Trust Teachers

After reading the novel “Speak” my belief has changed about a statement. Before reading this novel I thought that students should not tell their teachers about their personal problems, no matter how serious. At first I agreed that students should not tell their teachers, but after reading it I disagreed with my original thought. I disagree now because teachers are there to help, not only with school, but with problems in life. If Mel had told her Art teacher about the issue she was having I feel he would have understood. Also, teachers care about students, if they didn’t they wouldn’t be doing their job has an educator. They are trying to help the next generation.
Teachers care about their students. If they didn’t then why would they be doing their jobs? They are there because they want to help the next generation to the best of their ability. That means its not just school issues that they are willing to help their students with. They are mandated reporters, which means if something is going on that is against the law or could possibly hurt someone they have to report it to the proper authorities. These authorities along with the teachers will help you solve your personal problems.
In the novel the main character, Mel, is keeping a secret locked up inside of her, which she doesn’t know how to deal with. She doesn’t like, know or really trust any of her teachers enough to tell them about this issue, except for one. Her Art teacher is her favorite teacher, because he is laid back and helps her express herself in a way she felt she never could before. He always tried to help her in class and he seemed like an approachable person. I feel that if Mel went to her Art teacher and told him about the issue, he would have helped her get through it and worked with her to solve the problem.
My belief before reading this book, was that students shouldn’t talk to teachers about personal issues no matter how serious. This is because I felt it would be awkward to talk to a teacher about problems. This is because you might not know how the teacher will react or could possibly treat you differently then they had before. But, reading this book made me think about this scenario and showed me that teachers care about their students not just academically, and sense they care they won’t treat you differently, they will try to help you become a better person.
My belief changed after reading this story because on the last page of the book you could really see how much Mel’s teacher cared for her. He stated that he really liked to listen to her if she ever wanted to talk. This made me realize that teachers don’t just have to be teaching academics, they can teach life lessons and be mentors and role models for students. Overall, I learned the same lesson that Mel learned. That you can trust your teachers with personal issues because they have our best interest in mind.

Speak prompt

This statement is completely false. People could be getting seriously hurt and you wouldn’t tell anyone? Or maybe people are endangering others not just physically but emotionally. People need to be responsible but if something serious happens at a party you need to tell someone so the person that committed the act of harm is punished properly so they don’t do it again. Serious things like drinking, drugs, and other crimes that can happen at a party need to be brought to the proper authorities attention so no innocent person is prosecuted for an irresponsible persons wrong doing.

At a party where there is alcohol minors should not be drinking. If a minor were to get drunk and then attempt to drive home they could not just hurt themselves but they could put innocent peoples lives in danger. They could get in an accident because of their impaired judgment and other side effects that come from being drunk. Drinking and driving is a poor decision. If someone was at a party and was drinking and can’t get home with anyone at the party, they should call someone who did not attend the party for a ride. This means that people knowing there was drinking at the party so what happened doesn’t stay at the party for the better. This can save more than one persons life.

If you are at a party and a fight breaks out are you just going to stand there? I know I wouldn’t. Someone could get seriously hurt. If someone did by chance get hurt you’d have to call an ambulance. This means that the paramedics will learn of the party, but would you rather your friend be badly hurt for the rest of his life or get him help right then and there and possibly save his life. You may get in some trouble but would you rather loose a friend?

If you or a friend was date raped at a party you should tell someone. There is no if, ands or buts about it. Date rape is a crime and the person who committed this crime needs to be punished. You need to tell your parents or another trusted adult that can help you tell the proper authorities to stop the person from repeating the act. That would let the information about the party out but it would be for the better. This person would be stopped from doing it again and punished for the horrible action.

Whatever happens at a party should stay at the party is an irresponsible mindset. People can die, be injured, or mentally scared and that can all be prevented by telling proper authorities or people who can help in the instance of something bad happening or prevent something bad or anything worse from happening. This mind set is can do more harm than help. Many bad things can happen if you don’t tell someone else. Would you rather something awful happen and someone get hurt or get caught at a party and take the punishment.

