“Heart of Samurai” there are many example of friendship written throughout the story with literary devices to help emphasis the point. “Captain Whitfield has asked me if I would allow you to travel with him to America, to live with him as his son,’ Denzo said.” (pg. 73) This is a strong example of friendship because although Captain Whitfield and Manjiro don’t know each other for so long, it was long enough for Whitfield to invite Manjiro to come with him to America and Manjiro to say yes. “Manjiro turned to Goemon and bowed. “Friend,” he said, “I won’t forget you. We will see each other again. I am sure of it.” (pg. 96) Although Manjiro and Goemon argued at times, this about quote shows that Manjiro truly cared about Goemon. In addition to these two examples, not only is there examples in, Heart of a Samurai, but many stories we’ve read including, “Bridge to Terabithia.” An example of friendship in, “Bridge to Terabithia” is "It might be a whole secret country," she continued, "and you and I would be the rulers of it." (pg. 23) Jess and Leslie became friends together and is in the process of creating their own kingdom together. "I thought you was getting some ideas on how to stop Janice Avery." This quote shows they are trying to stop someone, but they are doing together. Although the quote helps readers discover ways of friendship, a stronger way to express the thought is by using literary devices.
In,
THE NOVEL, “OUT OF MY MIND” BY SHARON M. DRAPER IS ABOUT AN ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL NAMED MELODY BROOKES. MELODY IS A GIRL BORN WITH A DISABILITY CALLED CEREBRAL PALSY WHICH BEGINS IN THE CENTER OF THE MOTOR BRAIN AND ENABLES THE ABILITY TO SPEAK OR MOVE. MELODY IS AMAZINGLY GIFTED WITH INTELLIGENCE AND PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. AS CHILD, MELODY’S PARENTS TOOK HER TO THE DOCTOR. WHEN THE DOCTOR POINTED OUT THAT MELODY IS A RETARD, HER MOM FELT INSULTED AND TOOK ACTION BY SIGNING HER UP FOR SCHOOL AT SPAULDING STREET ELEMENTARY. THEIR NEIGHBOR, MS. VIOLET VALENCIA - AKA MS. V, WAS ASKED TO BABYSIT MELODY AND FELT NO PITY FOR MELODY JUST BECAUSE SHE’S HANDICAPPED. MS. V BELIEVED THAT MELODY CAN DO ANYTHING IF SHE PUT HER MIND TO IT, WHICH MELODY SOON ACHIEVED TO MOVE LITTLE BY LITTLE. WHEN MELODY WAS IN FIFTH GRADE SHE WAS ASSIGNED TO A REGULAR CLASS WITH NORMAL STUDENTS. SOON, HER AID DISCOVERED A MEDI-TALKER THAT ENABLES HER TO SPEAK HER THOUGHTS THROUGH THE COMPUTER. WHEN IT WAS TIME TO SELECT KIDS FOR THE WHIZ-KIDS TEAM, THEY WERE GIVEN A TEST TO DETERMINE THEIR INTELLIGENCE FOR WHO IS ABLE TO GO. WHEN THEY ANNOUCED MELODY IS THE FIRST PERSON TO GET EVERY QUESTION CORRECT, THEY BELIEVED SHE WAS A TALENTED AND INTELIGENT CHILD. AS THEY PASSED THE REGIONAL GAME, THEY WERE ABLE TO GO TO WASHINGTON FOR THE NATIONAL COMPETITION. MELODY’S TEAMMATES AND TEACHER FLEW TO AN EARLIER FLIGHT WITHOUT TELLING MELODY WHICH EARNED THEM A CHEAP NINTH PLACE TROPHY. WHEN MELODY CAME BACK FROM THE AIRPORT SHE WAS RETHINKING HER FAILURES AND WAS BECOMING INSECURE ABOUT HERSELF. SHE BECAME PERSISTENT TO COME TO SCHOOL, BUT AS HER MOM WAS BACKING THE CAR UP SHE DIDN’T REALIZE PENNY, MELODY’S SISTER, WAS PLAYING OUTSIDE AND RAN OVER HER. PENNY LUCKILY SURVIVED AND MELODY WENT TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY. SHE CONFRONTED HER TEAMMATES WHY THEY WOULD LEAVE HER AND THEY REPLIED THUNKING SHE WOULD SLOW THEM DOWN. MELODY ENDED THE STORY THE SAME WAY SHE STARTED IT. For this week of my weekly blog I will talk about a plot diagram from the fictional book, “Out of My Mind” by Sharon M. Draper. A plot diagram includes the six steps from a book, an exposition, an introduction of conflict, a rising action, climax, falling action, and a resolution. An exposition introduces the settings and the characters of the book. The narrator, Melody, is eleven years old and has never spoken a single word since the day she was born. Melody has cerebral palsy – the inability to speak, move, and talk. It that begins in the motor center of the brain. An introduction of conflict is to introduce the problem of the story. Melody is registered to go to school and uses a Medi – Talker to communicate with other people. A rising action builds the conflict and characters. Melody is the only person in the school to ace the test they received. She is put on the