Final Blog Reflection

My best blog post on Analysis:
http://wilesg.blogspot.com/2013/09/analysis.html
        This blog post best examplifies Analysis. I think this because I cited strong textual evidence to support the inference of the fact that Brendan, the main character commit suicide since he moved away. In my blog I have a quote from my book saying "But I do know that Brendan was very unhappy about moving. That's a hard age to leave your friends" (Kit connor 24). This is an example of me citing strong textual evidence as to why I think Brendan might have commit suicide. Also, I make an inference about why he commit suicide when it says on my blog "This line from the book still makes me think that one of the reasons he commit suicide was because he moved, since two people have commented on the fact that he didn't want to move and seemed sad when he found out he was moving." This is showing how I made an inference about why Brendan commit suicide based on a quote from my book, which for analysis you're supposed to cite strong evidence, which I did this and inferences drawn from the text, which I did make an inference based on what the text said.
      Some goals that I have for myself for next trimester are I want to read more books next trimester and actually enjoy them. Also, I want to become a better writer and start to like writing more since i'm not that great of a writer and I want to become a better one. I want to improve on my writing skills, but I also want to improve on my reading level and start reading more challenging books, and bigger books since I tend to get scared away by big books easily. My writing could improve in a way that I could use a better writing voice and not have any silly grammatical errors because I usually have little grammaical errors but I want to make it so that I have none.

Links and Displays

This video really makes me think about how the two kids in my book must've felt when they were getting bullied and really relates to the two main characters.

Links and Displays

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/social-emotional-skills/bullying-and-teasing-no-laughing-matter
This Article is based upon bullying which relates to my book "Give a Boy a Gun" since the main characters end up commiting suicide because of bullying.

Links and Displays

This is how I imagine the school shooting that Brendan and Gary caused to look like in "Give a Boy a Gun"

Give a Boy a Gun

http://www.pledge.org/?p=Give+a+Boy+a+Gun

"Give a Boy a Gun" Links and Displays

This picture reminds me of the book I'm reading "Give a Boy a Gun" because the main character Brendan got bullied a lot at school and no one ever did anything about it which caused him to commit suicide.

"Give a boy a Gun" Reading Skills

In my book Give a Boy a Gun, i'm really curious as to why Brendan's friends never stopped him from shooting some kids at school. He told his friends Allison and Gary, that he wanted to kill all of the people that bullied him basically. "We got up there, and he took this gun out of his pocket. Like, first we thought it was a toy, then Gary thought maybe a starter's pistol. Brendan said it was real, and I asked what he was going to do with it. I won't use the words he used, but basically he said he was going to blow away some kids at school" (Strasser 73). I don't understand why his friends wouldn't tell an adult or anyone about this, and want to know why they let it happen instead of trying to help him instead of just shrugging it off and thinking of it as a joke. One text to world connection i thought of while reading this book was that there are tons and tons of kids who have thought of suicide and murdering other people like Brendan did, and made me compare the reason that Brendan wanted to kill himself was cause he was bullied, and that is probably a lot of other kids reasons too. A text to text connection I thought of was this book I read called How I Survived Seventh Grade and it was about a girl who got made fun of a lot because she was nerdy and had big feet and stuff, and was sometimes depressed just like Brendan and Gary, and they reminded me of each other since they both got made fun of a lot.  A text to self connection I had was that I don't really connect with the main character Brendan because I have never gotten bullied like him, the only connection we have is when I was in fifth grade I dressed weird and got made fun of by this one kid, but besides that I never got made fun of and hope I never do, so I can't really relate to this book.

Tone and Mood

The tone of my independent novel Give a Boy a Gun is mostly anger and rage. An example of this would be "Sam Flach will die slowly. I will shoot him in one knee, then the other, then a gut shot so he'll have no friggin doubt where he's going. And he will stare up at me with fear in his eyes he has never known, and I will pull that friggin barrel right against his forehead and say "Gee sorry, Sam," then blow his friggin brains out "(Strasser 41). The mood of this book would be sad and ashamed. An example of this would be "Everyone thinks about suicide when they're a teenager. At least, almost everyone I know. It's just, like, something really crappy happens and you're in this horrible pain, and what's the point?" (Strasser 52). This shows mood since when i read it I felt really sad and sorry for those kids that feel this and made me ashamed that people would cause other people's lives to be this miserable. There is no point in my book so far where a character has swayed the beliefs of others, but one of the main characters Gary's mom tried to sway his beliefs by taking him to a psychologist but it didn't work because he was still kind of depressed and didn't persuade him any differently. She didn't really use a tone so maybe if she used a more caring and worried tone it might have impacted her persuasiveness not to kill himself.

