FINAL FINAL FINAL READING RESPONSE OF THE YEAR .... yess

    In the book Speak by Laurie Hale Anderson,  showed Melinda's coming of age by representing it with a tree. In the book Melinda was in an art class. They had an assignment where they picked a random item out of a globe and had to work on it for the entire year. Melinda picked a a tree. The tree represents Melinda's coming of age because she had , Stump Stages, Log Stages, and Full Grown Tree.

     In the beginning Melinda didn't know how to draw a tree, she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to draw a tree. Those were her "Stump Stages". Basically saying that she was at the beginning of her coming of age. Those were the stages when she didn't want to talk, she wasn't sure of herself. She didn't care. That was the time that she didn't want to tell anyone she was raped. She never spoke up for herself just waited for someone to speak up for her. She wanted to keep it a a secret. An example in the book that show she was in her stump stages was when the art teacher gave her tree, she just said " I learned how to draw a tree in 2nd grade". Melinda never really understood the meaning of the assignment.

   In the middle of the book were Melinda's "Log Stages", where she was starting to get to know how to draw the tree, she was starting to get the idea of what the assignment meant. An example that showed me she understood it was, Melinda found a abandoned old janitors closet, and used that as an own personal room, where she worked on her trees and hung up the ones she did bad at and the trees that looked amazing. The log stages was when Melinda started talking, and she even got a friend named David , who helped her stand up for herself to her evil social studies teacher Mr. Neck. It was the stages where Melinda was about to start talking. and when she was hesitating to tell someone she was raped. But she didn't.

   In the end of the book Melinda was a " Full Grown Tree" this was when Melinda understood what the assignment meant, and knew what to do. The assignment meant you need to discover yourself in the object. Melinda's old friend Ivy got a clown and she was afraid of clowns, and her doing clown just took the fear out of her. As a a full grown tree Melinda spoke up for herself. She had a friend named Heather in the beginning of the year and she ditched her in the middle of the year, and Heather came crawling back to Melinda for help. She expected Melinda to say yes, but Melinda stood up for herself and said, "No". And this was the stage where she spoke up to tell Rachel aka. " Rachelle" that she was raped by Andy Evans.

  In conclusion, the tree represented Melinda's coming of age. Melinda had her stump stages, log stages, and full grown tree. Each stages showed how Melinda grew up. From being someone quiet to someone not that afraid to talk. The book shows great ways to represent coming of age, cause you saw how Melinda cam of age.

 

  

Reading Response Essay to Speak

    Being raped by someone changes your life, you feel like an outcast and you feel like you can't speak up. Rape does something to a a person that changes them emotionally. You also can loose all your friends. That's what happened to Melinda in "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.

    One thing that rape does to you is make you loose your friends. The way that Melinda lost all her friends was after she was raped she called the cops, she was terrified and didn't know what to do. Her friends didn't talk to her at all because everyone hated Melinda because some kids got arrested at the party. And her friends didn't want to be hated so they stopped talking to Melinda. Her friend didn't know that Melinda got raped, she never told anyone she was too afraid of what people would think. Not even she knew why she didn't say anything. That's  basically 3/4 of the reason she had no friends.

  Another thing that rape does to you is it makes you feel like an outcast.The definition of Outcast is " a person who is rejected or cast out as from home or society . That's exactly how she felt and how she acted, like an Outcast. She just felt as if the world was against her. She felt like no one want to be with her or cares about her. For example, in the beginning of the school year she had one friend named Heather but then Heather ditched Melinda to hang out with these total plastic snobs who think they're good. Just because she feel like Melinda was basically going through a " Life Sucks Phase". Which made things much more bad for Melinda because it made her feel like an outcast even more than she thought she already was.

  Another thing that rape does to a person is the person loses their voice and can't speak up. Before Melinda was raped she would do fun things and act crazy and speak up. But after she got raped by Andy Evans that changed her, she just feel useless and she could easily be taken advantage of. When she was being raped she felt like no one heard her so she felt like she had no voice. She just became permanently unheard. After she just basically made people talk for her. Like Heather always asked her to do favors and she felt when Melinda said nothing that was a yes. And Melinda did all these crazy things for Heather. But finally Melinda had the guts to tell people that she was raped, and to tell Heather "No".

  In conclusion, if you get raped you feel like an outcast and you loose your voice. No one hears you. And you feel useless. Like you have no point being in the world. Rape can also change a person from who they really are to someone that they're 

actually not.

  

   

Writing Prompt Assignment #2

Question # 14 What are some questions and concerns you have about growing up and adulthood?
  Poem


Will I /Will Someone
Will I have a big house
Will someone be able to feed me
Will I be able to chase the ice-cream truck with my mommy
Will I someone hold my hand when crossing big streets
Will someone be waking me up with song
Will someone be choosing my clothes out and ironing them
Will someone be braiding my hair on weekends
Will someone be giving be giving me hot chocolate in bed
Will someone be putting me in the corner when I behave bad
Will someone make me a snack after school
Will someone tuck me in
Will someone be there when I have bad dreams and to comfort me
Will someone take me and my siblings to the park every weekend to play 
Will someone be kissing me goodbye when I go to school
Will someone be there to buy me all the bratz dolls in the world
Will someone be helping me clean my room on saturdays
Will someone be there to help me play on the computer
Will someone be there to tell me no more tv time for bed


  I'm afraid of growing up beacause all those "Wills" is my 
mommy and I know she won't be there every time I need her.

