Ava's Blog

The most impactful thing I learned throughout this project was how much people haven’t done to put a stop to problems in the world. Genocide continues to be committed despite the amount of people that claim it is a terrible thing. If it’s a terrible thing, why aren’t you doing anything to stop it? During the presentations we learned that the Darfur, Sudan Genocide is still occurring. Although some efforts have been made to help people experiencing the Genocide, nothing has been done to physically stop it. It’s unfortunate that no one has taken a stand and tried to stop it.      One of the biggest connections that I have made is how in many Genocides females have been raped and sexually assaulted. According to the presentations, the Rwandan Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide, the Democratic Republic Of Congo genocide, and the dirt for Sudan genocide all have cases of rape and sexual assault. For the democratic republic of Congo genocide rape and sexual assaul...

In the book I Have Lived a Thousand Years , Elli, the main character, has changed tremendously after her experience in the Holocaust. One change she went through was how much she could endure, physically and emotionally. In the beginning of the book Elli was very weak and she didn’t have much endurance. On page 60 it said, “The taste of the ashes in my mouth is laced with a sudden surge of nausea… I vomit, again and again. But the taste of ashes is not extricated from my insides”.  Just from the taste of the ashes, Elli throws up. She can endure very little. On the next page she is given a backpack full of their things and she toppled over. She is not strong enough to carry the backpack of essential items and she can’t keep herself from vomiting after tasting the ashes of the burning books and pictures.     As the book goes on, Elli starts to be able to endure more. Although there are many examples of how Elli grows to endure more there is one on page 89 t...

In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts?     I believe that my biggest improvement was my participation in the classes’ Socratic Seminars. In previous years I hadn’t drawn many people into the conversation but this time, I continued to engage with others who weren’t talking very often. Socratic Seminars can be very intimidating to some of my classmates and because of this, they often don’t share their thoughts or ideas. It has been a goal of mine to help the frightened students come out of their shell and share with the class. The reason for this is because I really enjoy hearing other people’s feelings or opinions of the text. Oftentimes the conversation is very nondiverse and you hear the same opinions every time. I enjoy giving people the opportunity to share out and speak their minds, which is why this has become my biggest improvement.     What has been the most challenging part of 2nd ...

    I am a Star  by Inge Auerbacher is about a young, Jewish girl and her struggle to survive the Holocaust. To begin, Inge talks about the how the discrimination began in her town of Kippenheim when, “Some people began to say that Jews belonged to a different race and that Jews were racially inferior” (10). From this belief, many thing changes for the Jews including who could buy from them, deprivation of their German citizenship, where they could go, and what occupations they could have. Christians were forbidden to associate with the Jews, while some had no problem with this, others disobeyed and left food and saved important items for after the war. Inge then describes her experience as a child at the camp, “We slept on the floor or, if lucky, on straw-filled mattresses... The rooms were smelly and steamy in summer and freezing in winter... The most important words in our vocabulary were bread, potatoes, and soup ” (43). Inge also highlights the other conditions of t...

    One conflict I see arising is how the workers such as Carlson and Slim took it to their decision to kill Candy’s dog. On page 45 Candy says, “‘No’ he said softly. ‘No, I couldn’ do that. I had ‘im too long.’” This shows Candy’s resistance to killing his dog. Candy had owned him for a long time and he didn’t want his dog to die even if he didn’t do any good. As the page wears on, Carlson and Slim keep pushing him to kill the dog and eventually he gives in. This shows that, although they are all workers making the same pay, Carlson and Slim have more power over him. This could prove as a conflict because, If Carlson and Slim have more power they can start getting what they want. The only reason the dog was killed was because he was smelly and Carlson didn’t like that. Candy eventually bowed down to their power and let in to them. His dog was shot and Candy only regretted his decision.    The other conflict I’d like to address has to deal with Crooks and his rela...

They atmosphere in the Ranch is very lively. In the book it states “In the middle of the room stood a big square table littered with playing cards, and around it were grouped boxes for the players to sit on.” (17). This shows that the camp is lively because of the things they have. In the bunkhouse there is a large table where people can go after a long day to play cards. You can tell by the character interactions that the people in the bunkhouse have come to be friends and the cards were littering the table as though they’ve been played with. After a long day's work, everyone can go to play cards and hang out with each other.     Curley’s wife might not have a name because of many reasons. The first thing that comes to mind is sexism. Since she is female they might only think to call her Curley’s wife, but I doubt that’s the real reason. They see her as more of a possession than a real person and her identity is only confined to the role she plays in her ma...

