Writing

        I am a writer who struggles with coming up with topics. I get writer's block a lot and unless a prompt is very specific I can't come up with a good topic. I wrote about this in my literacy narrative, but it is still true. This is probably my biggest weakness. I just can't get started. I think I have improved on this over the years though and now it isn't that big of a deal.
       I am a writer who describes things well. I have always found that I am very descriptive in my writing. I love to use similes and metaphors to show things. I liked the literacy narrative because description was a major component in our scenes. I always look for ways to make my writing more realistic and real. I think that this is definitely one of my strengths when it comes to writing.    

Reading Response

9/28  45 mins.   9/29   60 mins.   9/30    60 mins.        180 pgs.


        I continued reading The Serpent's Shadow this week and I thought that it had a very clear plot structure. I am literally on the last twenty pages and the story has really taken shape. It started out in the middle of an action scene, but calmed down after that and began the opening by filling in details as you went. It was a little bit like the short story that we read in that the rising action was pretty long, but it was also different because the falling action was full of much more excitement.
        I thought that Rick Riordan had a great structure and it made the story that much better. There was a great climax which really put everything in motion and led to the huge battle scene that was the major part of the falling action. Being a novel, there were many more subplots and other things going on that added another wrinkle to the structure. I am expecting a good resolution because this is the end of a series and Riordan has to tie up all the loose ends of the story. I think that the plot structure definitely worked well in this book.

Reading Response

9/20  60 min      9/23 45 min + 1 hour of lit narrative work      130 pgs.


          I continued The Serpent's Shadow this week and I think that is going well so far. I have nearly reached the climactic doomsday battle and I'm sure that that's to be exciting. This week though I have basically been convinced that Sadie and Carter will never win. They are up against impossible odds and  they have so little time I'm surprised that there are still one hundred pages left. I mean how do you fit two days into that huge space. I am excited to see how the ending goes.
          I noticed this week in my writing that Rick Riordan has a great writing style that is a lot different from many other authors. I guess every author has their own unique voice, but to me his stands out. I think it's because he tells the story from two different gender perspectives. He switches back and forth so smoothly that I can always tell who is saying something. I find this really cool about this series of books and it makes the story that much more interesting.

Free Post

         Oh man it's late. So this week we are doing literacy narratives and I am finding that I like the process by which we are creating them. I liked our peer groups because they really helped to like break the ice with our first drafts. I know that helped me a lot because I normally don't read my paper out loud and it helped me to catch a lot of clarity mistakes or just places where you go, "What in the world was I trying to say there. I think that peer groups today will also help quite a bit to get the bugs worked out of our second draft.
         While peer groups are great and all my favorite part of the process was what we did today in class by having to edit our own papers. I thought this was pretty cool because I've never done personal editing like that before. It also showed me that there is more to editing than your standard conventions. You are actually making it better even when you edit by fixing all those repeated words and other things that we highlighted on our drafts today. Overall I think that this is a strong way to create a paper.

Reading Response

9/11 45 mins   9/14  60 mins   9/16  75 mins         14o pgs of reading + time on lit narrative stuff

         I continued and finished the book Hero this week. It had a great ending that culminated in Zach, the main character, ended up just saving the future president. As his powers grew he go better and better at using them. I think that it is very surprising when he stops believing his Uncle John because throughout the story it appeared that they were very close. This was one of the odd things that happened and another was finding out that Mr. Hebert was Zach's grandfather. This was a huge surprise to me because Mr. Herbert basically switched roles at the end of the story. I thought this book had a great ending.
         I also started a new book this week. It's called The Serpent's Shadow, and it is written by one of my favorite authors, Rick Riordan. I loved the Percy Jackson series and have loved his new series' as well. This one is the third book of the Kane Chronicles and is based around ancient egyptian gods instead of Greek ones like percy jackson. Sadie and Carter, sibling main characters, tell the story through a recording and it is kind of interesting in that sense because you get the story from different points of view. I like the story too. They have been fighting Apophis, god of chaos, throughout this one. They have introduced a type of magic that hasn't been used in 100 years and I have a feeling that it's about to get good.


I had some technical difficulties last night as our internet wasn't working so I had to do it this morning at school. I hope that's okay.  

Literacy Narrative

       Here we go again. A giant writing assignment, my least favorite thing in the history of the world by the way, has been plopped onto my plate. I am not a fan of large writing assignments. I like writing in general because you get to express your thoughts, but when there are 140 points tagging along I tend to get majorly stressed. I can first off never think of an idea for such open-ended topics as this one. I'm sure some people could pound out ten of these things just for fun, but not me. I am such a perfectionist when it comes to these things (really anything) that I can't just write. I hang up on every little detail and it turns into lots of long nights and frustration.
       After giving you that bit of information I'd like to talk about this assignment in particular. I know that I'm going to talk about reading, because I love it. The only issue is that I don't remember any specific book, teacher, or any special moment that made me love it. I just do. I hope to brainstorm a few ideas today and maybe start if I can think of anything. I know that this assignment will be a challenge and I hope that I can have a strong base idea to grow my thoughts off of. I don't know what to write about yet and I hope I do soon.

