jareddrdg0910's Blog

Every thing in the world comes from something else.  A chicken comes from an egg, rain comes from the clouds, etc.  But there are things that aren’t physical, but they still do exist.  Our ideas and thougths exist, but you can’t see, hear or touch them but they are still there.  And these ideas do come from somewhere.  They can come from multiple places however.  On Friday, Kathleen Benner Duble came to Parker and gave us an assembly.  Her main topic was ways to get interesting ideas, so that we can make interesting writing.  She said that finding ideas is very easy.  She said that these ideas can come from your past expierences, other peoples’ lives, your genealogy, where you live, mothers and fathers, vacations, and research/history/books/etc.  And as I looked through my writing from this past school year, I find that I have used these things as places to give me good ideas for writing.

Admirers Aren’t Admired-This piece of writing was inspired by from my past experiences.  I wrote about the social world in my life.  After being in middle school for almost three years, I can make an interesting piece of writing about it.

We Aren’t Clones- This piece of writing is inspired from my sister’s experiences.  I wrote this one day after my sister got home.  She went on a rant about how she felt about the highschool, the people in it, and how they are almost all the same.  After listening to her, I realized I could relate that to myself.  And taht inspired me to write about how I can relate to my sister.

 The Ultimate Power-What inspired me to write this was my grandmother who is now passed away, my ancestor.  She once told me to go out and do what you want before it is too late.  She was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn’t do what she never go to do in her life.  I wrote about how I think it is important to follow your dreams and how Langhston Hughes has the same idea.

Just What We Need-The boring, old town of Reading, my town, inspired me to write this piece of writing.  I pretend to be living in the year 1969 and I talk about how I feel about Reading.  This is interesting because I have lived here all my life and other people may find it interesting to see how I feel about it.

Branching Away- My parents are what inspired me to write this piece of writing.  They have been treating like a young adult, letting me do my own thing, for a few years now.  I wrote this because I know Waverly, from the story “The Rules of  The Game,” by Nancy Werlin, is goign through the satge of growing up and staying young.  My parents letting me have independence led me to write this.

 Me Jumping and Romeo Falling-When I was writing this, I thought of a time my family went on a vacation to my cousins house up in New Hampshire which is what inspired me.  Taking an anectdote from a place you have gone, and what you did can be interesting to a reader.

Black Hole-What inspired me to write this was a book I read called “The Rules of Survival”,by Nancy Werlin.  We were assigned to write this but I actually wanted to write it however.  I wanted to write this because I always think  it is intersting it is to relate yourself to a character in it.

People usually do things the way that is the easiest, simple.  Many other people may do the same thing because it works for them to.  Whether it is writing with your left or right hand or using a graphic organizer or not to plan out an assignment.  Sometimes however, people may recommend their style for doing something to somebody else.  On Friday, Kathleen Benner Duble, author of The Sacrifice, came into our school.  We had an assembly, and her main topic was ways to find ideas for writing.  And her main points, she recommended, were getting ideas from your own experiences, other people (friends, family), what’s around you, vacation/going places, and hobbies/interests.

Kathleen Benner Duble had about five main ideas she recommended for us to use; getting ideas from your own experiences, other people (friends, family), what’s around you, vacation/going places, and hobbies/interests.  This list probably did help some kids out with ideas on how to think of ideas to make a good piece of writing.  In my mind, writing is just a way of expressing yourself by taking a topic and making it interesting.  But sometimes finding of that topic that could be made interesting is the hardest thing for me and most likely others out there.  That topic is Waldo and I’m the searcher, it may take a while to find it. So that is why this list may have helped kids in the assembly because they might not know how exactly to find that topic.

Recommendations aren’t always used however.  This list may have helped many, but not me.  Her main ideas didn’t work for me.  They usually all consisted of going out and finding things in the world.  But as a kid, going out on a busy schedule to find something that could take days to find for one assignment, isn’t worth it.  It isn’t worth it especially when that assignment is due the next day.  I believe this list may be more appropriate for adult writers.  Since their job is writing, they might not have as many other things to do as we do.  So they will have the time to go out and physically find things. Her main ideas are like the job of being the president, it isn’t bad but not for me.

Everybody in the world is different in their own way.  We all act differently because we all aren’t the same.  Some people may be more daring and take the thrill of cliff diving; opposed to a cowardly person who would stand on top of the cliff and stay away from the ledge.  A person who always follows the rules are more likely to stop a thief leaving the store opposed to a passive person who doesn’t want to get involved in any trouble.  The point is, we make our decisions based on our traits.  Our traits are, in some sense, like the laws we live by every day, they influence how we live our lives. Whether we are nice, mean, passive, stubborn, loyal, untrustworthy; we all make our own decisions.  In the book A Break With Charity, by Ann Rinaldi, Susanna makes her decisions on her traits.  So far throughout the story, Susanna makes me feel like she is a smart, stubborn person, like me.

