Book 2 and Assignment

This week we started on a writing assignment for the short story unit. At the beginning I did not know which prompt to pick but in the end I ended up choosing the first one. Then it was sort of hard to remember all of the short stories that we read and then pick one that could be used with the prompt. I decided to quickly scan some of the short stories that we read. And I think that I ended up picking one that fit the prompt I chose. What was a little more difficult for me was coming up with a good thesis statement that went with the prompt and the short story I chose. This week we also had to choose another book for our independent reading. For my independent reading I chose to read The Pesthouse by Jim Crace. I ended up choosing this book after going through the list of books we could pick from. I first picked out the books that had titles that sounded interesting to me. Then I looked up a short summery for those books and pick out the ones that were interesting. Finally I looked at how long the books were and chose from one of the shorter ones.

O'Connor and Camus

This week we had to read “The Guest” by Albert Camus. I found this story a bit odd because all Daru wanted was to stay in the building on the hill. He decided to let the prisoner make the decision of going to prison or escaping and he decided to go to prison. This was shocking to me because I did not think that someone would willingly go to prison when they could have escaped. We also read two stories by Flannery O’Connor. The first story was “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and the other story was “Good Country People”. The first story was sad because the whole family was killed. I feel it was kind of the grandmothers fault for taking the cat without telling the others. One thing that I don’t understand is why the man shot the grandmother three times. The second story was a little stranger. I did not understand why the boy pretended to like the girl just so that he could steal her fake leg. What was stranger was that he does the same thing to other girls. This week we also learned about Existentialism. I am still having a hard time understanding it but I think that in time I will get it.

Irony and Drunkard

This week we had to read a section about humor and irony. This section helped to refresh my memory on the three different types of irony. We also had to read a few more short stories. One of them was The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence. I thought that the boy was trying so hard to get his mother’s love but all she cared about was the money. I was sad at the end when the boy died. Another story was Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates. I found this story a little strange at the end. It was strange because of the way that they acted at the end. I thought that the boy was just an older man that liked to trick girls into going with him. The third story was The Drunkard by Frank O’Connor. I found it sad at the beginning because it started off with the death of an old man. But later in the story I found it funny. I thought it was funny when they were going back to their house and the boy got mad at the old ladies. This week we also got our new vocabulary list. This time I will try to study since we have more time.

Views and Elephants

This week we had to read a section about point of view. In this section I learned about a fourth point of view and it is the objective or dramatic point of view. In this point of view the narrator only tells you what the characters see and what they hear. It is not used very often so that is why I think that we don’t really talk about it as much as the other three. We also had to read the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. When I read it for the first time I did not understand what it was talking about at all. Then in class the teacher told us that it was about abortion but I still did not see how the story was about that. But when we were doing some group work over the story, I reread some parts of the story and started to understand how it talked about abortion. I was sort of relived when the teacher told us that we would have vocabulary lists less frequently. I don’t have good study habits so I kept on doing badly on the vocabulary quizzes. Now I will have some more time to study the words and get a better grade on the quizzes.

Lesson and She Went

This week we read How Far She Went by Mary Hood and we also read The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara. When I was reading How Far She Went I got a little sad when I read the part where the grandmother had to kill the dog so that they would not be found. I think that the granddaughter should have thought more about what she was doing when she decided to get involved with the bikers. In The Lesson I think that the way that Miss Moore taught the kids a lesson about life was unique.  I found the things that some of the kids said to be interesting. One of the things that the kids said that was interesting was when they were talking about the sailboat. They talked about how it cost one thousand one hundred ninety-five dollars and then they talked about the sailboats that they had. We also read a section about characterization and a section about theme. I can usually only get the generic theme of the story. I cannot find the deeper meaning in the story, so I have trouble when I am asked to explain the theme. We also got a new vocabulary list that I need to study.

Plot and The Destructors

This week we read the short story The Destructors by Graham Greene. We also had to read a section about plot and structure and then take some notes on it. I am not a very good note taker so I was starting to get a little worried over not getting the important information out of the section. Thankfully we were given a sheet of paper that helped me organize and overall take good notes. In The Destructors I did not really like the gang of boys because they made Old Misery’s house fall. Old Misery did not really do anything bad to the boys for them to have a reason to take down his house. Trevor was the one that came up with the plan to make Old Misery’s house fall so I liked him even less than the boys that followed his orders. Another thing that we did this week was we got our second vocabulary list. Our quiz is next week and since I did not do so well on the first one I think that I should try to actually study the words this time. I am going to study because I want to get a good grade this time. This vocabulary list seems a little harder than the first one so I might need to study the words a little each day.

Second Week

This week in class we talked about the two short stories that we read. The first was The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell and the second was The Child by Tiger by Thomas Wolfe. I thought that the first short story was interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I liked how it used suspense to keep you wanting to read more. I also liked the ending because it implies that Rainsford beat General Zaroff without telling you the exact details of the fight. It is a story that makes you think that if hunting animals for fun is right since to General Zaroff hunting humans was the best kind of sport. I thought that the second short story was a little weird and kind of disturbing.  One part when it was weird was when Dick Prosser was running away from the police and he was shooting the people that he passed by. The disturbing part was when the people caught up to him and filled his body with bullets. After they did that they hung his body up for everyone to see. I did not really enjoy this short story very much. I am nervous about the vocabulary quiz that we have because I am not a very good speller.