ELA blog

For my blog I will be discussing whether or not the war has directly affected Thi and her siblings. This was a topic that was discussed in my class discussion and I found it very interesting. The question was if the war directly affected the children or not. My stance on the debate was that the war indirectly affected the children.

Bo is my favorite character. He is at the root of all the problems in the book. I do not think that he should be hated for the conflict that he has caused because it can be equally distributed on to the mother. Bo has had an extraordinary life. He has seen war, lived dirt pore, seen people die, and through it all he has survived. On page 106 Bo was starving, on page 110 his mother left him with an abusive father. On page 111 he was watching people die in the streets from starvation. On page 122 he was hiding from the people who were trying to kill him. He could hear the people being killed.

In my opinion Thi is indirectly affected by the war. Her father has PTSD and acts in strange ways like on 74-75 when the a man calls and scars Thi, instead of comforting her he shuts the blinds and acted likes he would do if he was in a war. There are other times in the book where things like this happen. Bo has been toffened throughout his life.

Thi has not been directly affected by the war, but bo has. For example if a sling shot was to represent the Vietnam war, the shot to represent bo, and the target to represent Thi. If the sling shot was used to shoot Thi the sling shot does not directly affect Thi. All of the energy that was stored up in the sling shot is not transferred to the shot. Then when it hits the target the shot transfers all the energy to the target. Bo is directly affecting Thi’s life but he is just transferring the energy.

The manipulative grandmother

[I do not think that the grandmothers traits developed or changed rather we saw a difrent way that she used her personality when talking to the Misfit]. In the text I found that the grandmother tries to manipulate people. There are three times that she attempts to get her way but only one of the times she is successful. The first time is when the grandmother tries to convince her son, Bailey that they should not go to Florida because of a criminal called the Misfit who has escaped from prison. She tries to convince Bailey that it is dangerous and he is a bad person if he puts his children in the same area as the criminal. This is what the grandmother said when trying to convince Bailey to not go to Florida “I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did.” Her attempts were not successful and they ended up going to Florida.

[The second time that she tried to manipulate people was wen she wanted to go see a house she remembered was in the area]. She wanted to go but Bailey said that he did not want to stop or make any detours. The grandmother then said "There was a secret panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found.”of course she was lying to the family. She said this so that the children would through a fit and force Bailey to turn off the road and go see the house. Under the wrath of his children, Bailey was forced to comply with their demands.

[The third time that she attempted to manipulate people was when she talked to the Misfit.] She attempted to complement the Misfit and convince him to not kill her. She said things like "Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!.” in the end her attempts were not effective and she ended up dying. Using this evidence I do not think that she changed as a character at all. In the end the way she interacted with people was the same throughout the story.

What problems did you need to solve and how did you solve them (or not solve them) while working on this project?

What problems did you need to solve and how did you solve them (or not solve them) while working on this project?

There were two main problems that we experienced during this assignment. The first was that one of my teammates did not do their work, lied to my group, lied to their friends about us we kept them out of the loop even though I have the exact time and date were on a google docs we gave each other our numbers in case we had any questions two days before it was due. That got solved with them leaving our group.

The second challenge we faced was with the person we were hoping to interview was an ex convict and got a lot of push back from the school. Since we were not allowed to interview in person we set up some times that we could call and interview his ( all of which he missed). Science we could not get an interview with the ex convict we had to get another person we could interview. We did and our interview took place two days before our transcript was due( witch turned out to be over 7000 words) and as you can guess that put us under some stress. In the end we caught up to where we where suppose be.

What led to Marjane's grandmother yelling at her? Was the yelling justified? Why or why not?

Connor Phelps

Dr. Cobos

ELA

11/3/17

What led to Marjane's grandmother yelling at her? Was the yelling justified? Why or why not?

I think that it was completely justified. Marjane has just done one of the worst things I think that a human can do to another. On page 285-286 she is waiting for her boyfriend to show up to the place that they have chosen for a date. She sees the Police and realized that she is wearing makeup which is illegal. She makes the decision to tell the Police that a man that is sitting on the steps has said something that she found to be unkind. The Police then promptly arrested the man who is begging Marjane to tell them the truth.

I personally feel that this was a very stupid thing to do and not the right choice to make. The first reason I disagree with what she did is that I think one if the worst things you can do to another ( this is outside of physical violence, obviously) is let them take the fall for something you did. This statement is especially true under the circumstances that this lie took place. The consequences that the man will receive are unjust. The second reason that I disagree with what Marjane is that she could have just said that some man just stole her bag and ran off or something like that. Then while they are looking for him she just slips away.

While I do think that the grandmother yelling was justified I do not completely agree with the reason. I think that it is just generally a crappy thing to do to a person. I do not agree that it is selfish. You can see where the grandmother yells on page 291. I think that it is a perfectly understandable thing to do. Although I can never know for sure,  there is a good chance that that man if put in the same scenario would do the same thing. The survival instinct of a human is the single most powerful weapon for destroying someone's morals.

Why did Marjane's parents decide to send her to Europe?

Why did Marjane's parents decide to send her to Europe? Do you think this was the right decision? Why or why not? (Harrison, Kim. "ELA 2015-2016")

I think the reason that her parents sent her away was to get her out of the country and make it so she did not half to live there. Her parents came to the conclusion that she would be better off living in another country for her life. Even after the war Iran would still keep the beliefs. In Iran she would not have that many rights and would half to live in fear. I think that they wanted her to learn how to live in Western Culture so she could have the opportunities that she would not in Iran. The reason I think this is that is on page 203 her mother comments on how it is nice that she doesn't need to worry about being arrested for her cloths. Also another reason is on page 153 her mother passes out like she will never see her again leading me to believe that her parents don't want her to come back. I think that this was the right decision to send Marjane away. She will have a bright future in the western cultures.

