Gallery Walk (1/30/15)

"World News"

1/30/15

Blog by: Sonny S.

     In between Syria and Iraq, a terrorist group by the name of ISIS has taken two Japanese hostages. One of the hostages is a journalist, and the other is a pilot. ISIS has killed one of the two and is demanding $200 million by January 30th, 2015. ISIS also wants a fellow suicide bomber who's detonator did not detonate the bombs, and the Japanese have captured her. Japan is requesting international help to secure the remaining hostage. The Japanese government says that if they find the other hostage dead, Japan will kill all of the ISIS members they have in jail.

   
     Meanwhile, there have been two vaccines for the virus, "Ebola" and they have been created from two different companies. They want to combine the two vaccines to make the ultimate vaccine. They companies of the vaccine are planning on testing the vaccine on some workers, since they have a weaker immune system. There is a problem, and that problem is that all these other people may have different allergies and not all antibiotics will work, but at least there is now a vaccine being tested, than none at all.

Zebra Forest (1/20/15)

Zebra Forest
Book by: Adina Rishe Gewirtz
Blog by: Sonny

1/19/15

Prompt: Write about a situation a character faces.
Spoiler Alert

     The Zebra Forest is a book taking place in the perspective of a girl named Annie. Annie lives with her brother Rew which is short for andrew, and her Grandma they call Gran. The story  takes place mostly in a forest filled with birch and oak trees, which give the look of a zebra. These trees surround a cabin in which Annie and the others live. Annie and Rew are curios kids and talk about the past, and imagine images based from stories they read.

     In the Zebra Forest, characters Annie and Rew face many situations that they will struggle to get through. A small situation is how Gran is an older person who leaves Annie and Rew in charge to help with human needs, like food. Annie and Rew can face many dangers on their own in the open world, especially because their young.

    Later on in the Zebra Forest, they come face to face with their thought to be dead father. Annie and Rew tell many stories of what their dead father might look like, and tat he was killed by an angry man. But really, the angry man was himself. Their father may have been dead, in a different way.

Zebra Forest (1/12/15)

Zebra Forest

Book by: Adina Rishe Gewirtz

Blog by: Sonny S.

Prompt: Describe a character that you would like to meet (which doesn’t mean that you

think you would like the character, but that you think the character would be

interesting). List 4 questions that you would ask.

1/12/15

     In the book, Zebra Forest, there is a character named Rew. He is a smaller character, meaning that he is not the main character, but I would love to meet him. The main character of the story is a girl named Annie, and her little brother is Rew. Rew is two years younger than Annie is, and they are opposites, but get along really well.

     Rew is a young boy who likes adventure no matter what format. He is a very smart and intelligent boy. The part I am on in the story is when Rew gets introduced to the story Treasure Island. I've read this story myself, and it's a really good book, but the way he read it was amazing. Technically Annie read the book to him, but the way Rew thinks is just an interesting way that I wouldn't have thought before. Rew is being read the book by Annie, but the first seven chapters have been torn out, so they started out on chapter eight. But not for Rew, he though and imagined the beginning of the story, and told stories and opinions of what happened at the beginning to his sister (Annie). That's what I find interesting in Rew, and that's why he is my favorite character.

     The four questions I would like to ask Rew was, how did you get so smart at such a young age. I'm a smarter kind of guy myself, but being as smart as Annie describes him when he is so young is just astonishing. Question two would be, do you like reading, I know you like pirates and all... but if it wasn't a pirate book. The third question I would ask Rew would be if Rew acts like he's on a pirate ship and sailing into some enemies and attacks them. For the final question I would ask Rew, it would be... do you have your own buried treasure?

My First Time (1/05/15)

My Fist Time

By: Sonny S.

1/05/15

     This is a story of when I fist played an acoustic guitar. I've played an electric guitar before and I loved it! I had an guitar amp and was ready to play. I had guitar picks and was playing songs after just a couple weeks! I was so excited when I received this guitar for Christmas. I enjoy playing it. Now, I encountered an acoustic guitar, I haven't played guitar in two weeks, and now I'm playing a different kind of guitar. The only difference is that I'm in public when I have the chances to play this guitar.

     When I play this acoustic guitar, I play in school. I have about twenty people in my class and I'm a little ahead of everyone else. I already know how to play songs, it's just that the transition... that feeling you get when you first pick-up a different version of something and feel like you know what you're doing, but there are differences between the two guitars.

     On the guitars, I have to feel and adjust to my environment, and the feeling I have when I get this opportunity to play. I love guitar and I'm really in it, but feeling and adjusting to this new type of guitar is a lot more different than you would think. The frets on the guitar are in slightly different places. When you play on the acoustic guitar, you also encounter some more problems. You don't know if you tune the guitar the same way. You also might have to play some songs in different areas of the neck (a neck of the guitar is where you play, not strum) due to the different sounds the guitar makes.

