Prompts

I chose to do Audrey's prompt of how 8th grade english is different compared to 9th grade english. To be honest, I feel like there not much of a difference. I mean we still have vocabulary cards to make and study and class books that we read together and discuss. We also still have a lot of essays and papers to do as well. The only difference is, is the work load. In 8th grade, we had a decent amount of papers to write, but transitioning into 9th grade there are far more papers to write. I mean writing papers aren't hard... Just writing multiple pages are. I never thought I could write something that was 4 pages long until this year...

Writing Center?

Reading times: 80 mins
Book: LOTF
Reading focus: 45 mins

The Writing Center is a very positive and helpful place. I'm very grateful that the high school provides us with this place, and I only wished that we were provided a place like the writing center in middle school. I remember when I walked into the writing center I was greeted by my writing fellow. Bethany was her name. Bethany helped me reconstruct my literary analysis and helped me understand more of what was needed to be done. She taught me how this was sort of an argument that I was trying to get across and have the reader see my thesis. I plan on visiting the writing center from now on to correct my papers and learn more techniques.

LOTF

What makes Lord of the Flies a great read? In my opinion, this is actually a good read. If Azzie Morgan is saying that a book is good... than it really must be good lol. I'm VERY picky with my reads. I love how William Goulding describes setting and characters. He also uses personification to describe things. Like in the opening paragraph of chapter one, he says "All around him the long scar  smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat." (7) I read chapters one through 3 in one day... another thing thats pretty rare for Azzie to do. All I can say is, is that I can't wait to get further into the book and see more of Goulding's techniques. 

Thanksgiving Break

Reading: Lord of the Flies - 90 mins
Literary Analysis - 30 mins


8 more days.... 8 more days until we are free from school and relaxing at home in our comfortable beds. I know that I'm looking forward to this break and I surely know that I need it. Its kind of sad though... realizing that we are about to take exams and already be halfway done with school again. Time flies right? The work load has been pretty tough and its been pretty tough to manage to get through the past few weeks. With basketball and volleyball starting again, its pretty hard to manage your time equally.

Reflection

Reading Time - 30 mins

Literary Analysis - 80 mins

After Dr. D told us that we were stranded on and island with no adults, that kind of really sinked. We all had to come up with ideas on how to survive and to keep the kids safe. It took a few minutes to get a leader and we chose Trevor... Eli took most of the charge because thats just the type of person he is. If this happened, I think that we would have made it throughout together because the kind of people we are. In other words, we are all determined people and always get the job done. We all divided up in to groups like builders, food gatherers, and of course the kids need a babysitter... thats right Azzie. I think that we would of survived with all of the people we had and all of the help we would of put in.

Free Post

Friday football played capitol... We came out being the number one team in our division and district champs! That game was so fun. The only bad part  of the night was how cold it was. I was freezing my butt off. It was worse because i forgot my warm fuzzy jacket in my moms truck. I even forgot my favorite little beanie. My ears and my nose were so coldddd. Kennedy, Azha, Tiffany, Taylor, and I were all huddled together trying to make warmth with our bodies. All I know is next time I won't forget my things!

Reading and Working Times

Short Story: 30 mins
Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone - 80 mins
Literary Analysis Outline - 20 mins

I was at my grandmothers house and needed to read a book to count for my independent reader and came across Harry Potter. This wouldn't be my choice of a book that I would normally read, but I kind of had to read it. I didn't really like it to be honest. I mostly think that it was because I couldn't really see myself in Harry's shoes or picture myself in the story as I would do for my other reads. Although it does interest me to see what Hogwarts would look like. ...

Free Post

Insurgent: 90 mins
Short Story: 30 mins 

I've been pretty tired lately. Between school and sports, I haven't been getting much sleep. I guess thats part of being a high schooler right? Well today was the last practice of volleyball this year, and tomorrow is our last game. Pretty sad... Basketball is about to start... So no break there. Did I mention that club volleyball is about to start again too? Woooooooooow, I guess that I'll be stressed the rest of the year.  

Our retreat was better than I thought it would be. We actually had a fun time, no including how cold the morning was. Man was I cold that morning. Canoeing was probably the hardest thing that I could do. it was hard to balance in the water, and we almost flipped in a few times. By would that have been bad. 

