This week in class, we started reading and discussing Lord of the Flies, by William Golding!
Lord of the Flies!
We have started reading this story and we have been discussing what has happened so far in the story. Golding is a very good writer, so far he has descirbed everything with deep thinking. He takes writing to another level by showing us pictures and giving us descriptions of what the characters look like and feel. Golding has described Ralph as a white boy with dark hair that is very well-built and handsome. He is very leader-like and is prepared and thinks ahead of what he has to do or will do. He is very mature and takes things seriously and is probably in the middle/upper class. Golding also describes Piggy as a chubby boy and more of a closed person where he communicates but is shy at times. He does not like to be called "Piggy" because that is what they used to call him at his school. When Ralph introduces piggy to everyone, Piggy felt ignominy because he told Ralph he didn't want to be called Piggy! Jack is very thin and bony. He wants to be leader, but Ralph is more mature and leader-like than Jack. Jack is more bossy and likes to tell people what to do. He has freckles and blue eyes. He is very sociable and likes to do adventurous things! Simon is a very small boy, I assume that because Ralph and Jack say that Simon walks in the middle of them and they can talk over his head. Simon is very sociable and likes to do the hard/working/difficult things.All these characters are unique from one another because they all have their own characteristics and beliefs. At first when Ralph and Jack meet they do not really like each other, but then slowly the startbanteringwith each other and becoming more like friends because in order to survive on the island they have to work together like a team!
The boys have all been evacuated by a plane because the plane was going to crash. One of the boys said that he saw part of the plane with fire.Now they are in a deserted island with no one else on it ..only boys who aren't very mature enough to know what to do. Now the boys have to learn how to work together to find food, shelter, and learn how to stay safe.
http://www.rapturedays.com/apps/forums/topics/show/4551063-thai-navy-rescues-tourists-stranded-on-islands- In this current event, there were big, heavy rains in Southern Thailand that left stranded many tourists on islands in the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand. The Thai navy rescued up to 730 travelers and took them aboard on the Royal Thai Navy's sole aircraft carrier, where they had to spend the night camping on mats. The flood affected 840,000 people in eight southern provinces and inundated 61 highways ! This current event related back to Ralph and the boys that were stranded on the island all by themselves without adults, food, or shelter. The boys can't go anywhere because water surrounds them on all sides! They will soon understand that they will have to work together or else they will die of starvation or shelter!
This week in class, we have been talking about "To Kill A Mockingbird", by Harper Lee, and the themes it shows. The themes are race relations, childhood innocence, and rural poverty. For my essay, I will be writing about Race Relations and how people acted and lived during those times of which there was a lot of racism. This week we worked on our essays and learned how to plan them. We worked on our hook sentences, introduction paragraphs, our story background, and our thesis statement. We also traded our essays with our partners to get feedback in how to make our essays better. At the beginning of my hook paragraph, I added many extraneous things that I didn't need in my hook sentence. Then I refreshed it and made it much more clearer for it to be understood. This week, Mr.Keating also taught us about the sentence cohesion, that clarifies our paragraphs and sentences and makes them better. He used the staircase as his metaphor to go step-by-step and making your paragraphs more clearer. My theme, Race Relations, connects to the racism and the immigration services of Arizona. We Mexicans are always thought of : "We are never going to go to college!","We don't have money for anything!", "We don't have good jobs!" "We all cross the border for a better life!" People are always abetting other people to think of Mexicans, blacks, etc.. as bad people or not as equal as everyone else. All of these stereotypes add up and they are just like how people in Maycomb County felt about the black people. They always thought ,"Yeah, they are the ones, they are not equal and no one likes them, so we should punish them for things they didn't do, because no one will believe them! " In "To Kill A Mockingbird", mostly all of the white people were dogmatic about what the black people thought and how they felt. Even though you were just defending a black person that was on trial, and you were white, you were considered a disgrace to your people. An example of this is when Francis calls Atticus a "Nigger-Lover" and says that Atticus is a disgrace for the family and no one is happy about what he is doing. Just like in the story when Mr. Ewell coerced and spat in Atticus's face for accusing him of abusing his own daughter. After Tom Robinson was convicted as guilty, everyone in the Finch family was insipid. Even though Atticus had everything to prove Tom Robinson innocent, the judges still convicted him as guilty. When Tom Robinson went to prison, he tried to escape, and the guards shot him 17 times. White people in those days hated black people. All different colors had their own designated places like water fountains that were labeled for black people only or white people only! I believe that everyone is created equally and if you just get to know different people, you realize that there is not much of a difference between races and colors. EVERYONE IS CREATED EQUAL AND NO ONE SHOULD BE JUDGED BY THEIR COLOR OF SKIN!