The aphorism I chose was “ Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.” This aphorism means that you shouldn’t assume that it’s too late to get involved with something. The main message that the aphorism teaches is that you shouldn’t be scared to get involved, don’t assume that you are too late to make a difference. I related this aphorism to a This I Believe essay. The This I Believe essay was titled The Power of Presence and the it was saying that it’s never too late to get involved even if the only thing you can do is be there. I agree with this aphorism more than I initially thought I would. In Tuesday’s with Morrie, Mitch had a falling out with his brother when his brother was diagnosed with cancer. They hadn’t talked in years but even so Mitch tried to connect and be involved in his brothers life. He believed it wasn’t to late. One of the reasons I believe this is because you never know what a person is going through. If someone was going through something but you ...

1- What are the three most important things you learned this year?          Over the whole year there were many, many things that I’ve found to be important, some more than others. Despite learning so much this year, having to choose three of the most important events was fairly easy. One of the important things I learned this year has to be focused on the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a very devastating event and learning about the casualties and pain everyone went through was very impactful. It taught me that the world was once, and still is, a terrible place and an event such as the Holocaust should never happen again. Another really important thing I learned this year was that books written decades ago can still be found to show social justice issues in the world today. The last most important thing I learned this year was that you don’t have to be good everything. Being in the accelerated class the never ending demands to be a good ...

    Despite having only read the first few chapters of Tuesday’s With Morrie,  I’ve been able to connect with the book and its theme of living in the moment because you never know when it will end. Morrie  realized that he was going to die but instead of worrying he lived in the moment. I’m not sure as how I would react to knowing of my death, would I worry, or live my life having fun? I wish I could say I would be like Morrie, but honestly, I don’t know. If I ever decide that I would like to live in the moment here is a list of things I would like to do.   Bucket List: - Go to college - Get Married - Have Kids - Start a career in acting - Go on a cruise - Get a pet snake - Buy a house - Get baptized - Write a Book

   Overall, my third quarter wasn’t that bad. I have gained a better understanding of the problems going on in the world and different perspectives other people have. I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird with my class and have worked really hard to gather information for my argumentative essay. Although I have made accomplishments there are also things I need to work on which I could do better on. To ensure I don’t ramble on I’ll start.    The first question I’ll be addressing is what are I think I made the biggest improvement on. I think that reading To Kill a Mockingbird proved as a challenge to me. There were times that I didn’t understand what I was reading and had to go back to reread multiple times. Even though it was hard for me to understand I think it was one of my biggest ares of improvement. Reading the book helped me to use my annotations to understand the book more and it taught me how to better understand other books that might come as a challeng...

-For sake of confidentiality I will not be using my friends name in this blog.    It was exactly 10:05 P.M. when I found out my friends mom had cancer. My heart sunk at the news, I had no idea that he was going through something so terrible. On the Friday before spring break he got mad at lunch and yelled, his friends just watched as he tried to calm himself down, it was as if they didn’t care. A few days later I found out he had caught a cold after seeing a movie and we started talking about it, the conversation then lead to something worse. He told me how he would always be the one to stop fights between his friends but whenever he was mad his friends wouldn’t say anything. He shared a part of himself that I hadn’t seen before. “And when someone talks about my mom, my heart stops beating. I try not to show anger but deep down, my body is being pulled back.” I had never been so disgusted in my life. He told me how people called her names and even said “No wonder why your ...

   I had just gotten out of the shower when I went up to my room, it was dark, almost 10:00 P.M.,but nonetheless the shower refreshed me. When I get to my room I turn the light on and wince as it hits my eyes. After adjusting to the brightness I open my drawers and shuffle through, I finally settle on an oversized shirt and fluffy blue pants with Cookie Monster faces staggered throughout. I quickly dry my hair and and get in bed. After shuffling around in my blanket I reach of my bed to grab my phone which was plugged in before I had went to take a shower. After reaching around for a few seconds I thought it must be on my bed. After spending a minute of feeling around, I grunt to myself and get out of bed, I hastily walk out of my room and into the hallway. Across from me is the room my brothers sleep in. I turn the handle ever so slightly and push on the door very slowly as to not awaken my five year old brother, Ben, who was well asleep by now.  My second brother, Max,...

