For this nine weeks, I would like to read Mockingjay, Pride and Prejudice, and Burned.
Mockingjay is a the third book in a series of books that I have read before. I really enjoyed the first two books and I have heard that Mockingjay is the best in this series. I would like to find out for myself.
Pride and Prejudice is another book that I have heard good reviews on. Lauren Cambias and Natasha Bray both recommended this book to me. I do not exactly know what the book is exactly about but if these two book lovers say its good, I have to read it.
Burned is another book in a series that I started but have yet to finish. All of the first books in this series have been amazing and have kept me on the edge of my seat wanting more. Burned has also gotten good reviews from many of my classmates.
All of these books are available to me in my english class or friends houses, so I am really excited to start digging into these books for this nine weeks.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Reading Reflection
During the first nine weeks of school, my life has been too crazy to just sit down and read and be able to enjoy what I read. "Your junior year is the hardest year you will have in high school" is a quote that I have heard many times from many different people. When I first heard that, I did not believe that eleventh grade could be so hard. Now I understand.
Throughout all of my school years, I have never been stressed over my grades and my work in school. Starting my first week of school, I was already loaded down with homework and that is how I have spent all of my afternoons since then, doing homework. By the time I am finished with my load of homework, I have no energy to read. Along with homework, there is also extra curricular. Prancers, mma, church, and family events are all factors that take up my time. Because of all that I have going on in my life, I never have the time or energy to read. I love reading and I hope that further into this school year I will be able to read more but first I will have to find a way to keep up with my homework assignments and finish up faster in order to make time.
There are a few instances, though, that I am able to make time to read. Riding in the car with my mom around town, on the bus going to ball games, and while riding in the car taking weekend trips out of town. When I am actually able to read, I got into the habit of trying to analyze what I read. Long, difficult books are the type of books that I enjoy reading. Nineteen Minutes was a book that I read over the first nine weeks that I absolutely loved! Though I have started thinking more deeply about what I read, I still do not particularly enjoy writing down my thoughts on the book. The only time I think to "ink what I think" is when I know that I will have to write about that book and writing down my thoughts is useful then. Other than that, I do not see any need to write about the book.
Hopefully, this school year will slow down some and I will be able to read more often and finish more books. I have heard good reviews on Mockingjay and Pride and Prejudice so I am wanting to get those books in by the end of the semester.
Throughout all of my school years, I have never been stressed over my grades and my work in school. Starting my first week of school, I was already loaded down with homework and that is how I have spent all of my afternoons since then, doing homework. By the time I am finished with my load of homework, I have no energy to read. Along with homework, there is also extra curricular. Prancers, mma, church, and family events are all factors that take up my time. Because of all that I have going on in my life, I never have the time or energy to read. I love reading and I hope that further into this school year I will be able to read more but first I will have to find a way to keep up with my homework assignments and finish up faster in order to make time.
There are a few instances, though, that I am able to make time to read. Riding in the car with my mom around town, on the bus going to ball games, and while riding in the car taking weekend trips out of town. When I am actually able to read, I got into the habit of trying to analyze what I read. Long, difficult books are the type of books that I enjoy reading. Nineteen Minutes was a book that I read over the first nine weeks that I absolutely loved! Though I have started thinking more deeply about what I read, I still do not particularly enjoy writing down my thoughts on the book. The only time I think to "ink what I think" is when I know that I will have to write about that book and writing down my thoughts is useful then. Other than that, I do not see any need to write about the book.
Hopefully, this school year will slow down some and I will be able to read more often and finish more books. I have heard good reviews on Mockingjay and Pride and Prejudice so I am wanting to get those books in by the end of the semester.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Socratic Seminar Reflection
The Socratic Seminars that my class participated in gave interesting and deeply discussed thoughts that expanded my understanding on points that were made by Aldous Huxley in his book Brave New World about how technology can have major effects on society. I found these discussions to be very enjoyable and challenging.
When preparing for the seminars, we were told to prepare for dialogue, not debate. The most interesting seminar was done on the first day that we began, Friday, October 8, 2010. This discussion turned into a debate between Natasha, Nelson, Sean, and Sadie about the expression of individuality in Brave New World's futuristic society and if our society will become so advanced in technology and mass production that a persons individuality will become unheard of. Natasha stated that technology, using mass production, will cause us to lose our individuality because everything made by mass production is basically the same. Nelson disagreed with her in pointing out that even though products are made the same and look the same, people can personalize those products to express their individuality. Ipods were the examples that both arguments used to make their points. Natasha said that Ipods are made the same way and look the same and have the same uses. Nelson countered her statement in saying that even though Ipods are made the same way, look the same, and have the same uses, different songs, games, and applications can be downloaded onto them keeping all Ipods from being exactly alike and taking individuality away from the society.
