Treasure Island: is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold". First published as a book on 23 May.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: is a 2006 novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. This book follows a 9-year-old boy named Bruno growing up during World War II in Berlin, Germany.
If I Stay: If I Stay is a young adult novel by Gayle Forman published in 2009. The story follows 17-year-old Mia Hall as she deals with the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident involving her family. In a coma, Mia has an out-of-body experience, and watches as friends and family gather at the hospital where she is being treated.
Paper Towns: is the third young adult novel by John Green, published on October 16, 2008 by Dutton Books. The novel begins in a subdivision called Jefferson Park. The narrator, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, and his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman, both young children, go to the park and discover the corpse of Robert Joyner, a divorced man who has committed suicide.
My Abandonment: A thirteen-year-old girl and her father live in Forest Park, the enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. There they inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, bathe in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water’s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Books
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Spelling Bee
Monday, February 23, 2015
Quiz
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2015
Haiku Quiz
1. How many lines comprise (make up) a haiku poem and how many syllables are in each line? (10 pts)
first line has 5 second line has 7 and last one has 5
2. What culture does haiku originate from? (5 pts)
Japan.
3. Choose the best word from the list below to complete the following haiku poems: (15 pts each for correct syllables and good description)
a. Sweet scented floating
Confetti gentle from heaven
With a rose breeze
Word list: rose, sent, floating, gentle, happily, blossom, nice, smells, outstanding
b. Spring buzz winter’s tide
Nature comes quickly alive
Bees, fast hope for brides
Word list: buzz, changes, fast, so, turns, quickly, buzzing, transforming, nature
4. Write 2 haiku poems about spring. (25 points each) Use at least four of the following words in each (use 8 different words altogether in the two poems): season, bright, sunshine, daffodil, tulip, cool, puddle, umbrella, happily, skip, cloudy, lighthearted, shady, flower buds, green, fields
wake up
Season is coming
The bright sunshine is on face
It's all green outside
Rain
In a cool morning
I run happily on fields
The flower says hi
5. Name one element that makes a haiku effective or fun to read. (5 pts)
In my opinion, a store makes a haiku fun to read, because it is more fun to tell a story by haiku than normal way.Friday, February 20, 2015
Lonely
Handsome and clever
Always full of energy
He is John Jiang the manWednesday, February 18, 2015
Peaceful Pearls
In the cover image of Gathering of Pearls, the main character Sookan is wearing a black suit, and she is gathering pearls that have fallen on the floor. Her hair looks a little untidy, and she is sitting on the wood floor. When I look at this picture, I can feel very strong emotions such as sadness, hopeless, desire. She went to America alone and had lots of experiences, and those situations make her emotions getting stronger. For example, she had both good and bad encounters with her American friends, and her mother died at the end of the book. Emotions are one of the most important parts of everyone's life. Sookan's life is changed by the emotions inside of her like the pearls on the floor around her. Every pearl represents a kind of emotion, and some emotions are complicated such as sadness and happiness, eagerness and hopelessness; Sookan must figure out how to balance her conflicting emotions to do what is right for herself in her future.
Emotions have changed Sookan's life a lot. The first emotion is eagerness, when she wants to come to America. Her family members do not want her to go to America, because they think that she is too young to come. When she comes to America, I can feel her fear: “I knew no one in America, and my command of English was poor ” (Choi 1). From this situation, we can see that she is worrying about her situation like a little helpless girl, so she decides that she will become a stronger person, and she will try to adapt to American culture. As a lonely college girl, she learns how to be a more independent person by facing her fear.
She also works very hard on her studying : "She suggested music appreciation and a studio art class. But I signed up for world literature, world religious, Greek and Roman culture, and early European history " (Choi 18). As we can see,she gets so many extremely difficult classes, because she wants to go up to a better level of her American education life. She over works, when she comes back toher dorm: " At the end of the hall was the showe room, the only room in the building where the lights were kept on all night. There, at the end of the long row of showers, were five sparkling clean bathtubs. I headed to the tub in the corner and spread out my blanket, placed my pillow at the back, and laid my books on the floor" (Choi 73). From this information, we can see she starts to learn and work extremely hard, and she is trying to not just survival and thrive. Thus, Sookan learns how to be more independent from those experiences and she is also achieving her goals.
