In most cases, the traits that people possess can easily affect the decisions that they make, no matter how important or unimportant the decision is. In “The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier, characters make many decisions but depending on the character and their traits, all of the decisions are different.

One of the characters in “The Chocolate War,” Archie, has a really strong personality. One of the traits he possesses is confidence. He is a very confident, sure person and you can tell by the things that he does in the story. One way that you can tell he is confident is by the way he talks to people. An example of this is on page 71. ” ‘I didn’t do anything. I didn’t promise anything,’ Archie said automatically. Always deny everything, never apologize, never admit anything.” I think this passage shows that he is sure about what he is saying and denying. To me, when people are so sure about denying things and they are doing it fairly quickly, they must be confident about it.

Archie also makes a lot of important decisions in the story. One of the most important decisions he makes is telling Brother Leon that he and the Vigils are going to participate in the chocolate sale. He also makes many big decisions about doing things for the chocolate sale like making Room Nineteen fall apart. On page 66 it says, “Archie squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, thinking of the Vigil meeting at which he had announced that Brother Leon had asked for support for the sale and how he’d pledged the backing of the Vigils.” He makes the decision to participate because he is confident that he and the Vigils can help Brother Leon. He is like a snake when doing bad things like taking apart Room Nineteen to help the sale, too. In closing, since Archie is so confident in himself, he makes really important decisions mostly with the support of that trait.

One fundraiser that we have at our school is to sell magazines. I sold a few each of my years here. Sometimes, school fundraisers can cause problems though. It depends on a lot of things that can turn school fundraisers into problems. I got opinions of the factors that influence this from people in my class. I also got opinions on what my school would spend $20,000 on.

Some opinions were that they do cause problems. These people said that schools today are really competitive with students. And sometimes it can turn students against each other to earn the most money so that they could either win a prize or “bragging rights.” Students are very caught up in trying to be the most perfect, best student in the school. On the other hand, some people said that it wouldn’t matter very much because a lot of people don’t really care about fundraisers.

My school would probably spend $20,000 on education related things. They would spend it on books and technology like computers or iPods for students. But, in some schools it might be a problem when deciding what to spend the money on. Parents often have strong opinions on where the school’s money goes. Some parents think that they should spend the money on books because  the paper is like a newborn baby, delicate. Other parents think that it is best to have the newest technology. In conclusion, school fundraisers are very controversial things.

In Sesame Street, the song that goes “One of these things is different from the other” is used a lot. Sometimes, this saying can be reversed and turned into “One of these things is SIMILAR to the other.” In the story Star Food, Dade feels like one of his parents is always disapointed with him. One year in his life, he sees a woman stealing in the family’s food store but he lets her go many times. He does this because the woman has a different affect on him than other shop-lifters. I think he feels differently about her because he can relate to her life.

I think this woman relates to Dade because she never really pleases anyone. If she is put in the situation that she has to steal old bread to feed herself or her family, there is no easy way out. I think that Dade is a similar situation where he is trying to please too many people. His dad wants him to be a worker while his mother wants him to be a dreamer. When he disappoints both of them by letting this shop-lifter go, he is thinking about this woman more than himself or his parents.

The woman is in a situation where, if she gets caught, she disappoints the law and the store that she steals from and she disappoints her family or herself by not having food to give anyone. I think Dade feels bad for her since he is under the same amount of pressure as she is to impress people that she cares about. Dade loves his parents and doesn’t to disappoint them more but this woman has a similar situation that he does, so he lets her go.

In the musical “Wicked”, Elphaba who is also the Wicked Witch of the East, “defies gravity” by flying and also defies the town by doing what she wants instead of what everyone says that she should do and what they think should happen. Sometimes this happens in real life, when someone has to go against someone that they trust because they are telling them to do things that they don’t want to. This happens a lot when it comes to parents and their children following their rules and doing what they say. This can happen when the child is right and the parent is wrong or when the parent is right and the child is wrong. But, I don’t think children need to defy their parents to grow up.

There are sometimes when kids try to defy their parents by doing bad things. This is not how a child would grow up. Maybe part of growing up is becoming more independent but you don’t become independent from doing the wrong things without parents around. Defying parents by doing the opposite thing from what they say because what they want you to do affects you in a bad way or you don’t want to do it is the right way to defy parents. If a parent is pressuring a child to work harder at a sport because the child isn’t very good, but also doesn’t like the sport, that is a good time to rebel against the parent.

From my personal experience, if I try to defy my parents by doing bad things, I usually end up in trouble and I know I deserved it. But, in the past my dad has wanted me to play basketball because he did in high school but I know that I’m not very good at basketball and I never really wanted to play it but I didn’t want to let my dad down. Recently, when he suggested that I try out for basketball in high school, I got mad because I don’t want to make a fool of myself and I know that I’m a drama kid and he won’t accept that. Basically, I rebeled against what he said. I think that it is good to go against some things that parents want because sometimes, you know whats right for you and they don’t exactly know.

