Entry Four- Summer Assignment

Out of all the Michael L. Printz Award list of books I chose Looking for Alaska by John Greene because for one the cover seemed like it was different from the other books he had written in the past.  What also caught my attention to this novel was the way it said BEFORE in big letters in front of the first page when the book starts, like it was going back to the life that has already happened previously.  As well as the cover catching my attention, the back did too, the way it doesn’t seem to summarize the book but give what the characters such as Miles are seeking and what is happening n his life before everything happened. Personally I had a connection after reading because it actually taught me a lesson which was the little things can make a big difference, it took me the entire book to learn that, this book is worth a read to really anyone especially people who like a fast paced and drama filled book. Throughout this novel the character go through so much in such a small amount of time. The little things that happen to each of them lead up to some pretty big things that you have to read to find out what they are. Honestly, anyone would enjoy this book. Can you answer the question? How do you escape the labyrinth of suffering?

Entry Three- Summer Assignment

"When adults say,'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile om their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot begin and cannot end, and so in cannot fail. So I know she forgives me,just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison's last words were: 'It's very beautiful over there.' I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful."

At the moment when this section is happening is on page 220-221, which is the end of the book. This is when Miles, Takumi, and the Colonel had just completed the ultimate prank that Alaska had planned to do before she left the school, and since her disappearance, they all thought in honor of Alaska that they should be the ones to go through with the plans Alaska had written and left behind when she left campus. Also a little earlier in the book in Miles' religion class they had to write a paper answering the question "How do we escape this labyrinth of suffering?" which was what Alaska had asked before her passing. This section of the book was featured in the essay that Miles "Pudge" Halter had written to answer that specific question. 

Entry Two- Summer Assignment

The characters in Looking for Alaska vary a lot from each other because some of them are more complex and we have learned more about them than some. The main character Miles "Pudge" Halter is more complex, since at the beginning of the book you get his life story in a way. Miles wants to find him self and find where he could fit in and be more himself rather than being the lonely kid with two friends at his other school, he wants to find a crowd of people where he can be who he wants to be, when it says "Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps.' That's why i'm going. So i don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.."(Green 5). Miles also desires to learn more of who Alaska is since she seems more mysterious and out there, since no one will tell him about her, he wants to find out for himself.
Chip Martin is Miles' roommate, he is know by his friends as "Colonel". Colonel wants to find the people that mess with him or his friends and take them down and ruin their "little lives". Besides that he really doesn't want much more. While reading he says to Miles "...because we need to figure out why they're so, uh, pissed at me. And then we need to go ahead and start thinking about how we're going to ruin their miserable little lives"(Green 29). 
Alaska Young is the mysterious, young , and beautiful girl that keeps Miles on his toes and thinking "what's she up to?" or "what is up with her?"  Her wants and desires are to escape the "labyrinth of suffering". At one point Alaska is talking about Simon Bolivar and his famous last words about a labyrinth and Miles asks " So what's a labyrinth?" and she replies " That's the mystery, isn't it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape-- the world or the end of it?"(Green 19).Looking for Alaska: Character Analysis and the Labyrinth

Lastly Kevin, he isn't very developed yet, and his wants and desires are yet to be determined.

The theme that I've noticed that has developed the most would be expect the unexpected, you can see that when it says " --probably for the first time in my life-- the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what's going to happen or when" (Green 29). 

The structure of Looking for Alaska is in the first person, where the story is told by the point of view of one character at a time. Though, the story is mainly told in the point of view of Miles. The structure isn't really one solid thing, more of a variation of any different types of book structures.

Entry One- Summer Assignment

The book I chose to read this summer is Looking for Alaska by John Green. In my book the major characters are Miles "Pudge" Halter, Chip Martin also known as "the Colonel",Alaska, and Kevin.
The main character is Miles who is a unsocial, lonely, yet very ambitious, skinny 16 year old as when it says " My skinniness always surprised me: My thin arms didn't seem to get much bigger as they moved from wrist to shoulder my chest lacked any hint of either fat or muscle...."(Green 9). That is looking for his "Great Perhaps.  The setting begins in hot and humid Florida where Miles lives with his parents. Then following in his dad's footsteps and to start over a new life wanted to transfer to Culver Creek Preparatory School. The place that Miles stayed in was a place with " Six one-story buildings, each with sixteen dorm rooms," that "were arranged in a hexagon around a larger circle of grass" (Green 7-8). So the main conflict is that when Miles begins to hang out with "the Colonel" more he meets the rest of his friends which included a girl named Alaska, as he knew about her longer, the more and more interested he came in her, Miles wanted to know her story and what she was all about. When it says " Alaska sat directly across from me in the circle of desks, but she didn't look at me once the entire class, even though I could notice little but her..." (Green 30). This shows that the more he sees her the more he needs to know about her, and Alaska won't say a word to him, also no one will say one word about her to him. I've so far read just the beginning of the book but i predict sometime when i get more into the book that Miles will find out more about Alaska and maybe something no one else knows about. A connection that i noticed while reading was when Chip "Colonel" says to Miles while sitting by the lake on the beach " Yeah, but he doesn't really go into blitzkrieg mode until classes start," ( Green 17). This connection is to history back to the term meaning "lightning war" by the Germans during World War Two.