In addition, emotions influence Sookan's feeling and decisions. For example,when she is angry with Ellen, she says bad words to her and she leaves Ellen alone, because she doesn't know what she should do: " I had lost my temper and I had hurt Ellen. I didn't go back downstairs until I was sure Ellen would be asleep, and the next morning I tiptoed out of the room before she woke up" (Choi 118). From this sentence we can know, she sometimes makes bad decisions because of her feeling. Another example is when Father Lee comes and tells her mother's death: " I didn't speak, and suddenly, I didn't even have the energy to cry. I just sat, thankful he was there and wishing he would never stop talking. I think he knew, for he continued" (Choi 150). This paragraph is about her reaction when she hears the bad news; she doesn't even have a power to cry, because her heart fills with sadness and hopeless. On the other hand, emotions also bring her some good feelings. For instance she says about Sister Reed, " I would always remember her, and I hoped that we someday, I would be able to make a young girl feel as proud and happy as she made me" (Choi 94). As we can see, when they have a little party, Sookan is full with happiness and passion. I can feel how happy she is, and I am sure that she is too happy to speak it out. Thus, emotion is such a important thing in her life, and they can make her to feel better or worse sometimes, so she has to learn how to control emotions to make the best decisions.
Sometimes Sookan needs to balance her emotions to keep calm. In this book, we can always see complicated emotions, for example "Flustered, I faltered, then hurriedly responded,'Yes, well, I had a good time, too. Good night.' I pulled my hand from his, and ran inside" (Choi 126). From what she says, we can see that she has a really happy and exciting emotion; however when her friends tell her that she drank alcohol, she has a much different reaction. " 'You mean I went out on a date and drank alcohol? That sounds so wild!' I said.'Actually, though, there was nothing wild about it. But if my sister ever found out, she would really think I was losing my values' " (Choi 127). I can feel a strong guilt and remorse; as we can see, she has conflicting emotions on the same thing. In my opinion, she is afraid of her sister, so she had those conflicting emotions; however, her mother teaches her how to balance them: "If you ever feel hurt or tired or empty, I hope that you will remember what I have always told you about taking that suffering, and creating a pearl around the pain. Don't let the hurt poison you" (Choi 145). This is what her mother tells her to balance the emotion just like what she is doing in the cover image. In the image, she is gathering pearls which are conflictive emotions, and this is how she balances them. Thus, Sookan finally understands her mother's words, and she balances all emotions successfully.
In the end of the novel, she finally becomes alone in America without any family members, and her mother dies. For most people like her age, they cannot take this pain; however, Sookan takes it by herself. I believe that she will find out what her mother wants she to find out what kind of person she wants to be, and she will have a brighter future with all her friends and her mother's wishes. "Tough times are the times when one gathers one's pearls," (Choi 163), just like Sookan works hard to build a peaceful life like a pearl.
Citation:
Monday, February 16, 2015
First draft
In the cover image of gathering pearls, Sookan is wearing a black suit, and she is gathering pearls. Her hair looks a little untidy, and she is sitting on the wood floor. I can feel very strong emotions such as sadness, hopeless, desire. She went to America alone and lots of things happened to her, and those things make her emotions getting stronger. For examples, her mother died at the end of the book; she had both good and bad experience with her American friends. Emotions are one of the most important part of everyone's life. Sookan's life is changed by the emotions inside of her like the pearls on the floor around her. The pearls represent her conflicting emotions which she must figure out in order to do what is right for herself in her future.
Emotions have changed her life a lot. The first emotion is eagerness, when she wants to come to America. I remember that her family members do not want her to go to America, because they think that she is too young to come. When she comes to America, I can feel her fearness. “I knew no one in America, and my command of English was poor”(Choi 1). From this sentence, we can see that she was worring her situation like a little helpless girl, so she decide that she will become a stronger person, and she will get in to American culture. As we all know, she starts to learn and work very and extremely hard, and taht is way she becomes to a person who is totally get into the new culture, and she is working pretty well on her classes. Thus, emotions can change our life so much.
Emotions also influence her feeling and decisions. For example, when she was angry with Ellen, she said bad things to her and she leave Ellen alone, because she doesn't know what she should do. Then when she hears about her mother's death, she even don't have a power to cry, because her heart fills with sadness and hopeless. On the other hand, emotions also bring us some good feelings. For instance, when they have a little with her, she is full with happiness and passion. I can feel how happy she is, and I am sure that she is too happy to speak it out. As we can see, emotion is such a important thing in our life, and they can make us to feel better, and making a right decision.