Susanna comes across as a smart girl in the story.  She thinks things through to the end and makes the most logical decisions she can.  In the story, people are being falsely accused of being witches and being brought to prison.  Susanna knows the girls that claim they are “afficted” are lying.  “I knew I could not speak up now, for these girls did indeed have some dark powers.  And they could hurt the rest of my family.”  That is a quote from the story on page 156, Susanna is saying she has to keep quiet.  Here her smartness influences her decision because she wants to speak out against them; and many would if they knew they were lying.  But Susanna thought all the way through and knew that if she did indeed say something, her family would be named as witches.  That would result in them losing their house, money, and possibly their lives.

Her second trait is that she is stubborn.  She is stubborn because her whole community pressures her and others to be true Puritans and believe in witchcraft, but if no matter what they say she never listens.  She knows that she is right and refuses to let others get into her head.  Her mind acts as a barb-wired fence, it is very well at keeping her thoughts sin and others out. “You will believe in witches, and I don’t.  This is all hysteria, and men of goodwill should stop it,” Susanna tells Johnathan on page 112.  “I’m sorry I can’t please you and say I don’t believe in witches,” he replies.  “Believe as you wish!” Susanna shouts back.  This conversation shows Susanna is stubborn because Johnathan is talking to Susanna about witchcraft and she clearly has no part of it.  She even comes to yelling because she thinks so strongly against it, and no matter what he says she won’t believe in it.  Her stubbornness influences her to keep her ground even if it means scaring Johnathan off, which she did that day.

“Everybody has something in them that makes them special in their own way,” my kindergarten teacher said.  We just got back in from recess one day.  She told us because one kid thought one thing was a bad idea and everybody else ganged up on him.  She was saying we all are different and that is a good thing.  Because one may seem bad, different in one way, but be good in another.  But the thing that makes our personalities different, is our opinions and thoughts based on your past; and since none of us have had the same exact past that means we aren’t clones.  To this day, most kids still agree with that theory.  Today in English class, we were told to ask each other questions that are all based on opinion, not fact.  The question I focused in on was, “Is it better to listen to your own opinions or the opinions of others that everyone shares?”  And all the replies I received from the students in my class all had the same idea, you should.

Everybody I talked to agreed you should listen to your own opinion over everybody elses.  “You are going to lead your life so you should do what makes you happy,” one girl in my class said.  I agree with her.  I don’t agree we should make our heads act like the temperature in the winter, have them stay down, and go along with what everybody else says. Because we have the oppurtunity to stick up for our opinons.  The reason why people came to America in the first place was to stand up for what they believed in.  Staying in England made the pilgrims miserable because they couldn’t do what they believed in.  We all have one life, we should live it the way that makes it the best it can be, not the way others think is the best it can be.

A second person I asked agreed with what the first person said.  “You should listen to your own.  You should because it makes you who you are.  And we shouldn’t live in a world of clones.”  What this person said really stuck out to me because it came off really powerful to me.  The part where it talks about living in a world of clones made me think.  It made me think that if we did in fact live in a world of clones, how bad it would be.  Always agreeing on things, always getting along, never meeting new, interesting people, and not being able to be unique.  That would be very bad.  I know most would think that always agreeing on things and always getting along would be great, but it really wouldn’t; it is like feeding kids cake whenever they wanted at first it would be great but once they got insanely over-weight it wouldn’t be. Nothing would ever push you to acheive more.  Nothing would make you stand out of the crowd in any way.  Going home every day and knowing I would never do anything new to the world with my life would bother me.  Because before I leave this world, I plan on doing something new.

Everybody in the world acts.  I’m not saying they all are professional actors that do plays and other events along the lines of that.  Somebody who has lived a normal life in America knows what it is like to act, it’s not all on the stage.  Whether it is trying not to let someone know they are bothering you, trying to get your way, or trying to seem like someone that you aren’t.  Dade from the story “Star Food” by Ethan Canin does act in one of these ways.  He acts to be someone he isn’t.  He does this only to please, satisfy his parents.  He acts to have “worldly curiosity” to his mom and to have “true vision” to his dad.

Dade acts to his mom to have “worldly vision” to his mom by lying.  “I think I’m about to make a discovery, ” Dade tells his mom on page 158.  But the problem was, Dade couldn’t think of anything.  On page 159 the story says, “I couldn’t think of something that was undiscovered.”  But he didn’t tell his mom because if he did, she would be devastated.   She would be devastated because she is a dreamer, she is a molecule and her dreams are the atoms, her dreams are what make her. She is a dreamer because she wants Dade to have “limited power” (page 149) to see things that other people can’t see.    Dade can’t see things that other people can’t see.  But he tells his mom that he can so she won’t be disappointed.  He is only acting to to please his mom.