Book Review

The book I am reviewing is “Shrimp” by Rachel Cohn. This book is fiction but it could also call it realistic fiction. This book is the second in its 3 book series. Shrimp is about an already developed character named Cyd Charisse who just returned from New York, where the last book left off. In this book Cyd charisse returns from New York and is ready to get the love of her life back Shrimp. To briefly summarize this book, a girl named Cyd Charisse nicknamed CC is trying to get whom she believes is the love of her life, Shrimp back. Along the way she meets a girl named Helen who becomes her best friend and Alexi her driver’s nephew who she hates at the beginning of the book but by the end she grows to appreciate. She also befriends the least excepted character Autumn who is the reason for her and Shrimps break up in the first place. I think this book was very interesting. I like how they setup the characters like Alexi the horrible as CC calls him I like how once they introduced him I thought immediately that oh of course they are going to hook up or something in that manner . I am not going to give it away but you will be surprised about what happens between them, I was. This book was descriptive enough it was enough for me to visualize but not too much where it gets boring. Like one scene stuck in my head is where something romantic may or may not happen with CC and Alexi. I also like too other scene with one where CC gets high and goes looking for munchies at shrimps house and he brings her to the freezer for hot pockets and she kisses him but he tells her it just wants to be friends for now and then get into the sexual stuff later maybe. Then later in the book they still pretend to be “just friends” but they end up in CC`s shed and they begin to hook up and now this time Cyd turns Shrimp down and says he was right they should just be friends for right now. I think girls are the mostly candidate for reading this book because it is about a girl growing up and maturing so young girls can relate to her. I think you would like this book if you like the book series the Seven deadly Sins because they are both teen dramas in a less of Gossip girl kind a way its not about rich girls acting like idiots. Those are the people I would recommend this book too.

Letter to the Author

Dear Rachel Cohn, I am in the process of reading one of your books, Shrimp, I think that your style of writing is very different, i like it though, the way you organize the sentences and words makes me want to continue until the end. The book cover also was so divergent from the other books in the non-fiction genre, the cover really caught my eye with the surfer on it, it also made me think about what it could be about. The story itself so far is very interesting and very different from what I have read in the past, the writing in the book and how you worded it makes the book even better to me. I hope to be able to read more of your writing and I look forward to what you are going to write in the future. From, Natalie

Reason Behind Shrimp

The main reason I think Rachel Cohn wrote Shrimp because looking at the summaries of the other book she has written, she likes to be different, especially when it comes to the topic, style, characters, and her word choice and the order she chooses to put the in. The book Shrimp is very different in terms of all the things I said before, the word choice seems to not really be similar to any other books that I have read. Even though I have only read one of Rachel Cohn's books, the reviews and everything of her other book seem to be very similar to the way Shrimp is written. But i think the main reason Shrimp was written was to set itself from the other books in the non-fiction genre, Rachel Cohn wanted to stand out from the author's that have also written non-fiction stories. The story itself, you can tell was going to be different by what the cover looks like, and the first couple lines of the actual book.

In the Darkness

In the Darkness

What's Next?

Since that I'm almost done with my current book Shrimp, I really need to think what is there out there for me to read and actually enjoy? What I plan on reading something that's maybe from the same author or very similar to Rachel Cohn. The writing style of Rachel Cohn is very unique compared to the other books I have read in the past. The book Shrimp is very different from most books in terms of vocabulary, diction, and writing style, I actually really enjoyed this book. Even though I am pretty sure not many books are similar to this one, I'm going to try and find an author with more than four books, that can write just like Rachel Cohn. The author that i'm the most interested to hopefully read would be Nicholas Sparks becuase i have heard great things about his writing style.

Krista Ramsey Post

To briefly summarize this article would be that, she is saying that preschool is essential for a kid to grow and develop. Preschool helps kids grow a better vocabulary and betters them for the future of their schooling.

The line and/ or lines that I think were the best written would be when she says "At an art table, Ashlyn arranges and rearranges handfuls of brightly colored feathers.”I'm going to make a collage of a parrot," she says, cheerfully unaware that collage isn't really a 5-year-old word." This, to me is the best written line because it shows a little 5- year old, using a word such as collage in her vocabulary, when a normal 5-year old would most likely never use this word for a group of things together. Also in this line I noticed low or informal diction, the diction or word choice in this line isn't really elevated at all. The syntax that I noticed would be that the sentence length is very long and doesn’t use much punctuation.

