Friday, May 8, 2009

Thesis of My Documentary

The social issue that I am addressing is improving all of our local sports facilities.  Including parks, gyms, etc.  The message of this issue is to persuade the mayor to improve our sports facilities.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Blog Critique

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Betty Smith

The book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is about a young girl named Francie and her little brother Neely growing up in Brooklyn during 1902-1919. Francie and Neely go through poverty and a lot of hard times growing up. This book made me realize that we have life easier now then people like Francie and Neely did back then. This book is also about how terrible and great life was back then. Francie made life through her eyes fun until she grew up and understood that life wasn't as great as she planned it was when she was a child.

This book reminds me of To Kill A Mocking Bird because it shows me that not only African-Americans went through hard times but everyone was equal because they all went through hard times. In this book all of the children go through rough and hard times in school and growing up in general. In To Kill A Mocking Bird the children got through the same things with having to drop out of school to help their family around the house, to clean and grow food for themselves and others, and learning.

The saddest part of this book to me was when Francie and Neely's dad Johnny died. The was very sick for 8 months straight from January- July and then he got better for three weeks then he got sick from August- December and he died on December 25th, 1915 at age 34.

I would definitely would recommend this book to everyone because honestly it is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The book explains years of the children's childhood to when they get into their tween years. This book will show everyone just as it showed me that we have life easier then those who actually lived during 1902-1919 because they went through poverty and only certain people where allowed to work, and only certain were allowed to vote while others stood in the background watching and wishing that their life were easier. This book is worth five stars and it was wonderful to read.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Reading Response # 22

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Betty Smith
Page 131- Page 286

In the past two days I've read my book club book from school A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Everyone said that this book was a great book. I didn't believe because I'm into the mysterious-weird types of books that have amazing twists but this book bend my book types. I enjoy reading this book so much. It shows me that if we think that life is hard now it was way harder in 1902-1919. We go through better things then the people lived then did.

What they considered expensive back then we consider it cheap now. But we must remember it was expensive to those who had to work as hard as they could possibly imagine and we get money given to us.

This book takes place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The protagonist is Francie Nolan(really Mary Francie Nolan). And there is only one Antagonist that comes into the book when Francie is 14 years old that tries to rape her.

Before Francie was born her grandmother and mother had a personal mom to mom-to-be talk. Katie is Francie's mom and Mary is Katie's mom. Mary tells Katie that everyday before her children went to sleep she must read them a page from one of Shakespeare's plays and a page from the Protestant Bible even if she didn't understand all of the words. KAtie did that exactly when she had Francie and Neely (Francie's Little Brother).

A lot happens in this book but it's a grat book. I wait to see what happens next!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Living life in Brooklyn
Isn't what you think
A tree grows in Brooklyn
People fall down
It ain't what we want or what we talk about

Living life is hard
No one knows how it is
A tree grows in Brooklyn
If you were me and I were you
You'd know what I mean

Living life in Brooklyn
Isn't what you think
A tree grows in Brooklyn
People fall down
It ain't what we want or what we talk about

You this is just fun and games
1902-1919 it ain't fun at all
Poverty
Living on the street
It ain't what you think it is

Living life in Brooklyn
Isn't what you think
A tree grows in Brooklyn
People fall down
It ain't what we want or what we talk about

Live life
Work hard
Play nice
Get along
A tree grows in Brooklyn

Living life in Brooklyn
Isn't what you think
People get shot
People fall down
It ain't what we want or what we talk about

A tree grows in Brooklyn
It taught us a lot
It went from a seed
To the tallest thing
That that grew in Brooklyn taught us everything

Live life
Work hard
Play nice
Get along
A tree grows in Brooklyn

Living life in Brooklyn
Isn't what you think
People get shot
People fall down
It ain't what we want or what we talk about

A tree grows in Brooklyn
It taught us a lot
It went from a seed
To the tallest thing
That that grew in Brooklyn taught us everything

Live life
Work hard
Play nice
Get along
A tree grows in Brooklyn

Live life
Work hard
Play nice
Get along
A tree grows in Brooklyn


A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is the name of this song
Word