Reading Log and Free Post #9

Insurgent - 60 mins
Short story- 60 mins


I didn't end my first quarter on the best note, but I finished with a B so I guess that's good... Well for me. But for the second quarter I will try to do better and be more ALIVE in class I guess. This quarter I'm going to push myself into doing homework on time and completing it. I'm also going to figure out how I can read more books for this quarter. 

Writing my short story was kind of hard but kind of easy at the same time. I have a lot of editing to do. Mostly in my last few paragraphs at the end. A basic overview about my story is about Ana Mae who is kind of an outcast in her school. She gets bullied and faces problems with other people in the school. Her council, Ms Andrews is the one who helps her through her problems at school. Ms. Andrews thought that it would be a good idea for Ana Mae to go to her senior prom since it was in fact her last prom of her high school career. Ana Mae decides to go and she then realizes how much fun she can actually have on her own. 

Reading Log #8

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Reading: 90 mins

Short Story: 30 mins

Finally Jamiee brought me Insurgent. After about 3 whole weeks, I have it in my hands... well booksack. Its about time Jamiee had brought me the book! All I can say is, is that I recommend people to read this book. Especially those who love to read books with romance in it. I think that people should just read the series because its just that good. 

Reading Response #7

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Reading time-70 mins
Short Stories- 30 mins
Short Story- 40 mins

The Perks of Being a Wallflower's book isn't that interesting to me. I'm confused through out the whole book. I'm really just confused on how the two people are talking to each other. I think I'll just borrow Jamiee's book Insurgent. 

Divergent was REALLY good and I hope that all the books that I read would be like them. I hope to read Insurgent because I've been dying to read the second book of the trilogy. I loved how the author kept the reader into the book the whole time. Me being a reader that gets distracted easily surprisingly didn't want to put the book down. I HOPE THAT JAMIEE BRINGS ME THE BOOK TOMORROW. HINT HINT JAMIEE. 

Plot

Exposition: She's at home thinking before she goes to bed.

Rising Action: She tries to harm herself by trying to overdose because Syd makes fun of her in front of the whole cafeteria.

Climax: She goes to therapy for her eating disorder and suicidal problems.

Falling Action: She stops trying to harm herself whenever there is a problem.

Resolution: She's confident, gets friends, and her gets over eating disorder.

Short Stories

After reading a few short stories in and out of class, I kind of like them a lot better now. My favorite one was Da-Duh. I liked how the writer formatted and had her story the way that she did. I also liked how she made it in the first-person point of view. The ending surprised me though... I didn't expect Da-Duh to end up being dead. Or at least the way she died. The only confusion that I have with short stories is that I need help with annotating. After all of the short stories we read in class, I still don't get what or how exactly you're supposed to annotate something. 

Reading time: 120 mins
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chybosky

Reading Response #6

The Boy In the Striped Pajamas

Total Time 100 mins

20 mins of Literacy Narrative Readings

I started to read this because Lexi recommended it to me. She read it this summer I believe, and wanted to pass it on to me. This book was in a pretty old time... 1942 during World War 2. I don't prefer "old" books, but Lexi and I have similar taste in things so I decided to go on with the book. So far its been okay... not a book that I would recommend. It just doesn't fit in my category of books that I like to read. I think I might go on to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower because I watched the movie and enjoyed it. 

In class, we have been reading and annotating many short stories. My favorite one of them all was Da-Duh. It was actually one that I cold understand from the start, where I could actually focus in on a specific thing. We mostly focused on character in class. We had a quiz on identifying character... but I forgot to read and annotate so I couldn't take it. Suckssss. We get to write a short story ourselves, and I'm actually kind of happy to do so. My story is going to be about a girl named Ana Mae Jones. Ana Mae has problems with her though. She suffers depression and is suicidal... She only has one friend really, her councilor Ms. A. Ms. A is one of the reasons she still alive today....

Anna Mae.

Why?

Why does everyone hate me? Why am I always the victim? Why am I like the meat that everyone preys on? I just wish it would all just stop. All of the rumors, the hate, the drama.... just all of it. Why can't I have a normal life? Where people are actually nice to me. Where I could just engage in conversation without having someone make fun of me. Having many many friendships and people to talk to. Why can't I walk down the hallway and smile at someone and get a smile back in return... instead of people laughing in my face, getting ignored, and eyes rolled. 

