Writing Center

I went to the writing center sort of early in the first quarter so I don't exactly remember what I was told. I also didn't write down when I went - I'm really bad about stuff like that - I'm also pretty bad with names in the first place and I forgot who helped me with my paper, which is embarrassing.




I think what that person told was helpful because I got a good grade on that paper. It also made sense. I think I was using "it" in my paper a little to much and didn't have much variation in my sentence structure.








I read Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy I finished it 3 hours

Reading Record 12/2/13

Lord of the Flies by William Golding   3 hours    chapter 11

Thanksgiving 11/18/13

I can't wait for Thanksgiving! It's so fun my family always gets together for a big lunch at my grandmothers house. Everyone always brings one dish to contribute to the meal. We have turkey, rolls, broccoli, casserole, pecan pie, and my favorite chocolate pie. We normally bring bacon wraps or something like that. Everyone always loves are bacon wraps, when ever my parents have to bring something to a party everyone's like" your bringing the bacon wraps right?" it's kind of funny. We also have fun talking about how the year has been so far and other funny stories.




Reading Log
39 Clues In Too Deep            3 hours             by Jude Watson        I finished both of them
39 Clues The Emperor's Code      3 hours       by Gordon Korman

Choose your Prompt 11/18/13

prompt write about your favorite book and/or author.

My favorite author is Rick Riordan. He writes a lot of mythical fiction that's right up my alley. I have read about eight books by him and enjoyed them all. My favorite was Son of Poseidon. It is the second book in a series by him called Heroes of Olympus. It is about a character named Percy that loses his memory and he makes some friends and they go on a quest while trying to get his memory back.
I read my first book by him in sixth grade because my English teacher made me and I'm glad she did. It was the Red Pyramid. At that time I hated being told what to read so I assumed I would hate the book; but it turned out I loved it and read the next two books in the series.

Hypothetical Island 11/12/13

Before we started Lord of the Flies, we discussed what we would do if we were stranded on an island. It was chaos. At least three people wanted human sacrifices, two people were not taking it very seriously, three people were serious but weren't open to other ideas, and finally three to four people were serious and cooperative but they were not very outspoken and the louder people drowned them out. One of the nonsense people insisted she would be in charge of Kool-Aid and electronics.

The human sacrifice people wanted to sacrifice me second but I told them I could fish and there was no way I was being sacrificed. Somehow after that I became the island's sushi chef, then they wanted to develop a caste system based on way color you pick before you know about the caste system. All and all I would avoid our hypothetical island if I were you.



Reading log
Divide and Conquer by James Dashner  4 hours finished it

Analysis update 11/4/13

My literacy analysis started off kind of slow and I had a problem finding something to make a thesis out of. I still not sure how good my thesis is because it focuses on a small part of the story. I'm afraid it is has to much speculation. During class people told me my thesis needed some elaboration so when I tried to do that; I accidently wrote an introduction paragraph. I think it would work thought I think it's coming along well. I worked hard on the outline during the weekend and managed to get it done early.

I like how it's coming along and it was nice to get the introduction done. I'm worried that I will need to adjust my thesis because I won't have enough support for the current one or that I won't have enough to fill three pages.



Reading Log
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley I finished it   5 hours

Grandma's House 10/28/13

Last week and part of this week my brother and I have been staying with our grandparents. Our parents decided to go with our other grandparents on a trip to Key West without us and during school; very considerate of all them right? Not that it's all bad staying with my grandparents; I get to sleep half an hour more than normal and we made these awesome two-layer chocolate brownies.

A few bad things are that I forgot it was homecoming week this week and I hardly had anything I could wear. We ended up running home on Sunday to pick up some things for that, but I didn't have much, especially for Halloween. My grandmother is also a great cook and my grandfather is really funny.

Reading Response 10/28/13

I read The 39 Clues Maze of Bones by my favorite author Rick Rioran last week and it was good. It's about Amy and Dan Cahill and the first two clues of the 39 clues. It starts when there grandmother dies and leaves all her relatives with a choice between one million dollars or the first clue. Amy and Dan pick the clue along with seven other teams and begin to search for the rest.