Sunday, March 29, 2009

Kids Choice Award

Saturday, March 28th, 2009 Dwayne Johnson hosted the 2009 Kids Choice Award. The KCA had live preformances by the Jonas Brothers, and the Pussy Cat Dolls. The show all started with Dwayne Johnson flying in. After that they pretty much got into the awards. Jack Black was nominated Favorite Animated Movie Voice. The Tiwlight Series won Favorite Book. Jesse McCartney was voted Favorite Male Singer. Miley Cyrus was nominated Favorite Female Singer. This years KCA could have been better. When Justin timberlake was the host in I believe 2006 it was the best KCA ever!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Hyperbole of My Dog

Little Girl is my dog.
She sleeps like a log.
She has a huge mouth,
And eats like a hog
In her excitement
Her tail is a whip times ten.
When she sees food
Her eyes start to spin.

Some examples of hyperboles are she sleeps like log, and eats like a hog, her tail is a whip times ten, her eyes start to spin.

I think that the poet Autumn Jones used these hyperboles because she wanted to give us an image about how her dog reacts to food when she is being feed.



Monday, February 9, 2009

Red Cross

Red Cross

by Jessica Rawls

There she is
Ms. Fisher on the steps of the Red Cross
She sleeps there, you know
"The dog who jumps in the sea loses his bone!" she
shouts
We laugh, my friends and I, and swiftly walk by
I notice a tear form in the crack of her eye
I went to her one day at the steps of the Red Cross
She sleeps there, you know
The day after she smelled of shoes
The skin of her face looked as if it were peeled, dried or
fried around her cheeks
Probably from crying
Crying, she pulled me down and whispered in my ear
"When a butterfly is pinned down a stream of time
stops"
I closed my eyes and shuddered because her breath
smelled like moldy
Porkchops
I smiled
Gave her a dollar
And left.
I went home and asked my mother about the woman
always on the steps of the
Red Cross
She sleeps there, you know
She said her name was Vanessa
I thought to myself that Vanessa means butterfly
I heard she was crazy, my mom said
I ran upstairs and called the police,
"There's a woman on the steps of the Red Cross
She sleeps there, you know"
The police went
They looked
She was asleep to the point where she couldn't open her
eyes
It surprised me
Vanessa Fisher
"When a butterfly is pinned down..."
Her stream of time stopped.

The mood of the poem to me is confusion, misunderstood, and depressing because in the poem it says she slept there you know and that is kind of depressing because that means that she is homeless I guess. I think that the poet wrote this poem with these moods because she wanted us to see that the lady that slept on the Red Cross was misunderstood and that confused a lot of the people that saw her.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Poetry Response: Bronx Masquerade

The poem Bruised Love makes me feel like this girl Chankara Troupe has seen and gone through a lot of problems happen in relationships and she is sick and tired of seeing girls get hurt. This poem makes you take the time and think the types of girls that get hurt are the type of girls that let themselves get hurt. I think that the message of this poem is that girls should really take care of themselves and not let their boyfriends hit them because that shows who they really are. If you see that your boyfriend gives you a lot of souvenirs you know that they hit you for little things and if you see that he barely hits you that is how you know that he doesn't mean to hit you but you just really got him mad at you. No I can not relate to this poem at all because I
don't let people hit me because that shows them that they can hit us all of the time and they will continue to hit you if you don't show them that they can't hit you and you give them the satisfactory of hitting you all of the time.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Poetry Response: Bronx Masquerade

Open Mike
Attendance
By: Tyrone Bittings

I like this poem because he talks about everyday life. Tyrone makes this poem sound like he is saying this poem out of frustration or rage because he says that his dad got shot and died. He also talks about how we should celebrate living our lives the right way today. I feel like he also says that we should celebrate our futures because once we find ours we can't change it. Tyrone talks about where he lives. This reminds me of a song called "California Love" by Tupac and another song called "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg that talk about where they live and what they feel about their home towns (or in Tyrone's place his block).

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Stopping by the Woods

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.



The mood that this poem creates is the mood of depression and the feeling that he is tired. The other types of poetic devices that Robert Frost are rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and alliteration. I think that Robert Frost repeated the last line twice to get his point across and i think that his point is that he is tired but there are way more important things to do before he goes to sleep. I think that the speaker is feeling tired because and depressed because he says that he has miles to go before he goes to sleep and he just wants to travel those miles before he goes to sleep.