At least I have Ms. A. Where would I be without her today? She's been there for me at my worst times. She was there to help me when I just wanted to be gone from the world. She helped me get over problems that I didn't even think I could get over. From my eating disorder that I had, to whenever I was about to overdose into a coma... she was there to bring me back to reality. 

I owe her that...

E-Book

I wouldn't really mind having an E-book for our class to share and insert their pieces into. I would just was to change a few things of my narrative so that it would be well off to go public where everybody can see it. I think if we let another set of eyes look at my paper we'd be good for the E-book on my part. I think it would be great if the class would design like a cover page to make our E-book stand out from the others. 

Jill's Literacy Narrative

We all got to class and sat down in any open chairs that were there. I sat in the only open desk there was which was by Jill, Lexi, and Alyssa. I'm kind of happy that that was the only chair that was open because I wouldn't have had the chance to hear a great narrative on how she liked reading. I was into Jill's paper the whole entire time, and I really enjoyed listening to her tell us her background of reading as a child. She had many different vivid details that describes each and everything so well. Her use of words were precise and had the correct meaning. 

Reading Response #5

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Chapter 11-22
120 mins



Well I managed to get my literacy essay finished... Well the first rough draft done. To be honest it was a little harder than writing a blog post. You had to have way more vivid detail and describe a story so well and thorough. I decided to do mine on the time in my childhood where reading was an important asset to me and all of a sudden I had lost it. When I was little, I had had a dream to write a book A book about the The Princess and the Frog... Azzie writing a book? Ha. Who would buy it? Blind people? Anyways, I tried to pursue that dream at such a young age, and actually had it in my mind that I would be successful... But It really could of happened... I really could of been a writer. I also wrote about how I transitioned to being such an avid reader, to a reader that barely wanted to read and have anything to do with reading. Once again, i am trying to force my body to read pleasantly... well not force. 

Dialogue.

"Hey Bria."
"Hey Azzie girl."
"Are you ready for the game tonight?"
"I'm always ready to kick butt."
"*laughs* I understand. By the way, who do we play?"
"Central I think."
"Good, a easy win."
"*laughs* I have to get to class, see you at the game"
"Alright Bria, bye."

Reading Response #3

Monday - 10 mins - shattered

Wednesday - 10 mins - shattered

Thursday - 10 mins - shattered

Friday - response to i have a dream speech - 17 mins - in class - 10 mins - shattered

Saturday - 45 mins - shattered

Sunday - This is water - 10 mins - Shattered 15 mins

Shattered by Elizabeth Lee is a about a girl who can't want to get out of high school. It's her last day of driving to school, waking up early, getting things out of her locker, and more school stuff that we all hate. She's been in the same town all of her life and known the same people in high school since pre-k. She started getting feelings for one of the boys in her clique, and when she was about to tell him something, he died. 

This is another good book that I have come across. At first it was boring, but then I got into it. I like this book because I can relate to her with a lot of things. A lot of things instead of my guy friend dying. That must of been a horrible thing to go through. I could never imagine what I would do if one of my closest friends died so suddenly. I hope to be able to continue liking this book and to continue to try and finish it. I need to try and break my habit of giving up on books when they seem boring at the moment. 

I Have A Dream...

I began to watch the Martin Luther King Jr. speech because it was the day that he gave it to the world 50 years ago. To start off, the introduction music sunk me in. I don't know why, but it just did. I noticed for the first time how they introduced him to the stand how even white people were clapping for him. I thought that they despised him and black people at the time... Well most of them. I mostly observed white people in the audience. Another shocker to me. During the whole speech I was engaged. I usually zone out of many things. 

MLK was an important aspect for the black ethnicity. He and many other leaders made a path for black people. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be able to attend Episcopal as I do today. Black people wouldn't be able to do a lot of things as they would today in world. This generation of African American need help. Some of us just aren't living up to what MLK nor God would approve. I notice that white and black people use the word "nigga" freely now. We should know not to say that because we have came a longggg way to go back to where we've started. 

Reading Response #1

Book: Mockingjay
Author:Suzanne Collins
Start Page: 3
End Page: 152
Total Pages: 149
Time: 120 Mins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is a really good book. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire were both great as well. Her books keep me engaged the whole time, and that isn't very easy to do for me. Personally, I don't like to read. Wait no, let me rephrase that. I don't like having to be forced to read. That just makes me not like the book and just procrastinate the whole time. I hope that I can find books like hers though... I particularly like love stories.