“Some elderly persons urged that the young men should go out and kill him.” The poor Griffin got made fun of and threatened so much in the story “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank R. Stockton. I can’t help but think that the Griffin must make a lot of asumptions about humans just by the way the town in the story treated him. They called him names and tried to trick him so the Griffin probably thinks that humans are a cruel, evil, judgemental and one-sided species in many ways.

When the Griffin first came to the town, everyone was afraid of him but they didn’t expect him to stay for a long time. Personally, I think that when people are intimidated or scared, they say things that they normally wouldn’t. Since the people of the town were afraid of the Griffin the entire time he was there, they said some pretty bad things about him. He only had one person that treated him with respect the whole time and that was the Minor Canon. He was never mean to the Griffin. The Griffin thinks that all people are only nice or only mean because of the way people treat him in the story. He doesn’t realize that the way people treat each other has to do with their mood and their relationship with the other person. Some people can be nice at times even when they seem mean.

I disagree with what the Griffin thinks about humans. I know, from experience,  that some people act one way around certain people or change their opinions because of what other people think. Because of the Griffin’s different looks, people treat him differently and no one except for the Minor Canon is nice to him throughout the story. He never sees the other side of people and he probably believes that everyone is the same and I know that no one is the same. In closing, the Griffin thinks wrong things because of the way he looks which leads to the way people treat him.

I disagree wit

In Japan, during the Medieval period, when a husband died, his wife was told to kill herself. Was this considered her duty? In the story “The Griffin and The Minor Cannon” by Frank R. Stockton, having duties was a big theme in the story. Duties can relate to both the Griffin and the Minor Canon. In the story, they both end up having duties to attend to for the town or for each other. These duties can be defined in many different ways. They can be actions that are necesary to do for an occupation or position or they can be a person’s sense of obligation. Both of the defintions can relate to either the Minor Canon or the Griffin.

The first defintion can relate to the Minor Canon. A Minor Canon is a preist in the town. When the Griffin comes to the town, everyone is afraid of him and since the Minor Canon is the only person that gets along with him, the town wants him to get rid of the angry ugly beast. Someone in the town says, “If you were not here, he would not stay. It is your dutie to go away… and we shall be free from the dreadful danger which hangs over us,” to the Minor Canon. The citizens think since the Minor Canon is brave and can get along with the Griffin that it is his duty to sacrifice a lot for the people of the town. He has this duty because of his position in the town and because everyone tells him it is his duty. The people enforced this on him so much that he began believing that he needed to do something that isn’t actually necesary. The Minor Canon follows his “duties” that the town has given him.

When the Minor Canon follows his “duties” the Griffin is left in the town without him and the second definiton comes into the story. The Minor Canon had classes that he taught and when he is gone, the Griffin thinks that it is his fault and feels a sense of obligation to fill in for him. He gives himself the duties that he has. When he tries to teach, he is like a bad substitute teacher. The duty that he gives himself fails. In the end, both of the duties that the two characters have don’t help anyone.

The book that I am reading is called The Truth About Forever by Sara Dessen. The book is a realistic fiction story about a girl’s summer that her life changed. My story is a lot like it.

“Tic toc on the clock but the party don’t stop no…” played on the radio as Lisa turned on her car. Her best friend Minnie was sitting in the passenger seat. Minnie, always having to speak her mind, said exactly what was on her mind. “The girl that sings this song really has kind of a crazy life. ‘The party don’t stop,’” she sang along with the song, “I wish my life was like hers.” Lisa didn’t think much of what she had just said but it would end up changing her life.

That whole summer, Minnie obsessed with trying to have parties and go out and do fun things instead of focusing on her college classes. Lisa thought that Minnie was acting stupid and that she can have fun without being crazy, but she insisted that at least every weekend, she had to be at a party or throw a party. Most of the time, Lisa would stay home and watch TV or work but one night she decided that after working so hard on her school work, she deserved a night out. Going out that warm Saturday night in July was probably one of the biggest mistakes of Lisa’s life.

 The girls went into the house that this party was at and even Minnie was surprised.  Everyone there seemed to be older than them and they were drinking alcohol. Lisa and Minnie were only 19 at this time. Both girls were scared when they got there but soon enough they found someone that they knew and things started to become a little less scary to the girls. Minnie drank the punch, not knowing that there was alcohol in it and ended up hardly being able to stand up. Lisa knew better than Minnie but she knew that she would have to drive home. When the girls were going to leave, it was about 2 in the morning. Lisa told Minnie that she was going to drive home, but Minnie, being stubborn, wouldn’t give up the keys. Lisa thought she would rather not get in a fight so she let Minnie drive home. As Minnie was driving on the highway she lost control of the wheel and crashed into a truck in front of their car. Lisa got out and was fine, but Minnie was clearly hurt. Lisa was alone in the middle of the night on the highway with her dying best friend so she couldn’t help but cry. The ambulence came and told Lisa that Minnie wasn’t going to live. She couldn’t go to the hospital and watch her friend take her last breaths so she called her mom and went home. She knew that this whole accident was her fault for not insisting on driving. Lisa wouldn’t be able to live with the fact that she let her friend die.