Friends

My friends are great
They are always there
Especially in times of need
If I have a question about life
I will get the answer I need
If I’m sad
They cheer me up
If I’m happy
They laugh with me
We hang out and always have fun
I’m there for them
They are the people
I Count On

Tough Struggle

Everyone faces struggles and obstacles in life when trying to reach a goal. Some are minor speed bumps and others are mountains people have to climb over. People face struggles and obstacles in a variety of aspects of their life. They can be from trying to earn enough money to buy a new ipod or struggling in academic classes in school. These struggles are unrelated but a challenge all the same. In The Old Man and the Sea, the main character, Santiago faces struggles and obstacles in his fight to land the great marlin he has hooked. The marlin’s shear size was a main obstacle. The attacking sharks created mayhem for Santiago. Also his cut and cramped hand had an effect on his abilities of reeling in the fish. He has to over come obstacles in this story to succeed in making money off this fish.

Santiago has to overcome the cramping in his hand he gets. This cramp is so terrible it completely disables the use of the hand. He now has to hold on to the fish with one hand." What kind of a hand is that" he said "cramp if you want it will do you no good."(58) This doesn’t allow him to do anything else. Santiago now can’t eat or try and catch a fish on another line because he has to maintain all his strength in clinging onto the fish. He has to suffer from lack of food and the lose of a whole arms strength. He overcomes this obstacle by rubbing his hand on his leg to take out the knots. While Santiago is doing this he is maintaining concentration on holding on to the fish and reacting to its changes in swimming pattern.

The sheer size of the fish created an obstacle all its own. "The man pulled on him all that he could to bring him closer. For just a moment the fish turned a little on his side.”(91) Santiago had to physically pull the 1500 pound fish to the side of the boat on his own. For a man who seems to be about 80 years old this is a tremendous feat to over come. Could you imagine the strain on your fatigued muscle? This old man dragged the enormous fish through the water. Even though he isn’t as strong,he was determined to catch the fish. Determination enabled him to catch the fish.

The mako sharks attack when they smell blood of the fish in the water. "The shark closed fast astern and when he hit the fish the old man saw his mouth open and his strange eyes and the click chop of the teeth as he drove forward in the meat just above the tail."(101)The old man is ill prepared for the fight ahead of him. He has his harpoon which he soon loses and then breaks his knife not long after that. He continues in his fight against the sharks to save the meat of the prized marlin he has just caught. Now you might be thinking if sharks came after my fish I wouldn’t bother trying to fight them off because its just one fish. Yes, I know it is just one fish but when looking through the old man’s eyes you see more than just one fish. You see the biggest, most magnificent marlin he has every seen and he just caught it. In 86 days he has not caught a fish and with this beautiful creature he has ended his unlucky streak and will be able to sell the fish for a lot of money. Fighting off mako sharks became an obstacle when he chose to fight them he didn’t have to, but he felt the need to.

From fighting through pain, to conquering the fish and taking mako sharks head on this man fought many obstacles. He felt the need to go through mountains rather than take the detour. By taking this path in life he challenged himself and came out on top sometimes and fell short at other times. Although when you look back on it he never once gave up or got discouraged. He kept his head up and pushed through the tough times.

Third Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

The Blind Side By Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis 2006. Genre: Biography