Whiz-Kids team of their school, they achieve the rounds and is placed in the semi-finals at Washington. The climax is the most intense or the highest point in the story. The team excludes Melody when they go to breakfast without her and they leave Melody without telling her that the plane to Washington was scheduled early. The family is told that there are no more flights and the attendant insults Melody by explaining why Melody would be on a quiz team. The falling action is when the conflict slowly moves to the resolution. When the family comes back from the airport, Melody’s mom accidentally runs over Penny with her car, which represents her frustration of not being able to speak. The resolution is where the conflict is resolved. Melody confronts her team and they slowly started admitting that they excluded her from everything because they thought she would hold them back. They felt horrible about leaving her so they gave her the 9th place trophy which was cheap and small. As she observed the trophy, she began to laugh, knock the trophy down – smashing into pieces, then leaving the room For my weekly blog this week, the subject I will be talking about is about the differences between our Catholic God and the Greek gods. There are many differences between the Greek gods and our Catholic God such as monotheism vs. polytheism, the stories, and many more. An example of a difference is monotheism and polytheism. In our religion we believe that there is only one true God who created everything in a span of six days, resting on the seventh, which therefore makes us monotheism. For the Greek, they have a large amount of gods, that makes them polytheism, and each one of them are in charge of protecting and creating what they are assigned to. An example for one of the Greek gods is Zeus, he is the king and father of the gods, ruler of Mount Olympus, and god of the sky, weather, thunder, lightning, law, order, and justice. Another difference is their stories. For Catholics, we have the Bible which tells us about God’s teaching, psalms, and parables which started from the first testament to the second testament. As the Greeks they have multiple stories about each god and their story about everything. Catholics we have sacraments about forgiveness and how God always forgives us and loves us. The Greek gods don’t forgive sin because of judgment and how they are known to be ruthless depending on the situation. For this week of my weekly blog I will write about the novel, “Bridge to Teribithia” by Catherine Patterson. Beginning from chapter five, I will explain a summary of the story and a small reflection. In chapter five, “The Giant Killers” begins with Jess and Leslie attempting to get revenge at Janice Avery, a giant seventh grader, for Jess’ little sister, Maybell. They figure out her weakness, which is embarrassment, so they come up with a plan that includes creating a fake love letter from her crush and news spreading like a wild fire. Soon, Jess feels guilty after seeing Janice crying and Leslie goes and comforts her, which earns Leslie a new half friend. The Giant Killers in the story talk about Jess and Leslie not Janice because of how they broke her making them appear giant in their imagination. Chapter six, “Prince Terrain” talks about the dog Jess gave to Leslie as a Christmas gift and making the dog the prince of Terabithia. In chapter seven, “The Golden Room” they explain the room in Leslie’s house that has been painted gold and how Jess and Leslie think it’s similar to a magical room. Chapter eight includes Leslie singing and how Jess thinks it sounds beautiful and how his crush on her deepens even more. Chapter nine in my option is the rising action of the story because of the rain developing in the creek of the bridge in Teribithia. They both still continue to go to Teribithia no matter how tough the rain goes. In chapter ten, Jess gets invited by the music teacher, he used to have a crush on, to go explore an art museum in Washington because of his strong interest in art. Chapter eleven, “No” is when Jess goes home to his family crying and soon finding out that Leslie dies. In chapter twelve, “Stranded” and thirteen, “Building the Bridge” bother explain how Jess is coping with the loss of Leslie dying when she went to Terabithia in the hard pouring rain and the rope snapping. He experiences