The writing style of Krista Ramsey would be a mixture of long, fact-filled sentences/paragraphs, short but effective sentences, and medium lengthened sentences. Some examples would be when it says “The result?” in her first column, this leaves you thinking, simple but effective. In her second column it says “Probably half the population sees this as a problem and the other half, a blessing.” This sentence isn’t really long or short but it still is effective in proving her point. In the article I found it says “If preschool was optional for your kids, then maybe it's optional for them. But if it was essential for your kids – if you watched it transform their lives and wouldn't have done without it – how can it be denied to children with so few resources, children who need it so desperately?” This is an example of an effective and informational paragraph by Ramsey.

Questions:

1.     How do you put together your columns so that they are effective?

2.     Is writing a column easier or harder than writing something like a book or newspaper article?

3.     How long does it take you to get all your information for a column?

     Hyperlink:

hhttp://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/08/krista-our-kids-tell-the-story-of-why-preschool-is-a-must/5328181/

Most Important Line in Chapter 18

At the point of the book that I’m in which is Chapter 18 and the most important line/lines would be “I hadn't thought about it that way. My head might also need a fresh-air breather if that much was swirling around in it at once, but I would never go outdoor camping for head-clearing R&R. I would go to a spa where beautiful bronzed boys wearing togas would bring m poolside fruity drinks with little tiki umbrellas floating inside,” (Cohn 133).  These lines would be the most important for this chapter because this is when she realizes how everything works, and how different people could think of some things. Also that some people just don’t think of the same things the same way you would think them to. This when she learns that sometimes you have to think of things in more than one way, think about what that person would think also.

Vocab in Shrimp

The vocabulary in the book "Shrimp" is unlike some vocabulary you would normally see like when it say "Having Shrimp and his mellow vibe permeating our house is like having Paxil dosed through the central heating ducts" (Cohn 103). In this quote the word permeating, me not knowing what it means, I looked it up and the Google definition was spread throughout (something); pervade. Some other vocabulary would be when it says “I was left with no choice but to exercise my Big Sister prerogative. “SCRAM!” I yelled, and they were outta there” (Cohn 106). Using this quote the word prerogative is unfamiliar to me, so when I looked up the definition and the meaning of prerogative is a right or privilege exclusive to a particular individual or class. The vocabulary of this book can and can’t be elevated or maybe even low, this story has a combination of both. 

Best Thing about Shrimp

The best thing about my book would be the different language when it says "She was not going to mess with the simple freedom either, and did not complain once as we climbed Divisadero Street, a street so steep not even buses will navigate that section of it--and "Diviz" is a major thoroughfare." Just the ways she says it seems different than what a normal book would say. The diction isn't similar to anything I have read before. Another things about this book that makes it good would be the title "Shrimp" by itself contrasting to any other book titles. The book cover is another good thing because it draws you in, the picture of a surf board with the girl standing next to it.

Why I Chose Shrimp?

The reason I chose the book Shrimp by Rachel Cohn would be that this author isn't really popular and she seemed like the time to try a new author. I haven't heard much about this author and might as well see what kind of writing style she has, to see if I will like her books. The title Shrimp also interested be just because it didn't seem like normal title for a book and it seemed like it would be interesting. Another reason I chose this book would be the it seemed different and would differ from the normal books that I would read. Also a reason i chose this book was from the title it gave the impression that the plot, characters, and language would differ from normal everyday book that people would read my age. The front cover of the book also seemed different and it really drew me in to want to read it.

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/shrimp

About Rachel Cohn

Rachel grew up near DC, and attended Barnard College, Manhattan at the age of 17. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science, thinking she wanted to be a journalist. Instead, she moved to San Francisco - where Gingerbread was set - to work at a law firm and began writing. After moving back to New York City, Gingerbread was published followed by a number of other books, often about a strong, witty female protagonist. Rachel Cohn (born 14 December 1968 in Silver Spring, Maryland) is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and children's books, and has collaborated on three books with the author David Levithan.
From the time I learned how to read and write I was always trying to create stories. I grew up surrounded by books and by family who were educators – the desire and encouragement to write came readily in my household. When I was a kid, I loved books by Judy Blume, Ellen Conford and E.L. Konigsburg. (I loved Judy Blume’s books so much that I used to actively wish I would get scoliosis so I could be like Deenie.) My favorite books were: Harriet the Spy;Deenie; And This Is Laura; Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Anything for A Friend; From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Oh, and anything by Jackie Collins or Sidney Sheldon.