The Blind Side, is the true story of Michael Oher. He is a poor kid from Memphis who ends up in a school where he can’t keep up with the work. He cannot remember the last time he saw his father and his mother is a drug addict who falls in and out of his life. One night while he is wandering the streets a rich white family confronts him. The mother of this family, Leigh Anne Tuohy, feels a strong urge to help Michael. She tells him to get into their car and stay with them for the night. Soon a strong bond forms between Michael and the Touhy family they take him in and Michael decides to play football. This Choice will change his life forever.
The New York Times says, “The real-life fable that is “The Blind Side” tells how a mountainous, destitute black teenager miraculously morphs into an Ole Miss football hero and becomes a member of a wealthy white evangelical family.”
Read this book I noticed the very unique writing style of Michael Lewis. He doesn’t just tell the story of Michael Oher. He tells why Michael being a left tackle is so significant. It isn’t just one of the highest paid positions in the NFL it is key to success of the team. Michael Lewis switched subjects. Some of the chapters are about how the game of football transformed to show that the position of left tackle is so important and others tell Michael Oher’s story. I have never read a book with this type of writing style. It is a prefect style for the telling of this story. I don’t think this style would go well with many other books though because many stories don’t need a lot of background information for the reader to understand the story.
“Ten yards downfield he was delivered, violently, back to earth, where her vanished for several seconds beneath Michael”(140)
I loved reading this book it was interesting and inspiring. This book showed me that one person could make a difference. Also it inspired me to never give up on my dreams. If Michael had given up and stopped trying to succeed in school he wouldn’t be were he is today. I also enjoyed reading this book because it is about football, which is my favorite sport. Everyone should read this book because everyone can learn something from it.

Hard Work Pays Off

Harold and Tom were best friends since they could remember. Their parents were good friends so they were introduced to each other at a young age. They went to school together and always hung out on weekends. Although they were best of friends they were two extremely different people. Harold, also called Harry for short, was out going, the class clown, very popular, garrulous and had an amazing girlfriend. He seem almost infallible, except he was also he was extremely lazy. Tom was almost the exact opposite; he was laconic and kept to himself. He was extremely hard working but didn’t have a girlfriend. Although they were different in many aspects of their personality and life they both had a strong common bond between them. They both lived loved and bled football. It was their favorite sport. They were zealots of the game. They were both centers as well. The only thing was Tom almost always seemed to come short of Harry’s achievements on the field.

Their freshman year in high school they both were on the team. Harry instead of playing freshman was moved up to play Junior Varsity center. While Tom was starting Freshman center he was the JV backup. Harry would suit up for varsity games while Tom would stand on the sidelines with his jersey over his hoodie and pass out water. Harry would brag about how he would get into games when their varsity squad was beating on an inferior team. In these moments Tom would envy Harry. Harry had the talent and natural football instinct. Tom had the work ethic as well as compliant to the coaches and all of the they all liked him a lot.

At the end of the season, the head coach, told all of them to get in the weight room and prepare for next year. They needed to be bigger, faster and stronger so they could be playoff and possibly Super Bowl material. They needed to be the team that lived in the weight room. Tom heard this and took it to heart. He knew what he had to do to be able to beat out Harry for the starting job next year. The varsity center this year was graduating and left big shoes to fill. The senior was leaving at the end of the year to play college football at a Division 1 school. The day after Tom heard these words he went to the weight room immediately after school. He met a familiar coach in the weight room who gave him a workout, that would help him get bigger, faster and stronger for next year. Over the course of the nine months of the off- season, Tom took very few days off from his training. Tom was tenacious about his lifting. He would always talk to Harry and ask him why he was never in the weight room. Harry would reply “I don’t need to be in the weight room that much, because I have my own weights at home and can get the same work out their that I can get here if not better.” Tom pondered this statement many times and in mid-April came to a conclusion that a workout in the weight room cannot compare to a workout in your own home for a few reasons. The first one being, no one in your home is going to be pushing you to lift weights and to fight for that extra rep. Second, because there is no coach giving you a specifically designed workout to help build your muscles for the particular sport you are training for. It soon became a natural occurrence for Tom to call Harry on the phone and find that he was hanging out with other friends and able to workout with Tom. That summer the two friends grew more aloof. Over the summer the coach that had been helping Tom train told him that he had an extremely good chance of starting on the varsity team. He told him that he had never seen anyone work so hard for nine months to be prepared for the next season, and that he was sure he was stronger than Harry. Also, that Tom’s hard work would beat out Harry’s talent for a starting spot on the varsity squad.

The season started with Captain’s practices. At these practices Junior’s and Senior’s saw Harry and many told him that he would probably have a starting spot locked up. This made Harry’s ego bigger and he soon was bragging to all his friends that he would be starting next year.

