Reading Response

          I am reading Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. I think the last book I read by her was Burned which I really liked, so I decided to read another by her. I don't believe this one is in that series though. The book is realistic fiction. It is about "the right kind of love. With the wrong person." There are five teenagers who are main characters, and their stories are being told.
          My response to Eden is that I think you found a good type of love with Andrew, but don't go into the relationship too fast because you may be rushing it knowing your mother and father would never approve because of their strong religious belief. If I were you, I wouldn't tell my parents because I know the consequences would be very bad, but for some reason I think they will find out without you telling them.
          Seth, you just need to quit. You already know what you are doing is wrong, and if you told your father he would look down at you. I think the best time for you to cut off your relationship is when Loren goes off to New York. The disconnection would kind of be natural.
          Whitney, I have to tell you I understand why you have a better relationship with your father than your mother. Also, that boyfriend of yours, or if he's even your boyfriend, does not love you at all. It was obvious when he didn't tell you he loved you whenever you told him. Plus, he's way older than you and everything. You have definitely found the wrong person to love.
          Ginger! I feel so sorry for you. I feel everything you're doing is right though. You are helping your family more than your mother when she is the cause for everything. You should think of getting a job since you have so much free time. It'll really help. I don't think your in a relationship or in love with anyone yet so I don't really have anything to say for you.
         My response to Cody is that you are not in love. You just think the girl is really pretty. You don't know anything about her at all. One thing you need to do is to stop drinking and smoking. That is just too bad, and plus you're in high school. You don't need to be doing all of that. But Cody, you have definitely found the wrong person to love.

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins,Reading Times: pages 1-84(70 minutes), pages 85-164(70 minutes), pages 165-245(75 minutes)
Total- 245 pages, 215 minutes

Books Read this Semester

       Books read this semester (least to most challenging):
Girls On Film by Zoey Dean
Grief Girl by Erin Vincent
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
Nation by Terry Pratchett
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

          I realized that this semester is the least amount of books I have read in a semester since I was in about first or second grade which is crazy. I really liked the book Burned though. It has a lot of pages and I read it really fast. If I keep reading books that are similar to that, then I may be able to read more. I only read four as this school year was going on that was free choice which I find totally bogus. When did I start reading so little?
          Since I find my amount of books read this semester so tragic, I'll set a goal to read at least six or seven books by the end of this year from the library. I hope to read each one in at most a two-week time period because on the other books it seems that I took about 2-3 weeks on average to read on book. 

Reading Times: 155 minutes on Lord of the Flies from the pages that were assigned for last week
Literary Analysis: 30 minutes
Total:175 minutes

Reading Focus Tracker: Loyalty

           Three significant moments pertaining to loyalty is when Jack blows the conch in chapter 8 and page 125, Jack decides to go off alone by himself in chapter eight and page 127, and when people first sneak off to go to Jack's tribe in chapter eight and page 131. All of these contain Jack in a rivalry with Ralph because Jack wants to take away the power from Jack.
      In the first one, Jack was loyal to Ralph’s leadership. Ralph is the only one who is suppose to blow the conch since he is the chief/leader. Now, Jack has the need to blow the conch and have his own assembly while Ralph is standing right in front of him! Jack wants this:

               Chief/Leader:

              Ralph

             Jack

 For the second one, Jack is leaving the area where Ralph rules because he is sick of him. The loyalty between them is gone. Jack wants to lead his own pack. So he asks everyone who would like to come along with him. No one comes...at first.... For the third one, people start sneaking off to go to Jack's area of the island so they can hunt with him and be apart of his tribe. Jack even eventually has a feast/party/celebration which attracts most of the people of the island to go to his side of the island.

Reading Times

Biology Concepts and Connections, sixth edition by Campell, Reece, Taylor, Simon, Dickey:  pages 88-101, 1 hour
North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley : 30 minutes
Wordly Wise 3000 Book 9 Unit 6: 15 minutes

Midtermmm...

    Since midterms are coming up, here are some of the things that are probably going to happen. I'm probably going to forget the short stories. I don't mean what they are about, but I mean I'm probably going to forget the point of view and stuff like that. I'm also probably going to forget some of the names of the characters, but I will remember what each one did.
     Also, in class I will just ask if she is going to put wordly wise words on the tops in it's on section. Another thing.. This is the first time I've ever had summer reading on an exam. I usually forget about those books a few weeks after school starts. I hope they don't have many questions about that on the exam.

Reading Times: Lord of the Flies Chapter1-6 ,3 hours
Total: 3 hours

Reading Track: Loyalty

       In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, they have many places where people are loyal to each other, but then some of the bonds change slightly. I will be telling you the places of loyalty only up to chapter 5 though, because that is how far I have read as of now. Throughout the chapters, all the boys had to be loyal to the conch and who was holding it. That wasn't always true though because many boys talked out of turn and interrupted people(mostly Piggy) while they were holding the conch. The choir is loyal to Jack because he's been the head of that when they were at school so the loyalty just carried to the island.
        In chapter two, Jack and Ralph showed loyalty with "that strange light of invisible friendship" when they were helping each other with carrying something. They were laughing together and everything. They loyalty soon starts to diminish between the two of them though. Ralph's loyalty moves towards Piggy because Piggy helps give him ideas and encourages him while Jack is a downer and mostly cares about himself. In chapter five, Ralph starts talking about how everyone isn't loyal to following the rules. Everyone also wasn't committed to building all three shelters together, and Jack along with the hunters weren't loyal to keeping the fire burning because they let it go out when they needed it the most.

PLANE CRASHHHH

        My third hour English clash did this little activity in preparation to reading Lord of the Flies. The activity was to act like we had just gotten into a plane crash, and each person in our class had to have a first grader with us. The class was just completely chaotic and in disarray. People formed alliances with each other and separated from the bigger group, and the main group just kept getting smaller and smaller. No one would listen to what one another had to say because we kept trying to talk over each other. We tried to choose leaders, but no one would vote on who they wanted to be the leader. There was like no harmony whatsoever. I think it was this way because many of the people in my class have leadership qualities and would want to lead the pack instead of following someone else.
        If this situation really occurred, I think that people would panic and act even more chaotic. I would especially be wondering where the adults were because I wouldn't want to be alone with all those people without an older authority because that's who everyone would most likely listen to. Another reason I would want the adults to be there is because I would be scared because no one would know what to do. Well, they may know what to do, but they would never actually have the opportunity to say anything because the other people would try to talk over them because they think they have a better idea. My class probably would die off faster than any of the other classes because the other classes were controlled, calm, and knew what to do.
 
Reading Times: Lord of the Flies- 60 minutes, pages 1-32
"Ward's: AP Biology and Diffusion Lab Activity"- 30 minutes, 10 pages
Biology Concepts and Connections, Sixth Edition - 40 minutes
Wordly Wise 3000, Book Nine- 25 minutes

Total: 155 minutes