Semester 1 Reflection

The independent reading I completed this semester consisted of the Heroes of Olympus series, the Jake Ransom series, the Vampire Academy series, and the Chloe King series among others. I read about 25 books so far and have a goal of 40 for the end of 2014. Most of my books that I read are in the fantasy genre, because that's one of my favorite genres. I am currently reading the Book Thief and book 4 of the Vampire Academy series. I also reread the Harry Potter series a second time.

My blog posts were good in quality by having compelling ideas, such as the idea of a connection between the reader and the blogger, like similar likes and dislikes. This also included writer's voice, which was strongly present in the blog. It also included links to websites connected to the current book, such as the link to J.K. Rowling's Pottermore website. The website included pictures that connected the reader and the blogger. Finally, the blog contained videos, such as trailers for movies with similar plot lines to certain books.

Three of the new goals for the 2nd semester blog are (1) focus more with blogging. This semester, the voice in my blog was mostly about language arts as a whole, not centered on specific ideas. The next goal is (2) to branch out more in reading, such as different genres like historical fiction or autobiographies. And finally, my last goal (3) is to read books at a higher reading level or just with tougher language. For example, Shakespeare or books at a college reading level.

Text-to-Society Collaborative Blog Post Assignment

The central idea my memoir (Wish You Happy Forever:What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains  by Jenny Bowen) that interested me the most was that the main character (Jenny Bowen) had a dream and she found a way to make that dream a reality.
Basically this book is about a Caucasian American woman, with 2 biological kids already having families of their own, and she decides to adopt a Chinese girl, then she decides to try and help other children in the orphanages made even harder by the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy as she is trying to make international Chinese connections, and later, when she makes those connections and is trying to get into China to see some more orphanages, The Dying Rooms comes out, a movie that portrays China as treating their orphans terribly and savagely. China's orphans are not being treated well, but only because there are so many orphans, and too few hands to help take care of them all.

The URL below is a link to an article explaining China's One Child Policy, and how the relaxing of that policy and allowing parents to have more kids has increased woman's place/role in Chinese society.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as-china-s-one-child-policy-relaxes-girl-children-no-longer-stigmatized.html

Basically The Dying Rooms is a documentary made by people sneaking cameras and a filming crew into Chinese orphanages and grossly blowing the story's details out of proportion, by saying that the Chinese abuse their children and don't take care of their children.

This is Half the Sky's logo, written in English and Chinese. 

10/19 Reading Update

So, this week I finished Goblet of Fire and since it's been a long time since I've blogged, I'll just update on everything else, too. So here's what's going on:

1. Finished Goblet of Fire
2. Started Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix
3. Got to the part about Snape teaching Harry Occlumency
4. Left it in my friend's car
5. He hasn't brought it to school to give back to me for TWO WHOLE DAYS 

I am so mad!

But I digress, I also reached a really sad chapter in The Color of Water, where the main character (who is writing from his mother's point of view in an interview) talks about how his mother's mother had no power, and an "abusive marriage", as they would call it nowadays, was back then referred to as "wife". It's so sad because the mother's mother (I'm just gonna call her Mameh, `cause that's her name) has all this bad stuff happening to her (there's probably going to be a lot of lists in this post, just a heads-up)

1. She is nearly blind in her left eye
2. Slightly crippled
3. Blacks out often
4. Sisters don't care for her
5. Husband (Tateh) has an affair
6. Tateh can treat her however he wants
7. Sick
8. Tateh divorces without her permission

See this lady had a really hard life, but because she was crippled, she had nowhere else to go, so she had to stay with her mean, abusive, ex-husband, who divorced without consent, and she still has to work at his shop.

9/25 Reading Update

So, this week I finished Harry Potter (book 1) the Sorcerer's Stone. For all you Harry Potter fans out there, no, this is not my first time reading the books, that would be extremely uneducated because even if you have read the book 10 times, it is still an AWESOME read.
If you didn't already know, J.K. Rowling actually has an entire website dedicated to Harry Potter, called Pottermore. https://www.pottermore.com/en-us/

“Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry stiffly.
"Yes, sir."
"There's no need to call me "sir" Professor."
The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

tags: humor, rebellion, sarcasm

10686 likes

Liked!
view quote 

This is one of my favorite quotes (and I haven't reread this book in the series yet).

I also finished Harry Potter, book 2.
AND I am currently on book 6 of the Infinity Ring series. It sounds kind of dorky, but it actually teaches you a lot about history.
We are also starting The Color Of Water this week in Honors English, which is supposed to be a really good book.