When double sessions started Harry was puking. He had no stamina. he was so lethargic, he couldn’t run wind sprints without getting sick and falling to the side to puke. After the Three days of conditioning the team started practicing with full pads. Tom was hitting and knocking down other linemen with ease. It was as if last year his talent was latent and it was now coming out with the aid of his hard work. He was impressing the coaches and embarrassing veterans. The coaches were extolling him consistently for his outstanding ability. Harry was still in his own little daydream that he would be starting center. He went through most of his drills half speed and without much effort. harrys talents in the off season became unkempt and looked sloppy on the field. People soon began to tell him that he was going to lose his starting spot if he didn’t step up his effort. He would laugh and say in a jocular tone, “To who, no one on this team is a better center than me.”

His teammates would look at him and walk away. They didn’t bother haranguing him on the subject he would find out the hard way. The first game was coming up and the starting lineup was still undecided. The coaches had both Tom and Harry working with the varsity squad. On the second to last hot august afternoon of double sessions Harry had just finished cracking a joke when all of a sudden the offensive coordinator yells, “THAT’S IT I’M DONE LISTENING TO YOU GOOF OFF, GO PRACTICE WITH THE JV’S HARRY.”

Harry awestruck walks over to the JV’s practicing. Everyone falls silent and stares. The offensive coordinator then spoke again and said, “Congratulations Tom you’ve earned yourself a starting spot”

After practice in the Locker room all of the Tom’s teammates were congratulating him on getting the spot. The game was coming up and Tom could tell the whole team was expecting a lot out of him. The game came and the team won in an outstanding victory over the rival team. The coaches never took Tom out and the bus ride home was full of laughs and songs. When they got back to the school the head coach made a quick speech and then let them go get changed. Tom noticed Harry change fast and walk out quietly and morose. Tom changed frantically and caught Harry outside the school. He asked him if anything was wrong. Harry replied, “I thought I was gonna start.”

Tom said, “I tried to get you to lift with me in the off season.”

“I know and I was to lazy to go with you.” Harry said.

“In this upcoming off season we can workout together, and maybe next year you can try out guard” Said Tom in an uplifting tone.

“Yeah that sounds good” replied Harry.

ORB review 2nd quarter

2^nd Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Scholastics Inc. 1988

Genre: Historical Fiction

Fallen Angels is a historical fiction book based on a young man who is shipped over seas to the Vietnam War in 1967. His name is Richard Perry. He left his mother and younger brother behind in the United States after enlisting in the U.S. Army. On his way to Vietnam he meets another young man about his aged named Peewee. Perry and Peewee become good friends when they are assigned to the same unit. Through the course of the war Perry, Peewee, and the rest of their squad learn the horrors of war first hand. They grow closer after the lives of squad mates are lost in the fighting. The squad becomes brothers in arms protecting each other and having each other’s back.

“This gut-twisting Vietnam War novel . . . breaks uncharted Ground.” – Booklist, starred review

Compared to other war novels I have read, this is one of the best. It brings you into the characters eyes of a young man trying to survive on the battlefield. As you read this book you can understand Perry’s hardships. You learn about each of the characters and what there lives were like before they came to Vietnam. You realize what these soldiers went through during battle and how they felt about it afterwards. You go into the mind of Perry and learn his feelings and thoughts. You experience what happens to him as he does, you see through his eyes the Vietnam War.

“What had happened? The squad had been in a firefight, and we had almost been overrun. For the first time since I reached Nam we had been in the Middle of it, Turner had been killed. And not by some faceless enemy, some random shot from far away, but by an enemy I could see and hear.”(167)

This book was a book I truly enjoyed reading. I love reading war novels. This is probably the second one I have read that was about the Vietnam War. It was one of the best war novels, as well as the best Vietnam novel. I truly enjoyed reading this book, it was very hard to but down, I just kept on wanting to find out what would happen next. It gives you a first person perspective of what the war probably was like. Of course I truly don’t know what war is like, but reading this gives you a sense of the possible reality of war.