denial, misery, anger, and sadness towards himself, Nill, and everyone. He finds out that not only he loved her, but she also loved him and is angered with himself even more. When the Burke’s move out, he takes the extra wood and re-builds the bridge and makes Maybelle, his sister who always followed him, the queen of Terabithia. For this week of my weekly blog, I will talk about our experience on our field trip, The Huntington Library, on Wednesday, April 29. In the Huntington Library they have over six – hundred valuable, famous paintings and four – hundred forty beautiful works of sculpture. Some valuable and popular European paintings include, “Blue Boy,” “ Pinkie,” and “Anne Killigrew, Mrs. Kirke. A popular French statue called, “Diana the Huntrerss” by Jean Antoine Houdon, was first assembled by Huntington in his wife’s memory. A treasure of the Huntington Library is their beautiful varieties of gardens. My favorite garden is the “Liu Fang Yuan” garden, which means The Garden of Flowing Fragrance, and is a magnificent garden completed with Chinese architecture, flowers, and arts. The Chinese architecture included in the garden presents carvings of bamboo, pine, symbols of integrity, and resilience. The most important factor of a garden is everything with it, all flowers of the garden mark the shift of the seasons and represent morality with it. The water, symbolizes the ever – changing of everything in the world. The rocks which symbolizes the eternal, creates a balance of nature’s yin and yang. The limestone rocks and architecture all come from China’s Lake Tai. The Liu Fang Yuan is among the largest Chinese – style gardens outside from China. The garden is designed to express the wonderful traditions of Chinese culture with designs of bridges, a waterfall, and rock sculptures. My weekly blog this week is based on the book we listened to in class called, “Bridge to Teribithia, by Catherine Patterson. The protagonist and main character, Jesse Oliver Aarons Jr., lives on a farm with four sisters and desires to become the fastest runner in the fifth grade. As a child growing up, Jess never received enough love from his parents unlike his sisters because of their high expectations as the only boy in the family. Jess always dreamed of becoming an artist, but his father always disapproved of his decisions. Jess attends school with his sisters and is in love with his music teacher, Ms. Edmens. When he comes home after school, he notices a mover truck and sees a family. During the next day at school, he sees a new student in his class named, Leslie Burke, and remembers about the new family that just moved in. He observes the way she’s dressed, ankle – length jeans and a t-shirt, unlike the rest of the class with their fancy formal attire. For the past few days, she becomes friendly by talking to him and his sisters in the morning while their waiting for the bus. At school, during recess all the boys jump in line to race against each other as Gary orders all of them in heats. Before the Jess’ heat, Leslie appears and Jess invites her to race with them because Gary was making fun of her. Not only did Leslie win the heat with Jess, she also beat every boy in the competition including Gary. For the past few day, as everybody already knows Leslie is going to win, the kids slowly stopped racing. I can infer that like every book the main character’s goal (Jess’ urge to be the fastest runner in fifth grade) will not be achieved in the beginning, but in the end where they will learn a lesson. Modal Auxiliaries
For my weekly blog of this week I will be talking about grammar. I will be explaining about modal auxiliaries. Auxiliary verbs may be common auxiliaries such as the words be (am, is, are, was, and were) and also have (has or had) or modal auxiliaries. Modal Auxiliaries express permission, possibility, ability, necessity, obligation, and intention. Modal Auxiliaries are used with main verbs in the base form. For example, permission: Anyone who helps the most at the party and doesn’t get drunk may attend the other celebration next door. The word, may, is the modal auxiliary and the word, attend, is the base form of the sentence example. Common auxiliaries are the words, may, might, can, could, must, should, will, and would. Each of the common auxiliary word expresses the modal auxiliary meaning and