By,

Connor P.

Final Blog Post

Final Blog Post

I chose War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells for my final blog post. This book takes place in England. It is told in the first person, and the reader never learns the name of the narrator.  But, when I looked up his name on the Internet it said he resembles the character Doctor Kemp from The Invisible Man. The only thing we know about the narrator is that he is a middle class philosophical writer who lives in a small town in England during  the 1890s. One night he is invited to an observatory  by a friend to look at Mars. They take turns watching Mars until  around 3:00 A.M. when the narrator spots a flash of light on the surface of the planet.

Throughout the week, there are continuous flashes of light on Mars, but then they stop. A few weeks later, a meteorite lands two miles away from the place that the narrator lives. The meteorite turns out to be a cylinder with one end of it screwing off. Later, after some commotion, the end of the cylinder falls off, and blob-like creatures crawl out and start to adjust to the gravity. Later the creatures get their heat ray powered up and kill a lot of people. Now, I will skip some parts of the book to make this short and not three pages long.

The Martians get their machines up and running and reinforcements come.  They start to wreak havoc on England by causing mass destruction by disintegrating everything with a heat ray in giant tripod robots. Then the narrator, his wife, and his housekeeper retreat to his cousin’s home. He promised his housekeeper that he would take her to her home, so he leaves his wife and heads off. He reaches his housekeeper's house and heads back, but on his way he gets caught in all of the destruction. The middle of the book is filled with him making difficult decisions and describing how he survived them.

After that, he tries to make his way back to his wife and succeeds at this. Then he goes to London and takes a nap and when he wakes up all of the Martians are dead from a bacteria. After that, he talks about how he is going to continue with his life after this disaster.

I think in this book the setting is very important. H.G.Wells always goes into excruciating detail and tries to explain exactly what he sees. This can at times get a bit tedious because of the extreme detail rather than using  flashy literary tools like similes and metaphors. Although sometimes the book does have its fair share of flashy language, it often feels cold and slow. I also feel that I do not like the plot that much because  when you describe  it in a simple form, like I did, it seems bland. What I do like about this book is the creativity that went into it. This book was written from 1895 to 1897, and it is incredible how spot on H.G. Wells is about a lot of things like space travel and heat rays. This is part of what gives the book its charm. The second thing that is in the book that I like is the fact that the narrator is a philosophical writer. This means that when he makes decisions he thinks about them in excruciating detail, and there are some hard decisions that he must make. He also uses his mind to try to figure out what the Martians want.  And H.G. Wells is very good about leaving mystery around the aliens.

I would recommend this book to other science fiction lovers because it shows some of the first science fiction writing involving extraterrestrials. This book gave a look into what wouldn’t be achieved for about 60 years. It is an amazing book but at some points it gets hard to read due to the amount of detail that is put into describing the scene. But if you love science fiction or even philosophy I would strongly recommend this book.

The End?

DUN DUN DUUUUN!!! (Dramatic Sound Effect)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cphNpqKpKc4

Blog discussion leader

For my blog post, I am answering; chapter 5, what is revealed about the characters of Gatsby and Daisy based upon their reactions to each other when they finally meet?

In the previous chapters that we have seen Jay Gatsby, he has been portrayed as a calm and collected character. Recently in chapter 5 some other parts of his personality are shown. At 3 o'clock Gatsby arrives at Nick’s house, the event is scheduled to happen at 4 o'clock. This may show that he is very nervous and shows up early to make sure that everything is perfect when Daisy arrives. There are also obvious signs that he is sleep deprived, indicating that he has probably been thinking about the event a lot. As 4 o'clock grows closer, he started to become more and more anxious. Gatsby says that he is going home because he thinks  that nobody is coming to tea. Nick talks him out of going home, and Gatsby sits down and looks miserable.

When Daisy arrives Gatsby disappears for a moment only to reappear at the front door after Daisy enters the house. I think that there are two reasons that Gatsby momentarily disappeared, one of the reasons may be that, for a brief moment, he got really nervous and ran, or he wanted to make it look like Daisy arrived before him. When Gatsby enters the living room Daisy instantly recognizes him and starts trying to talk to him. Gatsby acts shy towards Daisy. In the time that follows, awkwardness starts to grow more and more between Daisy and Gatsby. Nick tries to leave the two to be alone, but they both follow him. The tension grows until Nick leaves the two together for about 30 minutes. When Nick goes back to the house, Daisy is crying and Gatsby is “glowed without a word or exultation”. In that time, Gatsby and Daisy spent together they had become comfortable with each other and revealed their feelings for each other.

From this part of the story, we can tell alot about Gatsby and Daisy. Gatsby is not the cool person that can handle anything, in fact he appears to be the opposite. It shows that he is quite vulnerable when it comes to Daisy.  His shyness  shows a whole new side of him. Before this, he had not been portrayed as a person that is unable to handle talking to people. We can also tell that Daisy and Gatsby  have a lot of feelings for each other that they have kept inside of themselves. When they first met some of Daisy’s personality is shown as she starts off by asking questions that seemed like a routine. Gatsby’s acting very shy puts a awkwardness on there relationship, and Daisy starts to become more shy towards Gatsby. Later, they both become more comfortable and more open with each other.