        The characters I chose that relate to each other are Scout’s Uncle Jack and Aunt Alexandra. Although they don’t share many similarities, One similarity they each share with each other is that they want to change Scout. In chapter 9 there is a quote that states, “She didn’t like the way I dressed in overalls and that I couldn’t possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of me involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born” (81). This quote alone shows that Aunt Alexandra wants Scout to act more like a lady and it’s stated somewhere later in the chapter that she doesn’t agree with Atticus’s way of raising Scout. Uncle Jack doesn’t want to change Scout exactly the same way that Aunt Alexandra does but there is correlation between the two. Hey says, “I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go a...

(This is the photo I used as the setting of Maycomb.) One of the quickest observations I made was the large sign in the middle of the photo. Religion is a very big part of the lives of the people who live in Maycomb as shown in the quote “In the long hours of church—was it then I learned?” Or “She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath.” Both of the quotes show how much church and the Bible mean to Maycomb and the sign referring to God is something I believe that Maycomb would have. One of the other biggest observations were the fences. In the book it mentions Maycomb has many farmers and I think that there would be several fences to contain their crops and/or animals. One quote says “As Maycomb was a farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers.” Which means that most of Maycomb is farmers and it wouldn’t be unlikely that they had danc...

    My quarter two has been a little rickety, there was a LOT of drama between friends that I got caught in the middle of and tried to deal with accordingly. Despite the drama there were many things that made me happy and proud of myself. I’m sure hearing my drama would be so much more entertaining than talking about my accomplishments in ELA but in life we don’t always get what we want.    I guess I’ll start with something that I improved upon so my mom doesn’t say “You need to focus on the positive things in your life instead of the negative things.” Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom but she can just be a little overbearing. Okay, let’s get started. I think one thing that I improved on was my reading skills. I went up around 12 points in my Reading MAP test and I was really proud of myself. I often think of the reason why I was placed in my Excellerated ELA class if there are smarter people than me that aren’t in ELA. Why was I chosen over them if they’re smarte...

      In ELA we recently did our Holocaust unit. After finishing a memoir written by a Holocaust survivor we watched a movie titled  Life is Beautiful . You might be wondering how life could be beautiful if he movie was about the Holocaust, even watching the first 30 minutes of the movie you would have no idea that it was focused around the Holocaust. Although the basis of the movie is based on the Holocaust it seems to portray time and time again how life is beautiful even in terrible times like the Holocaust.       The first sign you would see is falling in love. Less than 10 minutes into the movie Guido, the main, meets Dora, the “lover”.  Despite them only seeing once he persisted to find her and go out with her on a date. You can tell Dora also wants to see Guido again but, unfortunately at the time she is engaged to a man that Guido has wronged. One of the times Guido sees Dora again is when she is to be married and I believe they were at...

There were a lot of ways Elie changed throughout Night. The most obvious change was his religion. From the beginning of the book it is very evident that Elie is very religious, on the fifth page it says “Together we would read, over and over again, the same page of zohar. Not to learn it by heart but to discover but to discover within the very essence of divinity. And in the course of those evenings I became convince the Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become ONE.” Those few sentences alone show how fixed he is on learning his religion and practicing it. Later in the book it is shown on page 67 that he is starting to lose his faith, it says “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because HE caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created A...

    I believe that my first quarter in seventh grade went fairly well over all, but I’m not here to talk about all my classes but one in general. Can you guess? Ha... what other class than ELA would I be discussing? I’ll start boring you by jumping right in because I want to get this over with! The first question I’ll be covering is “What we’re some struggles you had first quarter in ELA?” Well... since you asked, for the most part I think I did a pretty good job, but if I had to talk about what struggles I had I’d definitely put... understanding. There were a lot of times where I was faced with a question and I didn’t know the answer and I was really confused, I’d sit at my seat thinking of what the question meant or how to answer it and eventually class would end and I’d have to do it for homework. Sometimes the questions would be spur of the moment and I’d have to rely on my table mates for the answer, of course I am fine with admitting that I don’t know something but when ...

They would corner me Far away from the supervisor  When I least expected it And beat me Till I escaped Or they had had enough I treated everyone As an angle But beauty was external  Money mattered And  So did skin color Sticks and stones Can break your bones But words Can often Do worse They can stifle Destroy And mutilate All of the beautiful  Hopeful Things inside of us But If you have enough desire To outwork the other students And NEVER give up You Can win the race someday I commented on  Will’s Blog ,  Emily E’s Blog , and  Clementines Blog .