I think that this book may have been written for audiences a little younger than me but I still like it overall. I didn't like how it could be very vague and seemed to jump to the action parts. I also like all the facts it includes about the various places mentioned in the book like the catacombs in France. This book also has a little bit of back stabbing I didn't like. It has a sort of cliff hanger ending because it's a series so I can't wait to read the next one.


the 39 Clues Maze of Bones by Rick Rioran finished  4 hours

10/14/13 reading record

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer   I finished it   read for  5 hours

I need my idea book for the personal questions

10/7/13 Reading Log

The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby   2 hours  page 270 

Short Story thing 9/29/13

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is an interesting short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is mainly about this family that finds an old man with wings in their backyard that has been knocked down by the rain and was stuck in the mud. I don't like how they treat the old man like an animal in a zoo and get rich off him. They keep him in the chicken coop and people throw things at him. I do like that he is so patient. He doesn't care much about everyone staring at him and throwing things.

I don't think I fully understand the social and the cultural parts of the short stories we read. I don't think my short story has much culture things in it. I think the notes on setting were really useful, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with all the different parts of the story.



Hatching Magic  Ann Downer-Hazell   242 pages  4 hours  I finished the book    

Reading Response 9/21/13

I have been reading A Wizard of Earthsea and so far it's alright. It starts off kind of slow but picks up near the middle of the book. It is the story of Ged becoming a wizard in a land called Earthsea which is like a large collection of islands of all sizes. Ged lives in a small village called Gont and later moves to Roke a larger island. Ged is taught some spells from the village witch then some events happen and he goes to a wizard school to learn more magic.

I didn't like how it started off kind of slow and uneventful, but it slowly works in more action and got better.  I liked all the details it has so far like the cold, fast river with slick rocks. This is the first book I have read by Le Guin and I think I like this author.


A Wizard of Earthsea Le Guin    Page172    2 hours

Bob's thoughts

Ahhh nice to lay down after spending so long in the forest. Did I put up everything, rope, backpack, stuff in backpack, no I left my shoe, where did I leave my shoe; I'll find it in the morning. Note to self bring more water next time. I hope that big tree lives, the one I like to climb near the cliff, it was stuck by lightning three days ago I think. I hope a squirrel was in it. What was that saying about trees falling in in forests, ah if a tree falls and no one hears it will it keep making noise? No, that doesn't sound right, oh well too tired for this. I wonder if I could hear it from here if it fell. I will have to hike out there tomorrow to check.

I hate squirrels they're mean. I glad they can't get inside anymore, last time was horrible. I remember they destroyed the furniture and ate all my food. Did the storm reopen that hole in the roof. I think it was wet yesterday morning. Great, with my luck they'll be in by next week. I wonder who will hike with me tomorrow. I know these woods better than Dan, he's only been here half as long as me. I'll take them to that flowery meadow I found a while ago. I like flowers.

Reading Response 9/16/13

I read The Amber Spyglass this week. It is the third in the His Dark Materials series. This book is about Lyra and Will and they are trying to help stop a war. This is a very confusing series if you don't pay attention to the details or read the first two books. What confused me the most was you didn't have much of an idea of what Lyra and Will were trying to do. During the first part of the book Will is trying to rescue Lyra that's pretty simple; then after that they end up in the world of the dead to talk to someone and go from there, not so simple.

I really liked the creativity of this author. There were many different characters, species and worlds. Like the armored polar bears, or the Gallivespians, tiny people that are spies in the book. There are about 6 worlds in the book all very different. I hate that Lyra and Will are also from different worlds because there too different, if you read the end of the book you'll know what I mean.



The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman  4 hours  finished it

Reading Log 9/9/13

The Golden Compass  Philip Pullman   I finished the book       4-5 hours

Literacy Narritve Update 9/8/13

So far, I don't like literacy narratives. They are ok to read, I guess. The cat one was well written and everything but it wasn't something I would pick out. I wouldn't normally choose to read about how someone changed someone else's writing or something like that. In that aspect I find them a bit boring, but I do like the vivid details people use in them. My literacy narrative is alright in my opinion. but it's still pretty ruff around the edges.

Instead of my literacy narrative being about my development as a writer, mine is about  my development as a reader. This is because I'm not very interested in writing and therefore don't remember or haven't noticed key changing points in my writing, I just get a big blank, like uh I learned some grammar and sentence structure in 7th and 8th grade, does that count? On the other hand I'm very interested in reading, but I feel that I gradually got better at reading and don't remember having very many reading epiphanies. Mostly I hope my topic, how I wrote my paper are alright and I think I needs to add more vivid details, unfortunately I don't know how or where to get them in my paper.

This is Water Response

This is Water is a very interesting speech. I'm probably going to have to watch it a few more times to really understand it. It looks and sounds to me like something that could have several different meanings; but I might also be over thinking that because it did make a point of making the conscious decision of your mind set. I liked how it tried to encourage you to keep a positive mind set while trying to remain neutral and mentioning how hard it could be. I noticed that it didn't focus much on the positive things in day to day life but I think that would have taken away from the speech.