Dade also has to act towards his father to please him.  His dad’s life is like a mirror, you can see directly through it with no problem, because his dad is a very practical person. “I think my father must have seen right through to the end of his life,” page 157 says.  His father even gives him lectures if you will about knowing what you want in your life.  “Do you know what it’s like to live in a shack?” he asks Dade on page 154.  He tells him, “You don’t want to end up in a place like that.  And it’s damn easy to do if you don’t know what you want.  You know how easy it is?”  Dade replies with, “Easy.”  But Dade doesn’t know what he wants to do in his life.  He isn’t sure what he is going to be doing later on.  “I had been trying to see right through the end of my life, too, but these thoughts never led me in any directions,” page 157 says.  That proves Dade is only trying to please his father.

In conclusion, Dade is a normal boy.  He doesn’t have “worldly curiosity” or “true vision”.  Dade is a normal boy trying to please his parents by acting.  Acting to be someone that he simply isn’t.  But we all do it at some point in our life, and I know that many of us know how hard it is to tell everyone who we truly are.

In life everybody goes through different stages.  First they are child, teen, pre-adult, and then adult.  But teen is the most interesting stage.  When kids are somewhere between 10 and 15, their differences start to show.  They start to show who they are and what makes them special.  They are no longer the follower of the parent and began to start branching away.  Some teens follower their parents than others do.  But the point is, when they do defy their parents, it shows they are growing up and sometimes helps them grow up.  They don’t need to defy them in order to grow up but it is a sign they are growing, like when a flower grows its first pedal. It shows they know what is right and wrong and they are using it in their life and the parents just can’t see it.  Like in the story, “The Rules of The Game”, by Nancy Werlin.  The main character, Waverly, is going through this interesting time with her very disagreeing mother.

Waverly knows how to play chess.  She is almost a professional and she knows the tactics.  On page 32 of the series 8 Junior Great Book, Waverly’s mom says to her, “Next time win more, lose less.”  Waverly replies to her by saying. “Ma, it’s not about how may pieces you lose, sometimes you need to lose pieces to get ahead.”  Then her mother replies to her with, “Better to lose less, see if you really need.”  Here Waverly is defending her tactic with her mother.  This shows she is growing up because she knows she is right.  And she isn’t afraid to say it.  A little kid would probably go along with what the parent said or throw a tantrum.  But when a teen defies their parent calm , intelligently it shows they are growing up.

Later on in the story.  Waverly’s mom begins to show off Waverly to others in their neighborhood.  Waverly knows she is being used by her mother and she knows it isn’t right.  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your daughter,”  Waverly tells her mom on page 35.  “Why do you have to use me to show off?  If you want to show off, then why don’t you learn to play chess,”  Waverly then says.  Here she is telling her mom that she should stop because it isn’t right.  She stands up for what she believes in and adults do that, even when it means defying a loved one.  This is good practice for when she is becoming an adult and knows when to defend herself.  Her mom is the vegetables and Waverly is the child, she makes growing up happen easier even if the kid likes it or not.

Sometimes people get carried away with things that they do.  People get into habits.  Whether it could be a gambling issue.  Or even a drug addiction.  But the point is, it is better to do something every once in a while.  Opposed to doing something so much it starts to become a habit and begins to ruin one’s life.  In the story “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank R. Stockham, the main character, the Minor Canon, is in a habit.  He helps everybody in the town which is a good thing, but he does it so much it makes up his whole life.  I admire the Minor Canon for being so self-sacrificing, dedicated towards the town.  But I also believe he goes too far with it.

The Minor Canon does almost everything for the town.  Which makes the Minor Canon is a very self-sacrificing person when it comes to taking care of the town.  “Apart from his duties at church, where he conducted services every weekday, he visited the sick and the poor, counseled and assisted persons who were in trouble, and taught a school composed entirely of the bad children in the town with whom nobody else would have anything to do.  Whenever the people wanted something difficult done for them, they always went to the Minor Canon.”  This is a passage from page 130 of the story.  The quote shows how much work he puts into this town.  And how he gets nothing in return.  But he still chooses to anyway.  The Minor Canon is the boyscout and the townspeople are the elderly trying to cross the street, he always helps them. The Minor Canon does things that nobody else wants to do according to this passage.  But he does it willingly and that is why I admire him, but he doesn’t know when to stop.

