Em's Blog

1. Appearances and deception are a common theme in literature, how does Hinton demonstrate this?

Throughout the story, there is plenty of appearances and deception. The appearance of a character in the book The Outsiders is what makes him/her a Soc or a Greaser. Greasers are defined by making sure that they have plenty of grease in their hair, while the Socs are sophisticated. I think that the deception in the book is that everybody is the same. Even though there are two groups, Cherry explains to Ponyboy that everybody is a person, and they all have feelings. Not only that, there was one scene where Ponyboy believed that Darry didn’t love him at all, whereas in reality Darry was just afraid of his family separating.

2. Do narrators always tell the truth? Is Ponyboy a reliable narrator?

Narrators don’t always tell the truth, especially if they’re first person. I think this, because when the narrator is in first person it tends to be very biased. So perhaps if the first person narrator doesn’t like a certain character, she’ll/he’ll make that character look very bad, when in reality that character might be very nice.

3. Is The Outsiders relevant to you? Can you relate to it? Why or why not?

I think everyone can relate to The Outsiders.  This book is all about friendship, and family, and helping them in need. Though in school we aren’t divided into two groups and hate each other very much, but we all have friends that we would call family. At least I do. And we always help them, when they need it.

4. Should The Outsiders be taught in school? If so, at what grade level?

 I think that The Outsiders should be taught in school, as it shows friendship, and reality, not just fairytale fiction. I think grade 8 is a good grade to teach this book, because it’s the right age where we understand these kind of books.

5. Who is your favourite character and why? Who is your least favourite? Explain your choice.

 Straight from the beginning when Ponyboy was introducing the Greasers, Johnny was my favourite character. Johnny was my favourite character, cause he was the glue that held the Greasers together, and the fact that he wasn’t as brash as the majority of Greasers. Then when I found out what he went through, my heart just went out to him (even though he’s just a fictional character.) I don’t exactly have a least favourite. The majority of characters were just kind of there. I guess I didn’t really like Cherry, at one point. Because when she wouldn’t meet Johnny in the hospital because Johnny killed her boyfriend in an act of self-defense just really bugged me.

6. Which character impacts you the most? What emotions do you feel for that character? Does he/she remind you of someone else you know? Of yourself?

Johnny, once again. Just because he had so much trouble around him. His parents beating him up, the Socs beating him up. Then running away, and then ending up in the hospital and then dying. But the fact that he sacrificed himself for the children just did it for me. Because perhaps some characters would just want torture for everyone just to make everybody how they felt, but Johnny is the complete opposite. He doesn’t remind me of anybody though, and not myself.

“Hate Poem” by Julie Sheehan, is about hate. How one can hate someone in all their different actions. “Hate Poem” is number 127, on Poetry 180. In “Hate Poem” most sentences end with the word ‘you,’ and if there were different words, they do not exactly rhyme.

In “Hate Poem” Julie Sheehan explains how every little things expresses her hatred. “Layers of hate, a parfait” this metaphor shows how there are different layers of hatred, from hating someone slightly, to hating someone with all their might. In this poem, I believe that the author is at the very last layer of the parfait. I think this because the author describes her hate through actions, such as “The flick of my wrist hates you,” or “The way I hold my pencil hates you.” Though throughout the poem, I can not help but wonder, who this person that Sheehan was? Was he or she a lover, or a true enemy? “My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate,” and “You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate.” These quotations show that the person that Julie Sheehan is writing about might not be an enemy, because you would not nuzzle your head under someone’s arm if they were your rival. I think that the tone of this poem is amusing and slightly angry. The entire poem is really straightforward though, and is mostly easy to understand. But, personally I do not understand the verses “The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you,” and “My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you.” I think I do not understand these phrases, because of the sentence structure they are written in, and also the use of words.

Personally, I like this poem because it’s not very subtle, and is very straight to the point. It is amusing, and also easy to relate to. Also, Sheehan has very interesting verses, for example the “The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.” It is a very creative way for expressing hatred, and I really like how she writes. I feel like I can relate to this poem, because occasionally I can hate someone just with all the actions I do within my daily life, just like the poem explains.

Ms.Clifford, my lovely English teacher is now making us write a reflection. Let’s see if you can figure out what it’s about.

So the first book that we studied was Two Weeks with the Queen. Two Weeks was an interesting book, and I comprehended a lot from it. One of the things I understood was how people will always exclude if you like your own gender. And also, many people don’t realise this, but if you’re sibling is in trouble, regardless of how small or big the trouble is, we always help them. I figured this out in Two Weeks with the Queen, because Colin did so much to help Luke, who had cancer.  Going onto the more technical writing skills now, Ms.Clifford taught us how to make our essays even better than they were before, thus resulting in better scores than I usually did get.