     I love guitar, and I will keep playing. I will hopefully be able to play both electric and acoustic one day. I will keep trying until that day comes. When I learn and know a decent amount of facts about both guitars, it'll be pretty easy to play the guitar. When that day comes, I will have time to excel in my guitar skills.

Weekly Blog (12/08/14)

Holes

Book by: 

Blog by: Sonny S.

Prompt: In few sentences, summarize what you read.

     Today, I read the book Holes. I continued from what I've read recently. Today, the part I've read that really caught my attention is that Stanley "stole" sunflower seeds. Really, Stanley didn't steal the seeds, but he did take the blame for it. He then got himself in trouble, and Mr. Sir took Stanley to the Warden. Stanley didn't know this, but the warden is actually a women. She had long nails, which she painted with dry rattlesnake venom in front of Mr. Sir and Stanley. Mr. Sir then told the warden about the incident.

     Mr. Sir told the entire thing to the warden. One thing you will learn reading this part of the story is that, the warden doesn't like to mess around... she also doesn't like people disobeying her orders/commands. Mr. Sir told the warden that he thought that Stanley actually didn't steal the sunflower seeds. The warden then basically got tired of the story and struck Mr. Sir directly on his face. He let out a great groan of pain when the dry snake venom sunk in. Mr. Sir eventually fainted and Stanley was dismissed. 

     When Stanley was dismissed, he encountered a rattlesnake himself, but he got through back to his hole with no harm. Then he seen something very weird. Stanley was looking in all his friends holes to see who was done and who wasn't. The only one who wasn't done was his friend Zero. He was looking around because his hole was already dug. Zero said he dug the hole since he took the blame. So Stanley returned the favor by teaching Zero how to read and write.  

Weekly Blog (12/01/14)

Holes

Book by: Louis Sachar

Blog by: Sonny S.
Prompt: Do you like what you’re reading? Why or why not?

     I do like reading the book Holes because it's like the real world. Many people try to teach kids and such discipline. Discipline is a huge part of life, you can't just do whatever you want without getting punished, you will be getting no where at all. Holes teaches deficient kids discipline. This detention center is like boot camp, except at Camp Green Like. The only thing is, it's not a lake anymore... it's a dried up desert.

     The book Holes brings into a third person view of a boy named, Stanley Yelnats. Stanley comes to this boot camp because of what he call his, "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather." As you can tell what he was accused of doing due to the name Stanley gives him. Stanley is now trapped with all sorts of young men eight hours away from any kind of civilization.

      At Camp Green Lake, you are forced to dig holes that are five feet deep in every direction. These holes must be five feet apart too. This seems a lot harder than it seem due to the fact that the land is now a considered a "very dried up wasteland". Stanley eventually get along with a group of friends, trying to work together to get out of their sentence, so they can finally leave Camp Green Lake.

    

   

The Best of Teen Writing of 2011 (11/17/14)

The Best of Teen Writing (11/17/14)

Book By: Myla Goldberg

Blog by: Sonny S.

Prompt:  

1) What is the mood of what you’re reading (happy, sad, funny, serious, etc.)?

Defend your idea.

2) What was going through your mind as you read?

     The mood in all of the short stories are normally happy. The mood in this story is serious. My evidence to prove that this story (The Spectrum by Kevin Hong and I've read this a while back) is serious is that it says it is serious. Well, I should rephrase myself and say that the part of the book I'm reading is serious, the scene is the serious part. It says that, ""Seriously," Bo said..." This proves that the scene is serious.

     If you're asking, "What makes this scene so serious?" Well, I'm going to answer that question. The thing that makes this scene so serious is that there is like, a stench from some paint that makes Bo feel like he has a condition. Bo says, "...my eyes feel swollen. I feel like there's a probe (A probe is like a instrument that doctors use on their patients to explore the wounded part of the body) poking around my nose. I think I'm developing a condition." The weird thing is that this happened when the crew was having lunch. The crew wasn't even painting at that time, they were eating. That's the bad thing about this, they weren't painting and Bo still took in the stench from the paint.

     As I read, I feel so anxious to read the rest of the stories. It's really cool to see all the kinds of different stories written by different people. The different types of writing types and different word choices through-out the book make you feel like you're improving very fast. It's also really cool because it's all in one book, which on my opinion was a very smart idea. This book makes me very anxious to read, and I think this is one of my favorite books, I hope I can find other versions (2012, 2013, 2014)!