their reason in sentences. Each of the common auxiliary word express a different reasons in sentences. An example is, the words may and can, which express permission in a sentence. For example, This time if you don’t arrested today, you can drive my Lamborghini. The modal auxiliary is can, which expresses permission, and the base form of the sentence is drive. An example of a sentence that expresses possibility is, You might be able to live without food, but you need water the most. The word that expresses possibility is the common auxiliary, might. This week for my weekly blog I will talk about five important comma rules to use in a sentence. The first important comma rule is to separate items in a list, specifically three items or more. The items could be nouns, verbs, or adjective phrases. For example, I need to buy eggs, milk, lettuce, and cheese. The second rule of commas is to separate independent clauses (complete clauses), joined by some conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. (F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.) An example is, I want to buy a new jacket, but it’s too expensive. Third, is to use a comma to separate a dependent clause (incomplete thought) from an independent clause. A sentence showing this example is, when I get older, I will be able to do many things that are legal. The fourth rule is use a comma to separate any word or phrase from the rest of its sentence that is not essential to meaning. For example, My brother, a thirty-six year old, lives with his mom. The fifth rule is use a comma to separate a quotation mark from the text or sentence. An example is, “I am tired,” he muttered silently to himself. Another example shown is, “We should kick him off the team, for his horrible behavior to everyone.” Gaby Setiabudi Ms. Stronks ELA March 22, 2015 ‘The First Day” Summary and 4 Corners This week of March I will write about the short story "The First Day" summary and its four corners discussion. The short story “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones take space in New Jersey during a September morning. It tells the story of an African American, five rear old girl, who wants to go to kindergarten. She must fight against people who are against her coming due to the area she live in order to achieve this goal. First, she explains how dressed up with perfume, perfect hair, and her favorite dress with excitement as she goes to school. Then, as she walks up the stairs of Seaton Elementary School with her mother, a woman greets them “, and she acts as if she had known me all my life,” (pg. 25) by touching her shoulder, cupping her hand under chin. After that, the lady asks them where they live and when they answer, the woman shakes her head and explains how that area is too far for their school and tells her mom she can’t attend. Next, the mom stubbornly tells the woman, “I want her to go here,” my mother says. “ If I’ da want her someplace else, I’d took her there.” (pg. 25) the woman tells her the area is to far where Seaton provides. Next, she takes her daughter to another school, Walker Jones, which is a larger and newer school which her daughter is quite fond of. Finally, as her mom walks up to register, she asks the lady to help her since her mom had just explained she could not read and write and gives her daughter a look of embarrassment and shame, a look she has never seen before. As the story ends, she hears the multiple sounds of children running and talking, but above it all she looks behind and listens to the sound of her mother’s footsteps leaving. The possible themes of this story is, “it’s okay to be different,” “try harder,” and “school is important no matter what.” There are a handful of literary devices used in this story, for example two of them are imagery – (26-27) and similes – (pg. 26). Examples of indirect and direct characterization quotes, explain the character in a deeper meaning. An example of indirect is, “Don’t stare,…” (pg.26) this quote shows that the mom has manners and is teaching her child right. An example of a direct quote is, “I don’t know how to read or write.” (pg. 26) This quote directly tells us that the mom doesn’t know how to read or write. I learned about the story “The First Day” and the different meanings about the book. |
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