The second book was Journey to Jo’burg. I able to connect this book with Two Weeks with the Queen, because in Journey to Jo’burg, the 2 older siblings, Naledi and Tiro go on an expedition to Johannesburg, to find their mother. They do this because their little sister is really ill, and there are no doctors in the village. Before I read this book I wasn’t aware that there ‘Apartheid.’ I knew that people have discriminated people of other colours, but I didn’t know that it was this bad. When we had watched The Power of 1, and I will admit-I cried a lot. But I had a reason to. It was because just seeing this kid trying to fit in, and reuniting all colours together, and just his overall journey was really moving, and it encouraged me to keep on trying, and to never give up.

And the third book was The House on Mango Street. The first thing I acquired was what a vignette is. As I read through the book, I thought that a vignette reminded me of a drabble, which is on a website called fanfiction basically a short random part of someone’s life (more like a couple’s life.) Another thing I noticed was how the author added lots and lots of details, and how she conveyed the theme (challenges, growing up, relationships, and culture) throughout the entire book. I was taught how to write a descriptive piece- and I had a lot of fun writing one. (You can see the one I wrote here)

And lastly the 50 word stories. I remember I did this last year, but I didn’t get very far in the competition. But this year, I wrote lots of 50 words stories, and had I hard time choosing one. I finally chose one, and I was really proud of it, even more proud when it got to the top 5 of my class, then the top 9 of the grade. It was really fun and enjoyable, and in the end, I was able to write a really, really short story in just 50 words, and make it kind of good.

So in English class a while back we were learning how to write descriptive pieces.

We had to write either about our family’s hair or friends/family’s laughter.

Mine’s The sound of Angels-the last one, and it’s about my friend’s laughter

In English I think I’m knowledgeable.

I think this because I know different literacy techniques, and can define them in writing. Also because when I look at a piece of writing (mainly focusing on House on Mango Street) I enjoy and think I am successful in finding the deeper meaning in it.

Another learner profile I believe I am is open-minded.

I believe this because cause I think that open-minded also means looking at things in different points of view. I think I do this in both inspecting writing, and writing stories. When I write stories, for example the 50 word story, I try write different types of view, not only one type. When I inspect writing, mainly vignettes, I try find the deeper meaning.

And lastly, I think I’m reflective.

If I wasn’t reflective, I wouldn’t be able to do this right now. I know what I can improve on. I can improve on more sophisticated writing, instead of writing like I speak. I can see what I’m good at. I can see when a piece of work is good, and when it’s not. Regardless of how good my writing was in the past, I always know there’s room for improvement.

And that is what I think I show in my English class.

Photo taken by: backonthebus (here)

My favourite part of my collage is probably just the look and feeling of it. I remember not enjoying the paper that we got, and being at Amanda’s house, and her painting, she gave me the idea of making it blue, lighter in some parts, darker in others. From there on, Amanda gave me the idea of painting blood on the wolfs, another favourite part of my collage.

I adressed many parts of my novel in the collage. At least I think I did. I adressed the genre, paranormal romance, because you can see the heart and a little bit of pink meaning the romance, and yet it seems a lot darker and mysterious. I adressed the character, for example the girl on the top left corner, always sitting on the tire swing, watching the wolves. Also the boy on the bottom right corner, how he was a wolf and a boy. Setting was slightly, you can tell it’s often in the woods, and it’s really cold there. The plot wasn’t really there, only if you could read the writing I wrote, which is quite hard to read in the picture.

If I had to change my collage, I would defiantly change the sizing of the pictures, because I had a hard time with that. But apart from that I’m pretty proud of my collage

My values come from my family, and my friends, and just plain old common sense.

I’m super close to my mum, and she always tells me the normal stuff, respect people, be nice, and such. My mum always seems to have time for me, and I want to as well when I get older. I am always happy around my mum, and so just trying to be happy and have fun is a huge one.

My friends are always so close to me, and we share everything. Friendship is a huge key in my life, one of the reasons it’s my value. Love as well, I love my friends, and they’re just so awesome, love is also huge in my life.

Common sense is also and odd part of my values. Just the usual, no smoking, drinking, be nice, no drugs, tattoos, and such, people should know not to do those kind of things.

To express how people feel.
To apologize.

To tell people new things.

To have fun.

To share
Explain
To make friends.
To learn.
communicate.
To understand.
To describe things.
To learn new languages.
To get to places (read signs, maps, etc)