Last blog of the year

My favorite blog assignment was when we had to search for a picture that related to slavery and then reflect on it.  I thought that blogging was a really good interacting tool.  It is really cool to see what my other classmates have to say about the different assignments, and I like it how you can comment on the blogs just like on facebook.  I feel like blogging is a learning tool also,  it let's you research more in depth into the subject of what we talked about in class.  I put a lot of thought into all of my blogs, i made sure that i covered all of the guidlines.  I think that you should have the juniors next year do this also.  I probably will stop blogging after this last one, even though it's really fun and educational.

20s music playlist

1.Yes, We Have No Bananas-Great White Way Orchestra, Billy Murray vocal 
2.Ha-Cha-Cha-Rudy Vallée & his Connecticut Yankees 
3. Turn Off Your Light, Mr. Moon Man-Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth 
4. Instrumental jazz pieces 
I picked these songs because they represent the music that Gatsby played at his parties, that the rich would attend.  The people of the 20s were very showy and the women were usually flappers of some sort, and some of this music is from the flappers.  Also during the 20s the jazz age was going on.  This is when jazz started to get popular and you would hear it where ever you went for the most part.  But I choose these songs to represent Gatsby's personality of, "life of the party." 
 

Stephen Crane

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -"

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

Stephen Crane - I saw a man pursuing the horizon
"A man pursuing the horizon," is an excellent example of naturalism.  I like it how the man does not give up hope of fulfilling his dream no matter what happens,  Also,  the man is foolish for not recognizing that it is impossible to catch the horizon, and is therefore wasting his life.  This poem is about a man pursuing his dream and run towards a better horizon for mankind.

Mark Twain

"Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often."
-Mark Twain
This quote is one of my favorite quotes.  I like how he says that actions hurt more than words.  But there are still instances when we need to use words. An action alone is not enough. Actions and words blend in together. But Twain is saying that "Action speaks louder," he means that what you do is more important than what you say.

Civil Rights Movement

http://www.enotes.com/civil-rights-article

This article was about how people were losing faith in the movement for equality for African Americans.  It also featured the greatest black nationalist speaker, Malcolm X.  Malcolm X disagreed with King’s approach of nonviolence and instead urged his followers to secure their rights “by any means necessary.”  He accepted physical fighting among many other things.  Riots broke out among the people for civil rights. Some people still believed that they could could achieve civil rights through peaceful means.  This article connects with the Malcolm X story because it says what Malcolm X believed in and enforced during the time period.

A walk through Harlem

While I was looking on these two websites , I found a lot of similar things.  In Having Our Say Sadie and Bessie always talked about going to church and how important church was during the segregation.  On the first website there was a street that had four churches on it.  This symbolized that going to church was highly expected during that time.  Also the pictures of the churches were very large and had a lot seating for many people.  On the second website I looked at the Harlem Community Hospital, and the building was six stories high, and very long around.  This symbolizes that this was one of the main hospitals in Halem and if you were sick everyone wuold go there.  In Having Our Say Bessie worked at dentist office and the dentist was a small little building because a lot of the people couldnt afford dental care, so they went to the free one that she worked at.

Art Connection

This picture shows great intensity and emotion.  The picture portrays how poorly the African Americans were treated during that time.  In the front of the picture there is an African American that chained up, and in the background there are white people carrying the African Americans and throwing them into a dirty pit.  This relates to "Having Our Say" because Sadie and Bessie are constantly talking about how terrible the blacks were discriminated and how they had little or no say.

Art Connection

Art Connection

Having My Say

In "Having Our Say", Sadie and Bessie had very strong opinions about black descrimination and slavery, and they always voiced their opinion from their heart and didn't care what would happen to them.  I have a strong opinion about leaving people out. Kids are left out every day in the world, and I can't stand it.  When kids sit by themselves at lunch or not get invited to teenage events because their not cool or popular really makes me mad.  I try so hard to include everyone and lend out hands to the kids that have no one.  Studies show that every 100 minutes another teenager commits suicide.  Teenage suicide is sometimes caused from being left out and feeling like no one in the world cares about you.  Another thing that makes me angry is when someone is publically humiliated in front of large groups of people.  Just as the bible verse says, "Treat your neighbors as yourself," God wants us to be nice to everyone even our enemies.  I wish I could help more people out there that just need a friend to be with. 

Poem Connection

This poem means to me that this child is what he is surrounded by. He grows up to be what he has always known. Everything around him influences him in some way and a piece of every surrounding is left in him as he grows up.  The poem first talks about nature, then a school, his parents, the streets, the houses, and then nature again.  I think that he's talking about how a child grew up. First he was a baby and one with nature all cool and calm, Then he grew up and started going to school.When he was old enough to be disciplined for his actions by his parents he was let out into the streets to buy his own house. And at the end he retires and is cool and calm again with nature.  This poem connects to my life becasue everyone goes through life without taking it for granted, and in this poem the boy takes little things and connects them to his life as he grows up.

The Bee

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush

I hear the level bee:

A jar across the flowers goes,

Their velvet masonry

Withstands until the sweet assault

Their chivalry consumes,

While he, victorious, tilts away

To vanquish other blooms.

His feet are shod with gauze,

His helmet is of gold;

His breast, a single onyx

With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labor is a chant,

His idleness a tune;

Oh, for a bee's experience

Of clovers and of noon!