Anyway, for those of you who do not keep up with the times, William Mason High School Marching Band won 1st place in Class AAAA in the Dayton Bands of America Competition. We also won Outstanding Music Performance, Outstanding Visual Performance, and Outstanding Visual Effect. We got 49/50 for the Woodwinds, which is almost impossible to score.
AND on top of that, we won GRAND CHAMPION OF THE 2014 DAYTON REGIONAL BANDS OF AMERICA COMPETITION.

We were pretty darn good, and although our show may not seem like it, it's a lot like a good book.

-You come in with a bang, something to excite the reader/audience
-Have eye-catching color guard members, like characters
-Move to different parts of the show, like different big events in a book
-Captivate an audience/reader with woodwind features, drum line solos, brass crescendos, pit runs,like the author captivates a read with great story lines and diction

That's all I have for now, and here's my double-funny because the next due-date for this isn't for another 3 weeks.

9/21/2014 Reading Update

So, as of this week I have finished 2 books, both of which are below my reading level, but I've been meaning to finish for a while. The first is Hunted, which is book 2 of the Spirit Animals series.

Off topic here for a minute, don't you hate when you read the first book in a series and then accidentally buy the fifth book, or accidentally buy the second book in a series without reading the first book? Because then you're just so lost and you have no clue what's going on. What I also strongly dislike is when you are someone who has read like the first 10 books in a series and in every book the author has to review what happened in the last 10 books, so anyone who has already read those books has to slog through the pages where the author summarizes the previous books because they also explain what is and will happen in this book, so whenever you just think "I'm done with this.", the author puts in some dialogue, like "I think we should plan to ambush the evil duke's castle.", and then you get excited, and then they explain about the evil duke, and you're just like:




Anyway the second book I finished was book 3 of Grimmtastic Girls series (for some reason I LOVE fairy tales) and it's about Snow White.

Anyway the books used a lot of setting description and it was very cool to like be IN the books.Do you ever have those moments where when you read, you can't hear or be conscious of anything around you? Like you just get sucked into the book? I have those moments all the time in class and it always makes it really hard to pay attention, especially when you're reading a good book and all you can think about is OMG I cannot believe he just said that and then when you get to read all the people around you keep asking questions and you're just like:




I also rated a blog today (Jenna Cavanaugh) (I hope I spelled that right)


Here is my funny for the week.

9/10 Reading Update

So I'm now reading the Mortal Instruments series (book 1:The City of Bones) and DISCLAIMER: SPOILER ALERT the main character just found out that her mom was actually the wife of this bad guy who wanted to wipe out all these people and stuff. The main guy character in the story is also incredibly arrogant, but very amusing. I posted the trailer in the last post, so look back if you haven't seen it. A quote that my friend used on me is slightly mathematical but very funny.

“If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now.” 

― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones 


This is so true though with arrogant characters.
Okay, I know that none of you can answer this online, but do any of you really dislike writing? I mean, for me, it's totally fine, if someone says build a fictional story, but what really chips my reed (sorry, marching band reference) is when someone asks you to write a prompt, like "Please write a 4-page draft illustrating a time you had to use a virtue. Make sure to include all of our writing tools and explain your virtue within the story."
 










And those of us who have read lots of books know about, oh, 10 million ways to do that, but working it into a true narrative, without space giants and asteroids and a little romance before saving the planet? Forget about it.

I also recently read a review on my friend's blog (hi Kelly) about this book called Mother, Mother. It's actually a slightly depressing book, simply because of all the problems going on in the Hurst family household. For example:
Rose (oldest): being groomed to be a famous actress-until she runs away with her boyfriend.
Violet (middle child-16): Rebel, cuts her hair, mind-altering drugs after Rose leaves, is accused of attacking her brother.
Will (youngest-12): Mama's boy, home schooled, recently diagnosed with Aspergers and epilepsy, attacked by a family member.
Dad: starts drinking after Rose leaves, lets Josephine (Mom) have free reign of the house, no backbone (figuratively)
Josephine (Mom): After Rose leaves, she tightens her grip on her previously subtly-controlled household, sends Violet to a mental hospital after Violet supposedly hurts Will, while Violet is there, Josephine sends notes that are supposedly from Rose.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a FABULOUS weekend and may your Marching Bands always nail their jazz runs!


    

9/08 Reading Update

So, this week I actually finished quite a few books this week: Roman Myths, The Nine Lives of Chloe King (books 1-3), and I'm more than halfway through Clone Codes.