Writing Prompt Assignment #1

Question:

What memorable texts (picture books, poems, oral stories, films, etc.) have influenced your definition of growing up?

 

   I have to say a lot of disney movies have influenced my growing up. That was mostly all I watched. and what just forms your child into the personality they have today. The movies give you a sense of action like watching "Peter Pan" for days kids were probably trying to fly. Or with movies like "Toy Story" I bet every single child in America checked to see if there Toys were playing around when they were slepping. The movies give you imagination, and a reason to believe in fictional and fantasy things. Even the songs sang in the movies kept parents agrivated by there kids repeating the song over and over again. After seeing the "Lion King" all I ever wanted to do was to put a catr in the air and sing the "Circle of Life" . After seeing "George of the Jungle" all I wanted to do was swing on wines and rip my shirt of and scream oooooooohhhhhhohohohohohoh. Those movies influneced me to have a great imagination today which is awesome because it just gave me a creative mind. What I can't wait is to be King. And seeing all the princesses made little girls feel like princesses themselves and just made them feel beautiful.

Some of all my Favorite Disney movies are ;

•  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Pinnochio
• Cinderella
• Peter Pan
•  Sleeping Beauty
• 101 dalamtions
• The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and teh Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King,2, 1 and a half, Pocahantas, Toy Story 1,2,3 , Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, George of the Jungle, Mulan, A Bugs Life, Tarzan, 102 dalmations, The Emperors New Groove, Recess: Schools Out, The Princess Diaries, Monsters Inc., Lilo & Stitch, The Santa Clause 1,2, Holes, Finding Nemo, etc. etc. etc.

More at http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_movies

Final Final Actual Reading Response

The book I chose to read was "The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney". What I'm going to be focusing on in this Reading Response is how a small lie can turn into multiple lies. The book is about how a girl thought one harmless lie would go away. But it didn’t. Thesis: How a small lie can turn into many more lies and the effect of lying.

    You shouldn't lie, because you'll always suffer consequences. It's because when Devon lied to her friend Lexi about how she is popular at her school, even though people barely know her. She told her that she was going out with Jared Bentley because he's the popular boy in school.  He doesn't even know she exists. She also told Lexi that she hangs out with the popular kids at school, but they didn't know she existed. Devon thought that she would probably never see Lexi again so that's why she told her all those lies. But then on the first day of school Devon luck ran out because Lexi showed up. What she could have done was tell her the truth from the beginning but she didn't know how, because she was afraid that Lexi wouldn't want to talk to her at all. But if Devon just told the truth from the beginning then maybe she wouldn't be stressed out, because after a while she lost track of all of the lies she told.


  Throughout the whole book Devon kept telling lies, for example when Devon got grounded her mom said she couldn't go anywhere for a 2 weeks. But Devon lied to her mom saying that she was making up a test but Devon actually went to the mall with Lexi to go shopping. Devon thought her mom wouldn't know, but eventually her mom found the receipt on the floor, and looked at the date. This basically got her grounded for an even longer time. This is what lying does to you, if you start lying then you just keep doing it and doing it and you can't control it. Devon lied about a lot of stuff during the book.


  The text relates to the real-world because when you say a small lie, and you don't want to say the truth, your just going to have to make up more &more lies. Like one time I lied to my mom about what happened to my metro-card and I kept telling her lies and then I lost track of them and I told her the truth that my metro-card fell out of a book. One small lie can lead to 50 other lies. I think that before you lie about something you should think about it. And if you end up in Devon's situation just stop when you realize you might get caught. Also if you keep telling lies then after a while you'll start losing the trust of people who trusted you.

Final Draft to Reading Response

The book I chose to read was "The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney". What I'm gonna be focusing on in this Reading Response is how a small lie can turn into multiple lies. The book is about how a girl thought one harmless lie would go away. But it didn't.Thesis : How one small lie can turn into many more lies.

    One observation i learned was that you shouldn't lie. Because you'll always suffer consequences. It's because  when Devon lied to her friend Lexi about how she is popular at her school, even though people barely know her at school. She told her that she was going out with Jared Bentley because hes the popular boy in school. And he doesn't even know she exist. She also told Lexi that she hangs out with the popular kids at school, but they didn't know she existed.Devon thought that she would probably never see Lexi again so that's why she told her all those lies. But then on the first day of school Devon was tight because Lexi showed up. What she could have done was tell her the truth from the beginning but she didn't know how.

   Another observation i saw is that only saying sorry would let people for forgive you. You have to prove to them that you actually mean it when you say sorry. In the book Devon said sorry to Lexi and to everyone she hurted and expected to be forgiven. But she realized that she actually had to do something. Like when Lexi forgave her she told Jared to ask out Lexi , and that proved to Lexi that maybe Devon was sorry.

