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

In the conversation between Randy and Ponyboy, they were talking about their appearance and how the society is extremely quick to judge the people by the way they look, without getting to know them first.

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

Narrators in novels doesn’t always tell the truth due to the fact that since the novel The Outsiders is based on first-person, it doesn’t show other character’s feelings. Ponyboy is a reliable narrator because despite the fact that he once lied to himself, he does not only always express his feelings but also tells how other characters might feel.

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

The Outsiders is rather irrelevant to me, however, I have some connection to it. I am like Randy, who looks tough and tuff, but calm and honest from the inside.

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

I believe that The Outsiders should be taught in school, in a range between 6th grade and 10th grade. Since the words are too hard for an elementary student to read and the novel’s protagonist is talking about a group in his age.

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

My favorite character is Randy, because he looks tough and dangerous, however, he is quite honest, calm and kind. On the other hand, my least favorite character is Dally since he occasionally shows off.

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 impacts me the most, because I feel quite sad for Johnny, and so does he think he’s sad. However, it doesn’t remind me of someone else I know in real life.

One would like to advocate “Fast Break” by Edward Hirsch to the grade eight citizens, those who are searching for a dramatic poem in relation with sports. Fast Break, the 109^th poem on the Poetry 180 website, which slightly indicates that Billy Collins (the one who creates the webpage) does not draw attention towards sports-related poems, mostly evinces the situation where the basketball team, written in the poem Fast Break, cooperates each other to score a basket, marking as the fast break. Fast break, a ball-games term, is where a team makes a swift attack from its defense position, and scores. In this case, fast break is where a basketball team makes an immediate attack from its own court, scoring a basket. The writer of the poem Edward Hirsch seems to include various poetic techniques, such as metaphor, simile and assonance through the entire poem.

In the first four stanzas, it talks about how one of the players in the teams boxes out his man, gets the rebound and throws it to another player who is hustling to the opponent’s court. Hirsch already expresses the scene in an interesting way by using techniques such as personification, and in typical, with the first four, imageries such as sight. Hirsch seems to use the word “kiss [es]” in the first line of Fast Break “A hook shot kisses the rim and,” using personification, which is a tone that is slight unfamiliar to one. In one’s opinion, Hirsch uses personification in this line to emphasize the scene even more by adding a lively action of “kiss”, creating an easier atmosphere for readers to understand the scene of how the shot from the opponent misses. Sight, one of the imageries, has a main role in the next three stanzas, such as “gangly” in the first line on the second stanza, to furthermore express the looks of the starting center, being able to picture the scene from the reader’s perspective.

In the next eight stanzas, it talks about the action it takes between the player who took the ball, crossovers a slow opponent and both forwards passing the ball to each other, trying to score the basket. Hirsch uses a colloquial language in its dramatic poem, in the second line of the fifth stanza, “flat-footed.” The word “flat-footed” generally means a person who is unable to move quickly, but also unintelligent. Hirsch should have been using a poetic expression instead of a colloquial language. One thinks the poet uses a colloquial language as the matter of fact that it would create a slight more affinity to the readers of the poem. Repetition, a minor poetic technique, expresses significantly at the 11^th stanza. “Without,” an ordinary word we usually use in our daily life has been a critical use in the poem, so that everyone could naturally absorb into the atmosphere. This might owe to the fact that one of the effects of repetition is to naturally memorize the phrase due to its importance in the poem.

One should include the techniques that has been in a significant use in the last five stanzas, unfortunately, the word limit is coming to its maximum value, so one would not be able to discuss about it…

Onto one’s perspective about the poem one has been discussing in this post. From one’s opinion, this poem means how a team needs a considerable amount of teamwork in order to achieve a significant ambition. Whenever one, perhaps other readers, reads this poem, it makes one think of the favorite team in the National Basketball Association scoring with a fast break because of its numerous collaboration as a team. The best part of this poem, from one’s perspective, is in the last stanza: “and swiveling back to see an orange blur floating perfectly through the net.” This shows how the ball swishes into the net when the power-forward loses its balance, with a slight intense. However, the most confusing part in this poem is: “until the guard finally lunges out and commits to the wrong man”.  One still does not understand what this stanza means… Due to its poem about basketball, this poem cannot be in use at a birthday, or other events except basketball.