I admire the Minor Canon for doing the unwanted tasks willingly.  But I don’t admire the Minor Canon entirely.  The reason why is, he doesn’t know when to stop and think about himself.  He only listens to the townspeople and not himself.  On page 137 the townspeople say to th Minor Canon, “You must go to the dreadful wilds where the Griffin lives; and then he will follow youyou and stay there.”  In the next paragraph, still on page 137, the story says, “He bowed his head and went into his house to think.  The more he thought, the more clear it became to his mind that it was his duty to go away and thus free the town from the presence of the Griffin.”  This quote is saying the townspeople told the Minor Canon to go on a journey that could kill him, just to get rid of the Griffin.  They went to him because he allows them to keep on coming back and accusing him of things that they had no one else to blame for.  That is why I don’t admire the Minor Canon completely.  The Minor Canon is like a blind traffic conductor trying to do his job, he will put his life in danger to try helping people.

In conclusion, the Minor Canon has a habit but it isn’t neccesarily bad for the people around him.  Only for himself.  So that is why I think the Minor Canon better start to try breaking the habit.

Throughout life, we are told that we have to do what is right or what we believe is right.  We have to take that idea, opinion, object, etc and do what is in your power to protect it.  Sometimes this isn’t easy though.  Sometimes many people are on your side, sometimes both sides are even, and sometimes you are outnumbered and maybe even the only one.  People that stand up for what they believe is right have courage, bravery.  People that stand up for what they believe is right usually are stubborn.

Going into something knowing that you may not come out winning takes courage.  It shows you aren’t afraid.  It also shows you don’t care what others think of you because you are the only one.  I am currently sticking up fro some person within my group of friends right now, even though nobody else accepts him.  I believe as if I’m the only one that hears him out most of the time.  I know he is a good person and I know that others don’t understand where he is coming from because they won’t listen.  I stick up for him because if I didn’t, he wouldn’t have anybody with him. I know that having nobody to be there for you is horrible so that makes me want to be by his side no matter what others think.  This whole scenario is like the story Horton Hears a Who.  Because I’m the only one who hears him.  That gives me courage because a lot of the time I risk my friends just for him.  And to me, that shows character.

I believe I am a stubborn person.  I become a bulldozer and keep on pushing until I get through.  When you stick up for a topic that is very unpopular you are stubborn because many people would just give up.  They would just blow it off and either stays in the middle of the disagreement or even join the other side.  A stubborn person however, doesn’t stop until they believe they got their point across.  This is a good thing or a bad thing in some cases.  For example, Martin Luther King was stubborn.  He led marches in the streets to prove his point even when they were attacked and beaten; this is a good way of being stubborn.  A bad way of being stubborn is when somebody has you at gunpoint and is telling you to agree with them and yet you still stand up for what you think. 

In the end, standing up for what you believe in, no matter what others stand when it comes to that topic in most cases, is a very good thing.

Not showing your emotions can be a very hard thing.  I would like to show my emotions whenever I wanted and how I wanted, but there is a problem with that.  The problem is there is always a group of people out there to get you.  Every person in the whole world has at least one person that is out to get them.  This person will try to bring you down as much as they can.  If you don’t fight back, you keep your head high.  You just keep on doing what you are doing and not care what anybody else has to say.  In the Harlem Renaissance,1920 to the 1930′s, African Americans had to do this.  That is why the Harlem Renaissance is like Middle School, kids pick on each other nonstop. Facing persecution wherever they went, the only thing they were looking for is a place to go where opportunities in work were available.  The Harlem Renaissance isn’t an actual event but a time period where African Americans began showing their skills in the art of writing.

As World War I came around jobs in America started to go down.  This caused the great depression.  African Americans down south didn’t have any opportunities to make money to support their family.  So many African American  families began to flow into New York.  New York became a magnet and the families become metal, they went right to New York. They came with talents such as writing skills, poetry skills,and other art talents.  The Harlem Renaissance was named after a neighborhood called “Harlem” where many of the new families began to occupy.  Not only African Americans from southern America came, but also ones from the Caribbeans and other islands down south.  One reason why African Americans began showing their talents is because they wanted to prove to white people that they are important.  That they have something to offer.  And even though some discouraged, persecuted them, they kept their heads high and kept on going.

Among all of the writers/poets of this time was Countee Cullen.  He was a black poet who came from the south to continue his writing career where there were more opportunities.  Although, there was a lot of persecuting of African Americans there.  In one of his poems, “Yet Do I Marvel”, he talks about how life seems unexplained sometimes.  He talks about all of the bad things in life that shouldn’t happen if God is a good man.  This was written in 1925, the middle of the Harlem Renaissance.  Another famous poet was Claude McKay, African American from Jamaica.  He had several poems that were wrote with several years between them.  One of his earlier pieces, “To One Coming North”, was a poem to African American families telling them to come up North.  And another poem written later, “The Tropics in New York”, was a poem to the families down south that New York has opportunities but you will get homesick.  Finally, “White Houses” came around and it was telling them that everybody is mean but opportunities await.  And that is why he still recommends them coming up.  This shows that the African Americans held their heads up no matter what and pursued their dreams.