My class is always in a debate about something, so trying to make the Socratic Seminars dialogue was difficult. When debating, the arguments become intense and hardly anyone considers the other side of the argument. Dialogue is more challenging because all points and perspectives are supposed to be considered with an open mind. Speaking in front of my peers was also a challenge. I have always been a quiet person so I was extremely nervous about having to speak for a certain amount of time in front of a crowd while also being evaluated on my presentation. The last challenging aspect of the seminars was the research. When looking through Brave New World to get specific examples from the book to support our points, we not only had to reread many paragraphs of the book, but also had to "think outside of the box" to apply the society in Huxley's book to our society.
These Socratic Seminars were very beneficial to the class with the challenges that they held. I feel like I learned better discussing with the class rather that doing paper work on Brave New World and I would definitely love to practice this type of learning more in the future.
When preparing for the seminars, we were told to prepare for dialogue, not debate. The most interesting seminar was done on the first day that we began, Friday, October 8, 2010. This discussion turned into a debate between Natasha, Nelson, Sean, and Sadie about the expression of individuality in Brave New World's futuristic society and if our society will become so advanced in technology and mass production that a persons individuality will become unheard of. Natasha stated that technology, using mass production, will cause us to lose our individuality because everything made by mass production is basically the same. Nelson disagreed with her in pointing out that even though products are made the same and look the same, people can personalize those products to express their individuality. Ipods were the examples that both arguments used to make their points. Natasha said that Ipods are made the same way and look the same and have the same uses. Nelson countered her statement in saying that even though Ipods are made the same way, look the same, and have the same uses, different songs, games, and applications can be downloaded onto them keeping all Ipods from being exactly alike and taking individuality away from the society.
My class is always in a debate about something, so trying to make the Socratic Seminars dialogue was difficult. When debating, the arguments become intense and hardly anyone considers the other side of the argument. Dialogue is more challenging because all points and perspectives are supposed to be considered with an open mind. Speaking in front of my peers was also a challenge. I have always been a quiet person so I was extremely nervous about having to speak for a certain amount of time in front of a crowd while also being evaluated on my presentation. The last challenging aspect of the seminars was the research. When looking through Brave New World to get specific examples from the book to support our points, we not only had to reread many paragraphs of the book, but also had to "think outside of the box" to apply the society in Huxley's book to our society.
These Socratic Seminars were very beneficial to the class with the challenges that they held. I feel like I learned better discussing with the class rather that doing paper work on Brave New World and I would definitely love to practice this type of learning more in the future.
Annotated Reading List
FIRST 9 WEEKS
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes: a Novel. New York: Atria, 2007. Print.
There are bullies everywhere. At school, on sports teams, and even at home. Some people are able to handle being bullied or change themselves to fit in with the "popular" crowd, but others, like Peter Houghton, act against the bullies and cause a tragic catastrophe. Nineteen Minutes tells an interestingly detailed story of how the town of Sterling deals with their tragedy and how bad the bulling had to be to push Peter off the edge.
Peter had been a target for bullies since beginning school. He was targeted because he was small and helpless against his classmates. The bullying started with Peter's lunch box being thrown out the windows of the bus on his way to school to being pushed down in the hallways and being publicly embarrassed all throughout high school until the end of his Junior year when he decided to take action.
March 6, 2007 started out like any other school day. The students going to class and lunch and hanging out in the halls, teachers going through their lessons with their classes, and parents going to work without any worry about their children's safety in school. No body in Sterling expected Peter Houghton to go to school that day with several guns and shoot out the school, which is exactly what he did.
Peter's outburst caused ten deaths and many more injured and he is being held on trial for many accounts of first degree murder throughout most of the book. His trial and actions brought media and attention from everywhere. Sterling went from being unknown to very well known, from a small town where nothing bad ever happens to a town of violence. Peter went from being a kid that had been bullied all of his life to being a person that people were terrified of, from being someone that was nice to everyone and tolerated the bullies to being the bully himself. The entire town of Sterling stood together against Peter and willed him a life in prison, but does that happen?
Nineteen Minutes is an amazing book that I highly recommend to all readers that are interested in a complex book that is more than just a fiction "candy" read but also gives thought to reality and the fact that there are bullied people in this world and it is just a matter of time until they snap like Peter did. (455)
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern
Classics, 2006. Print.
Is there really such a thing as a Utopian society? Aldous Huxley tried to create one in his book Brave New World. This society is evolved around comfort and stability, but there are outsiders who do not think of this society as being perfect.