From the characteristics in the Learner Profile, I think I have personally shown Inquirers for a couple of weeks in English class.

Inquirers, one of the critical qualities in the IB Learner Profile, means to improve your curiosity by yourself, and show independence in learning. Inquirers also needs to learn new things enjoyably, and the enjoyable learning will help in our lives.

I personally think that recently in English classes, I have shown this characteristic the most from the Learner Profile. For instance, I became more curious at how the author Sandra Cisneros uses a lot of figurative languages such as imagery, simile, metaphor, alliteration, and personification in the book filled with vignettes, “The House on Mango Street”. As a result, I have been conscious of using these techniques from the book into my writing. I am also showing this quality of being an inquirer by showing that learning English is fun! I naturally think that studying English is extremely fun, since our teacher, Mrs. Clifford sometimes assign us some worksheets which is for learning the technique of factors that we need to learn and use in the rest of our lives.

Overall, these things that I did in English classes recently had made me consider that I have shown “Inquirer” the most from the IB Learner Profile.

My collage "Eggs"

I think I did very good the most, was using photos that were realistic to the vision in my head of one of the scenes in the novel, Eggs. Although I used only a few pictures (approximately six pictures) from Creative Commons, but choosing each picture to be as similar as the scene in the story. I also think I did a good job of combing my pictures and the spacing well using Photovisi. I was making sure that I can put the title and the author of the novel (Eggs, Jerry Spinelli) into the top center of the collage. It came out as a good result; it just fitted where I made it blank. Another thing I think I was good at was citing the pictures I used from Creative Commons, using Easybib.

My collage, “Eggs” by Jerry Spinelli, shows mainly one aspect, plot; it shows one of the important scenes in the novel. I chose my topic of the collage mainly about one of the scenes in the novel since it is the most important plot; if this scene wasn’t written in the novel, then the novel would finish about one quarter. But still, there are other aspects shown in the collage; such as character. Using mainly about one aspect, I used a picture of a boy crouching, a girl lying down, an easter egg, a tree, and a picture of the fallen autumn leaves. I think I well explained the aspect in my collage.

If I could do this project again, I will use more pictures and change my topic. I would change it to show different aspects, even genre and setting, since I mainly showed only one aspect (plot).

Before answering the question, the picture above is my wordle of my values (or words that represents me). In this wordle, there are some words that are actually quotes such as “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. OK, now I’ll start answering the origin of my values.

I am in a family which mainly, my mother played Japanese archery before, and became as one of the teachers in the place of Japanese archery that she was in. And she always said to me to be perseverance every time. One of the evidence is that when I was going to play my solo (koto) piece 3 days later, I didn’t persevere to play my piece, so I was really bad at the real koto production. Also, she always said to be healthy; eat a lot, eat less sugars, and play a lot. Besides, she says to be happy. So I think one of my values – Perseverance, Hard Work, Be Healthy, Enjoyment, Smile, Family – comes from my mother.

Three of my values – “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”, “Failure teaches success”,  ”Trial error” – are all proverbs. For example, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” is quoted from a famed inventor, Thomas Alva Edison in sometime around in 1902. The other two proverbs – “Failure teaches success” & “Trial error” – are both came from Japan, which are “失敗は成功の元” & “試行錯誤” in Japanese.

The other values – Teamwork, Progress, Inner Peace, Peace – comes from my school life. I like teamwork, progressing myself, having an inner peace. Overall, these are my reflections and my researches, plus my information about my values.

To start off with, I think the main reason is that language helps us a lot in different situations in our daily life. Such as, when you are communicating with other people, when you are learning something, and when you are expressing your feelings to a person/friend. The first reason that language is powerful is that language is important when you communicate with other people or friends, which I mentioned before. If you hadn’t possessed a language, it would be a challenging thing to communicate with other people since you don’t know how to mention the subject of their conversation. Another supporting point is that language helps when you want to express your feelings. Also, it helps expanding your vocabularies, and being a professional at writing stories + reading stories. In addition, it also helps to solve problems such as fighting, since to stop fighting each other, we need to compromise, which we have to say something. Overall, language is useful and powerful in different situations.