Final Blogging Assessment

Over the course my writing in my blog posts have grown from in my third post it said ”The reason I started reading True Believer by Nicholas Sparks because I have always been interested in reading a book by Nicholas Sparks for a while but I never got the chance. Now for our independent reading novel, I thought this would be the time to start reading his books.” This post involved no textual reason behind me choosing this book over all Nicholas Sparks’ other books. My quality of writing from that post has improved in my new posts like in my sixth post when I said “If I were to as about his family he would probably respond with “Even his highly emotional Italian mother didn't believe that true love could blossom overnight. Like his brothers and sisters-in-law, she wanted nothing more for him than to marry and start a family, but if he showed up at her doorstep and said that he'd met someone two days ago and knew she was the one for him, his mother would smack him with a broom, curse in Italian, and drag him to church, sure that he had some serious sins that needed confessing.” In this post it shows me using more textual evidence to prove my point more than my previous posts just stating what I think and not using evidence to prove it. From post to post my writing has gotten much better as I went through and understood the book more and what I can really write. The quality of my blog post has also improved with the type of information I put in it including the actual quotes from the book. Over time I think my writing quality has greatly improved.

  An area of struggle that I had during these blog posts at the beginning of the trimester was to know when to use the quotes and evidence to prove my point better. What I did to overcome this struggle was to pay more attention to the details while actually reading the book to find the good quotes to better improve my understanding what I was writing in my blog posts. Another area of struggle that I had while writing the blog posts was using the appropriate language so more people could better understand what I was trying to explain in my book. What I did to overcome that struggle was to write it in the language a person in my grade would understand, which helped me understand, helping me to be able to explain if anyone needs an explanation of what I’m writing. A strength I had during the blogging was the length of the posts having to be at least a paragraph. During the blog posts the length of my posts were the how long they were supposed to be. Mostly all my post an explanation for the point I was trying to make. I think my strength helped me have better improvements and get better at the blog posts.

What's Next?

Now that I have finished True Believer, my next step would be to continue reading Nicholas Sparks books. The development of the story as it went on made me want to read more of his books. Also his books are highly recommended by many different people. As I read this book I noticed the elevation of diction or word choice varied as the book developed. The tone of the book also varied on the situations happening to the main character. Throughout the book his language used to describe different things didn't change much. The next think I will probably do is also read different books that are similar to Nicholas Sparks' writing style. Overall, to find and read book similar in writing style of True Believer.

Conversation with Jeremy Marsh

If i were to talk to the main character of True Believer, Jeremy Marsh, the conversation would probably mention his job and his family. If i were to as about his family he would probably respond with “Even his highly emotional Italian mother didn't believe that true love could blossom overnight. Like his brothers and sisters-in-law, she wanted nothing more for him than to marry and start a family, but if he showed up at her doorstep and said that he'd met someone two days ago and knew she was the one for him, his mother would smack him with a broom, curse in Italian, and drag him to church, sure that he had some serious sins that needed confessing.” Jeremy Marsh was born into a very large Italian family, but loved them with everything. To Jeremy his job taught him a lot like “I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” It would be about those two things since those are the main things in hos life and in the book.

Best thing about True Believer

The best thing about True Believer is that throughout they whole book , something unexpected will happen to the main character. Another would be the different vocabulary and use of diction from page to page. Also so far in the book the setting has changed many times varying from the city, country, and the suburbs. The characterization is really said all at once it shows how the main character is changing over time.The conflict is also many different kind, person to person, person to world, and person vs fate. The story is continually just great and keeps you interested. The theme really has been developed in many ways. True Believer is just over a really good book all together.

Vocab Post

"For the last twenty minutes, he'd been directing the traffic into the parking spots and watching in disbelief at the procession excitedly making his way towards the door." ( Sparks 145). In this quote there is a word that isn't familiar to me which is procession. But by looking at the quote I'm guessing it means the way the cars are moving. When I looked up the definition it means a number of people or vehicles moving forward in an orderly fashion, as of part of a ceremony or festival. 

When it says "Scores of cars, parked haphazardly, noses pointing in every direction as if planning a getaway." (Sparks 148). In this quote haphazardly is the word that I've never heard before. But I think it means at an angle. When I look up the definition it actually means randomly: in a random manner. 

The vocabulary varies very much throughout the whole book, those are just some examples. True Believer has a strong sense of vocabulary in it.

Why did i ChooseTrue Believer?

The reason I started reading True Believer by Nicholas Sparks because I have always been interested in reading a book by Nicholas Sparks for awhile but i never got the chance. Now for our independent reading novel, I thought this would be the time to start reading his books.Also since I have begun this book it started out by describing the main character like his appearance and what he currently does. The first page also starts by using a descriptive way to say where the book starts off and where the main character lives. I also chose this book because the story line and just by reading the first page and the summary given by the author. True Believer really seemed like something i could possibly start to get into reading. This book helped me sort of figure out the things i enjoy while reading. Also, so far in this book i'm getting into it, it is full of surprises on each page.