Comment Response

     Many of my blogs have not been commented on by classmates so I guess I will answer one of Dr. D's Comments on here. In my hunting and guns defense I needed to give more details and now I will. When you grow up around guns and hunting it is obviously easier to pick up on some procedures and rules than if you are trying it for the first time, but if you are given the correct instruction you can make it safe. One of the basic and more general rules is to use common sense; don't shoot something when people are near where you're aiming, don't aim at people. They are basically straight forward rules.
     Some not so obvious rules might be to never have your gun loaded until you get to your stand or blind(places where you sit and wait for animals). Or to not carry your weapon up the ladder with you when getting into your stand. You should tie it to a rope and bring it up separately. Another is to follow all of the actual laws like not shooting when it's dark or shoot out of a vehicle. You should always, always have your gun on safety until right before you are ready to shoot. These are some of the basic rules that make hunting not as dangerous as some might think. If you take the proper steps hunting is an exhilarating, fun, and enjoyable pastime.   

Reading Response

    9/5 45 mins    9/8 60 mins   9/9 60 mins   9/10  20 mins     232 pgs.    185 mins

         This week I started a new book called Hero. I have had my eye on this one since I saw it one day at the store and have now finally gotten around to it. It has taken a little while to set up so far, but has still been interesting. It is by Mike Lupica, who has written many sports based novels and is actually also a sports writer for ESPN. I love sports so naturally I like to read his books because they are from someone who knows the ends and outs of the sports he is writing about. This one was a little bit different. This novel is actually about a boy who turns into a super hero after his dad, who was the super hero before, dies in a plane crash.

         I really like this story because it mixes sports, everyday life, and super powers all into one great story. Zach is has a mysterious father who is a special advisor to the president and is always going on secret business trips. His dad never tells Zach's family about his work and in Zach's eyes he is like this awe-inspiring figure. He is good at whatever he does and Zach is devastated when he dies in a plane crash. Mike Lupica does a great job describing the tumultuous times that eventually lead to Zach getting  his powers. Another thing that I find connects to the real world is Zach's best friend Kate. She is always there for him and she puts another strong character and personality into this story that makes it that much better. I am excited to see how Zach's powers develop over the rest of the book and to see what ends up happening.         

Sting Pong

       I had a great time over the hurricane "holiday". On Tuesday the guys who live in Bocage with myself decided that we should all hang out because there wasn't really a hurricane happening just yet. We decided to go to Bennett McNamara's house to play sting pong and it was tons of fun. When we first got there Mrs. Susan, Bennett's mom, said, " Guys, I made some cookies if you want some." and we all raced to the kitchen. They were gone in under 3 minutes (and there were a lot of cookies). after everyone else arrived we started playing a game called sting pong, which is basically where whoever loses stands with their back facing the rest of the players and gets pelted with ping pong balls. Sam was dominating and everyone else, including me, had already received their first welts.

       Then that fateful game started. We began racing around the table and Sam got two of his three strikes early in the game. It ended up that everyone else got two strikes before we finally got Sam. William delivered a crushing forehand and Sam couldn't get there in time. It was great because it was the first time that Sam had ever lost. The rest of us were jumping up and down and screaming (yes, it was that big of a deal). He took off his shirt and stood at the end of the table and he was freaking out. He was anticipating it so much that we decided we would make him wait and he turned around and said, "Do it, get it over with." He was spared on the first hit as it sailed to the right of him, but he wasn't so lucky the second time when he got smoked in the shoulder blade. Another hit right in the middle of his back finally got him and he finally knew what it was like for the rest of us.

Reading Response

8/30  90 min   9/3  150 min    240 mins   316 pgs.

            I continued reading the Cherub series over the hurricane and this one was another page turner called The Killing. The author, Robert Muchamore, always makes a book exciting to read by not having too much down time in the plot. I always love to read his books. This mission started out as a small one for James and the rest of the Cherub crew, but eventually developed into much more than the simple intelligence mission that it started out as. James and his partner Dave discover that the criminal that they're investigating is involved in a six digit robbery and that one of the local cops killed an eighteen year old boy. The plot develops for a while in the beginning and then quickly escalades into a sting operation that is both dangerous and very exciting for the reader.

            Another thing that I really liked about this book, and all the Cherub books for that matter, was that the author sets his books in Europe and I think it is sometimes particularly amusing how even in dialogue you can tell that someone is speaking in a British accent. Some of the expressions that the characters use I just find funny. This story had more to it than just the mission itself. James becomes an outcast at the cherub campus near the beginning of the story and that added another level to this book that some of the others have lacked. It made the mission interesting because James basically used this mission as time to forget about that. I thought that it made the story line that much better than some of the other installments. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.