So far what I have read was how Katniss ran away from The Games and went home. When she arrived home, she came back to it in ashes. Katniss accepts being the "Mockingjay" or leader figure. Before even being the Mockingjay, she gets a makeover form her stylists. Rumor has it that Katniss is pregnant. Katniss gets mad at Gale fro not telling her about the propo of Peeta. 

Reading Response #2

8/23 - 40 mins
8/24 - 40 mins
8/25 - 40 mins

Fade by Lisa Mcmann

So I dropped Mockingjay because my friend Meghan spoiled the whole book for me, so I was just like you know what forget this. So then I started to look through my nook library, and I saw that I had Fade unopened. I clicked on it because I liked Lisa's other book Wake. For the first time I finished a whole book in one single weekend. *claps*

It starts off how Janie gets sucked into her mom's dream, and she thinks the man is her father who has passed away. Basically this book just carries off from where it ended in Wake. Janie is working with the police with a suspicion that teachers are having intimate relationships. She attends this party like a normal looking teenager, but she isn't there to party. She's there to investigate. Janie never left her drink unattended nor did she take anything from somebody. (The students had drugged the drinks and food) At the end all of the teachers get caught and suspended from school . 

Story Time

Just a few weeks ago, I remember us starting a new year again and seeing each other for the first time since we got out. I remember how you could feel the love in the air with all of the hugging and screaming and smiles all over the campus. I remember that it was hot and we would walk as fast as we can into the air-conditioned classrooms and buildings to cool off. Meeting all of our teachers was a nice experience as well. I remember how we all complained that we were so hungry and were about to die because we weren't used to the schedule yet and how high school had another class right before that. I remember getting home and just passing out on my bed because I was so exhausted from the day. 

What a good day that was...

Free Post #2

Episcopal  volleyball has a jamboree next week. I'm kind of nervous to play our first game... well "practice" game. I'm scared that if I mess up, my whole team would get mad at me. Knowing that they wouldn't, I still am kind of nervous to let them down or my coaches down. I think we play Dunham... I hope we do. I would like to see all my friends who go there, and kind of get revenge for them beating our 8th grade team last year in the championship. 

Our team is full of talented young girls. Everybody has different roles on and for the team. I think the JV team will have a lot of potential this year. i think that we will win a lot more games against the other schools... Especially against U-High and St. Josephs. Those games in my opinion, are the games that we prove ourselves to everyone. St. Josephs think that they'll beat us again this year and so does U-High, but nooooooo. Not this year. 

Free Post #1

Well hello viewers.

This is my first free post and I'm still learning how to use this thing.Its just a little confusing but I think I'm getting the hang of this. Wow... The thought of me being a 9th grader is still sinking in. I know that I have to rise up and take the wheel of being a responsible young adult and I am far from that. It's a good thing I like challenges though. So far the teachers are great and nice. Hopefully they stay that way... The new students are kind of shy though, it won't take much for me to break that. 

In my opinion, I think of myself as a funny, out-going kind of person. People generally just like me when they first meet me. I guess I just have that kind of effect on people ha. I'm one of those athletic type of students. I participate in basketball and volleyball. I see myself good at them both. People tell me that they see me going places with my sports. That really pushes me and makes me strive to be a better player than I can be and push myself to do great... I mean because I want to make it in life, and I see myself making it with sports. 

Reading Response to Divergent.

Reading Response to Divergent.

For my summer reading book I read Divergent by Veronica Roth. When I was reading Divergent, I noticed that Veronica Roth kept the reader engaged to the book the whole entire time. Not once that I remember me say “Oh this book is boring, I hate it.”, instead I had a positive attitude the whole time… which is kind of rare for me. I would recommend Divergent to any reader that likes books that are based on a romance.

In Divergent, Tris [Beatrice] chose to go and live in another faction… The Dauntless. She grew up and was raised in the faction Abnegation with her parents and her brother. Tris woke up to a rude awakening when changing to The Dauntless. She had to go through tough, rigorous training sections and was forced to do her best or she could be faction less. This is where she meets her trainer Four. Tris and Four start to have a thing and Tris doesn’t know what to do because she’s never really had a relationship. To speed things up, Tris has to fight against an army of Dauntless citizens who have been brainwashed to save her original faction Abnegation. She ends up doing so and witnesses both of her parents sacrificing themselves for her to be safe.