So basically Roman Myths are the same as Greek gods/goddesses. For example:

• Zeus➙ Jupiter
• Poseidon➙ Neptune
• Hades➙ Pluto
• Hera➙ Juno
• Hestia➙ Vesta
• Dionysus➙ Bacchus
• Apollo➙ Apollo
• Artemis➙ Diana
• Aphrodite➙ Venus
• Ares➙ Mars
• Hermes➙ Mercury
• Athena➙ Minerva
• Demeter➙ Ceres
• Hephaestus➙ Vulcan
• Persephone➙ Proserpina                                                  

The Nine Lives of Chloe King was a great series. They also made it into an ABC Family TV series, which has an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT plot line. The main character spends the series with a guy, while in the books she is fighting for her life against a society. DISCLAIMER: IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE SERIES AND WANT TO SPOILERS AHEAD. The ending is really great though, the bad guy dies, she ends up with her guy, and they live MOSTLY happily ever after, but the author does make sure to hint at upcoming spectacles, like people having feelings for other characters and loose ends with bad guys and all that. 

Clone Codes is actually this really great book (it's in a series, so I'll have to read the next 2 books). It takes place in 2170, where clones and cyborgs are real and there's all this cool virtual stuff. Anyway, no one has perfected infant cloning DISCLAIMER:SPOILER ALERT and this ordinary girl finds out that her sister, who died in a car crash, was actually her clonee, and that the main character(same girl) is actually a clone. But then everyone keeps treating her like a great scientific discovery. And the government is after her because apparently she is the first successful infant clone, and she can lie, which no other clone can. 

My friend (Hi, Julia) actually got me hooked on the Mortal Instruments and Vampire Academy series. The movies look really good! 

And just for a funny trailer for everyone having a rough week, this is the new movie Penguins of Madagascar coming Thanksgiving. Hope you like it!

8/28/2014 Current Reads

  So, currently I am reading The Bridge to Never Land by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It's It's the fifth book in the series and a very surprising read. I waited awhile to start it, simply because no library had the book and I never just buy the fifth book in a series. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS SERIES AND PLAN TO DO NOT READ THIS BLOG, THERE ARE SPOILERS! The fourth book ended with Peter and Molly going separate ways and having all the readers who were rooting for them to get together stop and freeze,  like this quote I was reading from Rick Riordan:

“To my wonderful readers:
Sorry about that last cliff-hanger.
Well, no, not really. HAHAHAHA.
But seriously, I love you guys.”
― Rick Riordan, The House of Hades

See, I picture authors who end books with a cliffhanger like that, just sitting around their house trying to finish a book, and then getting a brainstorm, ending the book on a cliffhanger, and then rolling on the floor laughing at all the suckers who read their last book and read about their favorite characters and then finished the book with "And then the floor fell through and the world was plunged into blackness." If authors end books that way, then they need to read their series again and feel all that emotional trauma that goes through ending on a cliffhanger.
But, I'm getting off topic. My book is really good. It's like one of those secret spy on the run kind of books, like Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol.

See, these kids have read the Peter and the Starcatcher's series and they didn't think that the stories were real, like everyone else. This series is really eye-opening about the police and the FBI, and I don't know if this book's information is true, but in the book, the two kids run away and the FBI and the police force are looking for missing kids. What really stood out to me is that the kids are trying to explain what they're doing with this guy who's helping them, and all the FBI cares about is getting them away from him. And then later, when another guy points out, that for kidnapped kids, they sure look cooperative. Neither law-enforcement listens to the kids and that kind of opens your eyes to maybe what really goes on in the real world.

Before I finish this post, one funny thought for Friday, because Friday's are awesome and football games are fabulous (even if you don't understand the game).

Summer Reading Prompt B

Complex characters develop over the course of the story when they react to situations, such as in the book Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (my summer reading novel) Saf shows his real feeling towards Bitterblue even though he tries to cover them up because he's mad at her for lying in the quote "...said a third voice that made Bitterblue want to cry out again, for it was Saf." (295 Cashore). This is right after Saf helps her survive after an attack and fights against her pursuers. This explains the complexity of her relationship with Saf. This also shows in his interactions with Bitterblue's friends in asking if they need any help protecting her. This also advances the plot by adding another layer to the complicated plot, which is Bitterblue's relationship with Saf.

My article is about all the problems that Bitterblue faces as Queen in a way that also incorporates the other two books in the series. It also explains the similarities in the three novels in the series. The Bitterblue review article also explains the writing and good story-telling parts of writing.