 The text relates to the real-world because when you say a small lie, and you don't want to say the truth, your just gonna have to make up more &more lies.One small lie can lead to 50 other lies. I think that before you lie about something you should think about it. And if you end up in Devon's situation just stop when you realize you might get caught.

Shakespeare EXTRA CREDIT: Romeo and Juliet

I watched the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. Directed by:  Franco Zeffirelli. Starring Leonard Whiting as Romeo and , Olivia Hussey. It's a British-Italian cinematic adaptation of the William Shakespeare play.

        Romeo and Juliet are about two families in Verona, Capulet’s and Montague’s have been having a feud for a couple of years. Then one day the Capulet’s are throwing a party and Romeo from the Montague's and a couple of friends decide to crash the party. And at the party Romeo meets the love of his life Juliet, then he falls in love with her and after a few words of talking Juliet falls in love with him also. They get secretly married by Romeo's father figure Friar Lawrence, with Juliet's mother figure the Nurse. Then one day a duel breaks out between Juliet's cousin Tybalt and Mercutio. Mercutio ends up losing and dies. Then Romeo got upset and killed Tybalt. And Romeo's punishment by the Prince of Verona is that Romeo is banished from Verona. Then since Juliet's father Capulet didn't know about Romeo and Juliet's secret marriage he arranged her to marry Count Paris. In order for Juliet not to marry Paris and to stay faithful to Romeo Friar Lawrence made her a poison which made her dead for a couple of hours. Friar Lawrence plans to inform Romeo of the plan so that he can pick Juliet up after her burial and escape with her when she recovers from the poison, but the news of Juliet's death reaches Romeo before the Friar's letter. In sadness Romeo drinks a poison and kills himself by Juliet’s side in her tomb. Afterwards Juliet wakes up a little while after Romeo kills himself and stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger. After both families find them dead they settle their feud.

          The things I liked about the movie were the good actor's. You could tell that Romeo and Juliet were in love. But were afraid of loving each other. Like during the Balcony scene Juliet seemed a bit nervous but Romeo didn’t care he wanted Juliet. You can also tell how strongly Capulet’s and Montague’s didn't like each other. I thought the character that played Tybalt Michael York did an amazing job showing that he didn't like Montague's like at the Capulet's party and Tybalt saw Romeo and he was getting really pissed off about seeing Romeo there, and he really wanted him out of the party.

         One of the things I payed attention to in the movie was how the play was different from the movie. I followed along ehile watching.The movie was different from the book in a couple of ways; they didn't show that much stuff that the actual play had. They switched a lot of stuff around in the play and in the movie. Some examples; immediately following the fight between Romeo and Tybalt (and Romeo's quick exit), both house lords and ladies and the Prince arrive on the fight scene. But in the movie after that scene is Juliet and the Nurse's grieving, the scene is instead shifted to the steps of the prince's palace. Another example is when Juliet's arranged marriage to Count Paris is scheduled for a Thursday, but after Juliet's "repentance", an overjoyed Lord Capulet moves the wedding day up to Wednesday. In the movie the day doesn’t change. Another example is when Juliet has a lengthy speech, before drinking the sleeping potion. But in the movie Juliet has one line that says ,"Love give me strength" before drinking the potion. Another example is in the play Friar John cannot get Friar Lawrence's message to Romeo because he finds himself thwarted by quarantine, in the movie and instead returns the letter to Friar Laurence. Balthasar, galloping on horseback to tell Romeo of Juliet's "death", passes the unhurried messenger on the road. Later on, as Romeo and Balthasar ride back to Verona, they pass by the messenger, who is fixing the cargo on his donkey. Also they don’t give Friar John a name in the movie. And he has no line.

       Another one is in the play after hearing of Juliet's "death", Romeo buys a vial of poison from a apothecary  before riding back to Verona. But in the movie the scene was eliminated and was replaced by Balthasar and Romeo riding to Capulet’s' tomb; though it is daylight as they ride back to Verona, its night when they arrive. Where Romeo got the poison from isn’t clear in the movie. Another example is at the entrance to Capulet's tomb following Juliet's funeral ceremony, Romeo is intercepted by Count Paris, who tries to arrest the Romeo, but Romeo draws on Paris and kills him. But in the movie the scene didn’t even exist. Another example is near the end, following Romeo's and Juliet's suicides, Friar Lawrence was arrested and brought back to the tomb by the Prince's Watchmen, and then he reveals to the Prince, both Lords and Lady Capulet the truth of Romeo and Juliet's clandestine wedding and his other plans. The Friar is not seen or heard from again after fleeing in terror from the tomb, and the news of the secret marriage is never shown in the film, though both houses automatically know about Romeo and Juliet's marriage by the time of the double funeral.

         Another example is in the play in the tomb, we learn through Lord Montague that his wife died of a broken heart upon learning of her son Romeo's banishment. But in the movie Lady Montague is still alive in the final scene at the church. The last example is that the play end’s in the Capulet’s tomb when they realize that their feud has gone on for too long. The final scene (the double funeral) unfolds at the steps to Verona's church. After the Prince’s talk of both families, they exit, without reconciliation by the two fathers. The way they show the families stop fighting is when they go into the church side by side.

  the entire movie was great. J