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/