I don't understand how the fish relate to the speech, they seem kind of thrown in there. I thought it was odd how he mentioned all these things that his speech wasn't about like moral or religion. I feel he didn't present the main idea very clearly, but that's just at my first glance. All and all I really liked it especially all the examples and details he used to portray his view point.

Reading Response Parsifal's Page 9/3/13

This book is the 4th book in the Squire's Tales series, set in King Arthur's time. It follows the journey of Pier's as he becomes a page for the knight in training, Parsifal. I didn't like some things in his training. He asked a lot of questions and they told him not to ask so many questions. I also didn't like in the beginning he ate someone's dinner and kissed a women, not knowing that it was very impolite. So after he learned that was wrong and made it up the women later on. 

I did like some parts, like when he accidently wandered near King Arthur's camp two knights jousted with him, he won and Pier's (who was in the camp) went to go see him found out he was asleep and beat the two knights in his sleep! I also liked when Sir Kai proposed to a women she agreed to marry him, King Arthur said "I'm not sure whether I just heard a challenge or a proposal, but I wish you happiness" that was very funny.

Reading log 9/2/13

The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris   I read the entire book  8/27/13   4 hours

Reading Response The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady

The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady, by Gerald Morris, is told in 3rd person and focuses on Terence, a squire that serves Sir Gawain, and tells the tales of their many adventures. So far the tale of the Green Knight has been the focus of this book. This book is about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. I have been a little prejudice against books about Merlin and King Arthur because I'd always assumed they were historical fiction, which they might be I have no idea and I normally don't like historical fiction.  Speaking of which, that is one of my personal questions How do King Arthur, Merlin and the Round table knights change in books and why? So far Merlin was his advisor and disappeared near the end of the book.

 This book is interesting because it tells how knights, courts, and things were like back then. Like there were some show knights or tournament knights that didn't really fight besides tournaments and quests. Then there were knights that fought in wars, did quests, and helped people. It also told how boring peace could be when the knights were at the castle and had nothing to do or weren't on a quest. I really like how it uses some language from that time period but is careful not to overwhelm the reader. Another thing I like is in one part of the book Terence sees a bow and arrows for the first time and doesn't know what they are and calls them things like "a long bent stick and several shorter sticks". I wouldn't have thought of that.

Fishing this Weekend 8/24/13

I went fishing this weekend with my parents and grandparents. I got to sleep in late and was the last one up. Then we got in the boat and idled out of the canal where our camp was. We stopped once to try a slip (a narrow branch off of a canal) it started raining lightly when we left that spot but we kept going. When we got out of the no wake zone (where you can't make any waves with the motor) we went really fast on plane, it was a little cold and the rain stung a little but we weren't discouraged. We tried 3 different spots. At the last spot we caught the most fish, it was one after the other but they were barely longer than my foot. We were forced to go in as some big black storm clouds got closer and closer, we barely made it back before it started pouring down rain!

Reading Log 8/25/13

8/22/13  The Mark of Athena   Rick Rioran 4 hours all the pages

8/25/13  The Squire's Tale    Gerald Morris  2 hours   1-209 (all the pages)

Starting School

We've been in school about a week now and so far I think I like history the most. Its still hard to tell this early in the school year. I like history and it has been interesting learning about how historians work and stuff so far. I'm excited about science too, I like biology and have biology honors this year. Another thing about biology, I already knew my teacher from the tennis team because he coaches tennis too.

Over the summer I read a lot, but I ran out of books! I really missed the library and the book club at school. At the end of the school year the library got lots of new books and I can't wait to read them. The only thing is last year it was only me and one of my friends in the book club.I also missed my friends and it is nice to see them again.

Reading Log 8/16/13

8-16-13 The Son of Neptune by Rick Rioran 5:40-8:00

Reading Response Insurgent

I read Insurgent over the summer and I enjoyed it a lot. What I liked most was the part about Amity's bread because it was so funny and it was a break from the seriousness of what was going on. They put this happy stuff in the bread and they end up giving Tris to much and she acts funny. It surprised me when the fractionless joined the war and Four didn't listen to Tris about what she thought of their plan. He asked her to come so he could hear her opinion then kind-of accused her of being biased. This is one of the best dystopian books I had read in a long time. I like how your only know what Tris knows and thinks, your not this character for two pages then that character for five pages.