John the Savage is brought into this society by Bernard Marx from a reservation that he had grown up on all of his life with the other Indians and Savages. On his reservation, the society was very different from Bernard's. For example, death and pain, and family and emotions are unheard of in Brave New World's society but on the reservation, the society is much like our society with death and pain, and family and emotions. John does not know how to deal with the new accustoms that the people of the "Utopia" have lived with all of their lives and the people do not know how to deal with him and his outbursts from his old world.
By bringing John into Bernard's society, I realized that a having a Utopian society is not possible because along with John, there were others that did not belong and started having feelings like Johns. (259)
Meyer, Stephenie. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella.
New York: Little, Brown and, 2010. Print.
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is based on the Twilight saga. In eclipse, a vampire army is being made by the enemies of the Cullen family to try to kill them. Bree was just an ordinary teenage girl, at one time. Now she can barely remember anything from her first life, before she met Riley and he changed her. As a vampire she has superhuman reflexes, unstoppable physical strength, and powerful senses. Bree, along with the other newborns that Riley created for his army, have no idea why they were chosen to be changed or why. All they know is that they are not the only vampires in the area, they cannot go into the sunlight, they have to have blood, and Riley is their leader. When Riley tells them that their enemy (the Cullens) are going to try to take all of their blood, they train to go into battle. What they don't know is that they have been lied to their entire lives. Riley is actually under the power of Victoria who is wanting revenge on the Cullens for killing her partner in Twilight. This book was not nearly as good as the other Stephenie Meyer books but helped me to understand how the young army thought while going into battle and their reasonings for getting involved in the fight at all. (178)
PÉREZ-PEÑA, Richard, and Marc Santora. "The New York Times." The
New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 13 Feb. 2005.
Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/nyregion/13aids.html.
Lemonick, Michael D., David Bjerklie, Alice Park/New York, and Dick
Thompson/Washington. "Designer Babies - TIME." Breaking News,
Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video,
Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 11 Jan. 1999. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html.
Sharon BegleyFebruary. "Human Clones: One Step Closer - Newsweek."
Newsweek - National News, World News, Business, Health, Technology,
Entertainment, and More - Newsweek. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/lab-notes/2009/02/03/humanclones-one-step-closer.html
Sherover, Max. "Learn While You Sleep - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs,
News, Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 2 Feb. 1948. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855919,00.html.
Southall, Ashley. "The New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World New &
Multimedia. 4 May 2010. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/us/05 marijuana.html.
Dad, Frugal. "Three Keys to Finding True Happiness." Frugal Dad A
Frugal Perspective on Money, Career and Family. 12 May 2008. Web. 14
Oct. 2010.
Syque. "Purpose of Emotions." Changing Minds and Persuasion -
- How We Change What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Do. Web. 10
Oct. 2010.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/emotion_purpose.htm.
"FDA Approves SOMA(R) (carisoprodol) 250 Mg." Medical News Today:
Health News. 18 Sept.
2007. Web. 13 Oct. 2010
Gerson, Michael. "The Eugenics Temptation." The Washington Post
[Washington D.C.] 24
Oct. 2007. Web. 9 Oct. 2010
In my English class, we were required to look up five articles and explain how they relate to the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. After I turned in that assignment I decided that I wanted to look further into how much alike our society already is to Brave New World's. In these articles, our society is changing something, like legalizing drugs, cloning, finding new technology, looking for ways to make people happier... All of these are connected to Brave New World because BNW's society and our society both were very technilogically advanced and changing people's thinking by making things the way they are (clones, drugs, happiness). While reading these articles, the thought "How much longer until our society is like Brave New World's?" kept going through my mind. I honestly do not think that our society will become that corrupt but I do think that we will get very close.
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes: a Novel. New York: Atria, 2007. Print.
There are bullies everywhere. At school, on sports teams, and even at home. Some people are able to handle being bullied or change themselves to fit in with the "popular" crowd, but others, like Peter Houghton, act against the bullies and cause a tragic catastrophe. Nineteen Minutes tells an interestingly detailed story of how the town of Sterling deals with their tragedy and how bad the bulling had to be to push Peter off the edge.
Peter had been a target for bullies since beginning school. He was targeted because he was small and helpless against his classmates. The bullying started with Peter's lunch box being thrown out the windows of the bus on his way to school to being pushed down in the hallways and being publicly embarrassed all throughout high school until the end of his Junior year when he decided to take action.
March 6, 2007 started out like any other school day. The students going to class and lunch and hanging out in the halls, teachers going through their lessons with their classes, and parents going to work without any worry about their children's safety in school. No body in Sterling expected Peter Houghton to go to school that day with several guns and shoot out the school, which is exactly what he did.