Give a boy a gun

My book is called Give a Boy a Gun. It already starts off sad since it's talking about two boys so far that commit suicide. It has quotes from people that knew them and were good friends with them. I think the whole book is just going to be about certain kids who commit suicide and tell their stories. It's really good so far and is interesting because i'm curious as to why people would want to end their lives but am interested in why they do it. Even though it's sad that people knew these boys, it's nice to read a book about stuff that actually happens and is serious than fiction books that sometimes have things that could never happen and couldn't relate to it.

Analysis

"But I do know that Brendan was very unhappy about moving. That's a hard age to leave your friends. (Kit connor 24). This quote from the book makes me think that one of the reasons Brendan was sad a lot and commit suicide was because of this. In the book Give a Boy a Gun it talks about this kid Brendan and how he killed himself, but hasn't said why yet. I predict that one of the reasons he did kill himself is because he was forced to move away from his friends and made him really sad. Also it says "The day Brendan found out he was moving he just looked terrible. I mean, at school he looked all pale and hollow and bent. I almost thought someone in his family died. He really didn't want to go." (Julie shore 23). This line from the book still makes me think that one of the reasons he commit suicide was because he moved, since two people have commented on the fact that he didn't want to move and seemed sad when he found out he was moving.

Links and Displays

http://teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/article/33147/Fever-1793-by-Laurie-Halse-Anderson/
This review on the book Fever 1793 makes it sound even better than it already is, since the girl explains it so well.

Links and Displays

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/yellowfever.htm
This article describes yellow fever and how awful it was, how it was caused and things like that. If you read this article and think that learning about yellow fever would be cool , then reading a book about a girl trying to survive a yellow fever epidemic would be even better! Read Fever 1793.

Links and Displays

This is what the setting of the book Fever 1793 would look like to me since it's based in the 1700's and the way the author describes the people is how they would sort of look in this picture.

Links and Displays

This is how I imagine some of the characters in Fever 1793 to look like, with the yellowing of the eyes, and a lot of them died like this guy here.

Links and Displays

This tells you a little about yellow fever and helps you visualize what was happening to people in the book Fever 1793.

Links and Displays video

This video describes the book Fever 1793, by: Luarie Halse Anderson that i'm reading right now. It made me want to finish the book cause I haven't yet, but now I want to since i'm more curious.

Book reccomendation

The book Crossed by Ally Condie is a great book, and i would definately reccomend it after you read the first one, Matched. It's about a girl who gets a certain match, which just so happens to be her best friend Xavier, but ends up falling in love with someone else, which is against the rules in their society. She has to face a lot of her problems, and ends up breaking the rules a lot, and almost getting caught. I really liked it and would reccomend it to people who like action, adventure, and a little bit of romance.

Theme and Summary

In my book Crossed by Ally Condie, it's about how Cassia has to leave the outer provinces, which is her home society because she broke the law. She was previously matched with her best friend Xavier and they were supposed to be together, but Cassia fell in love with a boy named Ky. Since Ky had to leave since he broke the law Cassia wanted to find him. She found out that he was being forced to basically fight and die. In the book she's searching for Ky, and pretending to be a rebellious youth like K, or an abberation. She escapes from it and travels with her friend trying to find him, going day and night without any food or water. I don't know the theme of the book yet, but my guess right now is it's probably if you love somebody, never give up and keep fighting for them. So far I really like this book and can't wait to finish it.

Summer reading book

My summer reading book was Every Day by David Levithan. The main character is someone named A who wakes up in a different body every morning. He is a different character every morning but is still the same on the inside. He interacts with the different bodies every morning taking their memories and using their bodies to live life through them. "Every day I am someone else. I am myself- I know I am myself- but I am also someone else. The information is there. I wake up, open my eyes, understand that it is a new morning, a new place" (Levithan, 1). This quote shows how the character knows himself, but also knows the person he's in every morning and connects with them in a way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/every-day-by-david-levithan.html?_r=0

 The article tells about books by the same author and about the book I read called Every Day.