- Emily Dickinson  

Reflection: In this poem Emily Dickinson refers to the bee as something of high power and royalty.  She enjoys nature and always adds some kind of nature reference to her poems.  Because she was always in her garden or looking out her window, she observed many of these qualities.  She also explains the characteristics about the bee in this poem. For an example she explains head of the bee is of a gold color and his breast of a single onyx.  Dickinson loves the outdoors and shows it through all of the different poems she has written.

transcendentalists

I prefer reading transcendentalism becasue it is about nature and happy things.  I don't like reading poems and stories that are dark and dreary and always about negative thoughts.  I really enjoyed  learning about apothogems. I thought it was cool that we had to depict them in our own words and thoughts.  I feel that transcendentalism is a lot easier to understand also.  All of the peoms in class that we have read throughout the week have been easy to comprehend and read.

Ending to the story

After I got away from the huge pendulum, I noticed that that the room had dead bodies pressed up againt the cold, dreary walls.  I just stood there wating to find what else the spanish had in tale for me.  Just a few seconds later I heard a loud shocking sound, it sounded like a human being.  I started running as fast as I could back to the sound, to try to save this human being from being rat food like I was supposed to be.  But then i thought maybe this could of been another trap of theirs to try to get me back to where I started.  But then all of a sudden a person in a huge black coat and a painted white mask jumped out in frount of me and tackeled me down, as if I were in a boxing ring.  The man took me to a blue room that had a litttle ebony light and a clock.  He was talking in what seemed like a different language.  I tried to understand what he was saying but I just couldnt put anything out.  He started whipping me with his chains and her tied me up to to the stairs, and the last thing i felt was a huge gash on my stomach and that's when I knew that the end has come, a slow dreadful death.

Team Poe

I choose Team Poe because I feel that his short stories are more interesting to read.  I like it how Poe uses dark and mysterious words to create a scary mood while you are reading.  I also like Poe's short story better than Irvings.  I thought that Irving's short story was really boring and I felt that as if it would never end.  But in Poe's story I was wide awake and i couldn't wait to read on, because there one thing that happened another and it didn't keep me hanging.  For an example, when Madeline appeared in the doorway and started to attack her brother Roderick.  I thought this scary story by Edgar Allen Poe was more interesting!

Reflection on the First Snowfall

This poem was a very sad poem.  The poet did a really good job of explaining his feelings without giving the overall subject away.  This poem reflects to my life because my parents lost a child.  My sister, Kelsey was only three years old when she passed away.  In this poem the writer lost his daughter and explained how he felt and the things that he was going through.  My parents are always going to have that emptiness in their heart for my sister, just like the writer has for his lost daughter.  Unfortunatly tragic things happen, and sometimes their for worse and sometimes for the best.  My parents have learned to keep living their lives and showing her glory through me, like in the story the writer said that he kisses his other daughter as if it were to his lost daughter.  This was one of saddest poems I have ever read.

Connection to Nature!

I would connect a flower to my life because it is very colorful and lively. Flowers have very vibrant colors, and my personality. Is very colorful and bubbly. Another way how flowers connect to my life is with dancing. Flowers are different from each other, and dancing is a different kind of sport, and i can express my feelings through my dancing. I also like to dare to be different, and not be like everyone else, i like to be my own person. I also like to wear a lot of colorful clothing, because i don't care what other people think of me. All in all, flowers are very vibrant, different, and lively, just like me!

Charlie Chaplin

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000122/bio
Charlie Caplin was an English comic actor and film director of the silent film era^.  He became one of the best-known film stars in the world before the end of the First Wolrd War. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent movie comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music Hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarty era in the early 1950s.

Reflection on Act 1 of the Crucible

Last week when we started the Crucible, I didn't really understand the story.  But when we started talking about it in class it really helped me understand what the Crucible was about.  Some of the events that frightened me was when Parris was accusing all of the girls in the court room of being a witch and practicing witchcraft.   Another part that frightened me was when Tituba was explaining her experience with the devil and hell, and how she saw Goody dancing with the devil.  And right after that Abigal spoke out all that she has done and how she saw the devil also, and by that time all of the girls started screaming names out who were practicing witchcraft.  During this part I felt scared because I didn't know what was going to happen next and I felt nervous because I didnn't know if the girls were goin to get executed for admitting they were involved in witchcraft.  But overall Act 1 contained a lot of good information and I can't wait for the next Act!

Puritan Plain Style

"The Puritan glut of words is evident in their style

or writing. In choosing quotations for this book

I had to repeatedly omit redundancies from

Passages. The characteristic Puritan style, I

Soon concluded, is to take at least twice as many

Words as necessary to express a thought.

`God hath placed us in the world to do Him some

work. This is God’s working place; He hath

houses of work for us: now our lot here is to

do work, to be in some calling…to work for God’"

This is an example of a puritan religious sermon.  This sermon is telling us that the puritans made God a special part of their daily living.  It is also telling us that the puritans worked for God or they basically performed everything for God.  God was their main purpose of living.  The puritans believed in predestination, and they distinguished between "justification," or the gift of God's grace given to the elect, and "sanctification," the holy behavior that supposedly resulted when an individual had been saved.