Peter's outburst caused ten deaths and many more injured and he is being held on trial for many accounts of first degree murder throughout most of the book. His trial and actions brought media and attention from everywhere. Sterling went from being unknown to very well known, from a small town where nothing bad ever happens to a town of violence. Peter went from being a kid that had been bullied all of his life to being a person that people were terrified of, from being someone that was nice to everyone and tolerated the bullies to being the bully himself. The entire town of Sterling stood together against Peter and willed him a life in prison, but does that happen?
Nineteen Minutes is an amazing book that I highly recommend to all readers that are interested in a complex book that is more than just a fiction "candy" read but also gives thought to reality and the fact that there are bullied people in this world and it is just a matter of time until they snap like Peter did. (455)
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern
Classics, 2006. Print.
Is there really such a thing as a Utopian society? Aldous Huxley tried to create one in his book Brave New World. This society is evolved around comfort and stability, but there are outsiders who do not think of this society as being perfect.
John the Savage is brought into this society by Bernard Marx from a reservation that he had grown up on all of his life with the other Indians and Savages. On his reservation, the society was very different from Bernard's. For example, death and pain, and family and emotions are unheard of in Brave New World's society but on the reservation, the society is much like our society with death and pain, and family and emotions. John does not know how to deal with the new accustoms that the people of the "Utopia" have lived with all of their lives and the people do not know how to deal with him and his outbursts from his old world.
By bringing John into Bernard's society, I realized that a having a Utopian society is not possible because along with John, there were others that did not belong and started having feelings like Johns. (259)
Meyer, Stephenie. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella.
New York: Little, Brown and, 2010. Print.
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is based on the Twilight saga. In eclipse, a vampire army is being made by the enemies of the Cullen family to try to kill them. Bree was just an ordinary teenage girl, at one time. Now she can barely remember anything from her first life, before she met Riley and he changed her. As a vampire she has superhuman reflexes, unstoppable physical strength, and powerful senses. Bree, along with the other newborns that Riley created for his army, have no idea why they were chosen to be changed or why. All they know is that they are not the only vampires in the area, they cannot go into the sunlight, they have to have blood, and Riley is their leader. When Riley tells them that their enemy (the Cullens) are going to try to take all of their blood, they train to go into battle. What they don't know is that they have been lied to their entire lives. Riley is actually under the power of Victoria who is wanting revenge on the Cullens for killing her partner in Twilight. This book was not nearly as good as the other Stephenie Meyer books but helped me to understand how the young army thought while going into battle and their reasonings for getting involved in the fight at all. (178)
PÉREZ-PEÑA, Richard, and Marc Santora. "The New York Times." The
New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 13 Feb. 2005.
Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/nyregion/13aids.html.
Lemonick, Michael D., David Bjerklie, Alice Park/New York, and Dick
Thompson/Washington. "Designer Babies - TIME." Breaking News,
Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video,
Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 11 Jan. 1999. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html.
Sharon BegleyFebruary. "Human Clones: One Step Closer - Newsweek."
Newsweek - National News, World News, Business, Health, Technology,
Entertainment, and More - Newsweek. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/lab-notes/2009/02/03/humanclones-one-step-closer.html
Sherover, Max. "Learn While You Sleep - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs,
News, Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 2 Feb. 1948. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855919,00.html.
Southall, Ashley. "The New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World New &
Multimedia. 4 May 2010. Web. 09 Oct. 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/us/05 marijuana.html.
Dad, Frugal. "Three Keys to Finding True Happiness." Frugal Dad A
Frugal Perspective on Money, Career and Family. 12 May 2008. Web. 14
Oct. 2010.
Syque. "Purpose of Emotions." Changing Minds and Persuasion -
- How We Change What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Do. Web. 10
Oct. 2010.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/emotion_purpose.htm.
"FDA Approves SOMA(R) (carisoprodol) 250 Mg." Medical News Today:
Health News. 18 Sept.
2007. Web. 13 Oct. 2010
Gerson, Michael. "The Eugenics Temptation." The Washington Post
[Washington D.C.] 24
Oct. 2007. Web. 9 Oct. 2010
In my English class, we were required to look up five articles and explain how they relate to the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. After I turned in that assignment I decided that I wanted to look further into how much alike our society already is to Brave New World's. In these articles, our society is changing something, like legalizing drugs, cloning, finding new technology, looking for ways to make people happier... All of these are connected to Brave New World because BNW's society and our society both were very technilogically advanced and changing people's thinking by making things the way they are (clones, drugs, happiness). While reading these articles, the thought "How much longer until our society is like Brave New World's?" kept going through my mind. I honestly do not think that our society will become that corrupt but I do think that we will get very close.
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