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)!

The Best Teen Writing of 2011 (11/10/14)

The Best Teen Writing of 2011

Book By: Myla Goldberg

Blog By: Sonny S.

Prompts: 

1- Analyze the impact word choice has on the meaning or tone of a text.

2- Analyze how dialogue or specific incidents reveal information about characters. Make sure to include textual evidence.

     In, The Best Teen Writing of 2011, the teens use an excellent word choice. These young teens use words based on the setting of their story. All these students wrote short stories. In these short stories... they try to bring out as much potential in their writing as possible. Based on what I've read so far, their writing is the best during conflict. The conflicts of the story are very climatic and have a great amount of potential. This is why I like the conflict in their short stories.

     Events in this story can really give off some great detail. Arguments are the best parts of the short stories because of all the details. People in the stories can really show their true personality because of these details. It's the arguments that really can spark the light of the personality of the person.

This book is a great book for analyzing key details to the story. There are also several different stories, which can help you adjust to characters and the personality of their characters. Overall, this book can really help you with your reading skills, and will help you see all the different events that can take place in a book.

Reflection on Poe (11/7/14)

Reflecting on Poe

Blog by: Sonny S.

     Poe is a very detailed writer. He loves to write short stories. These stories may be short, but really detailed. One story I've read of his recently was, "The Tell-Tale Heart." That story is very detailed, but brings a very... malevolent, nefarious, and an ugly image. I think his writing is insanity. This-this thing, takes him over! Insanity! Insanity. This story might have been about a man with hysteria, a psychopathy mental disorder.

     Before I read about Poe, (http://www.poemuseum.org) I didn't know that he had a very hard life. His life has been so treacherous! His parents died when he was around three years old. He was taken by the Allans, who were wealthy tobacco farmers. The Allan's fostered Edgar (Poe's first name was Edgar) while he was growing up. Once he became older, he tried to go to school. While he was in school, his girlfriend had went with another man in Edgar's absence. His life has been, pretty problematic. Which is the reason I think why Poe writes very detailed and dark stories.

     So what genre does Poe write about? Poe writes like a poetry horror. If you've ever heard of Stephen King, you'll know where King has gotten his writing from. Poe wrote his stories in the 1800's. When Poe died (October 7th, 1849), someone needed to keep it going. Now there are all kinds of horror novels and books and short stories. All kinds a poems and all kinds of different writing, but there's one well-known person who writes horror. That is Stephen King, so you now can see that Poe has inspired many. But what inspired his writing?

     The events that took place in Poe's life were, like I said before, they were harsh. His life was unfortunately unfortunate. So that is probably what inspired his writing. The bad things equal bad ideas, but Poe was smart... he couldn't avoid the negative ideas, but instead, he used the negative ideas to make pessimistic or, negative writing. The writing is very good and detailed, but brings a negative atmosphere. Which I kind of like. He basically mixed the good and the bad, the happy and the sad.

     Overall, I think that Poe is a very inspirational man. Poe can inspire anyone who likes or loves to write. Poe may have went through a very long and harsh life, but it did eventually pay off. He is now a very famous man, he may not see it now, but he certainly can feel it. My opinion on Poe was he was a great writer.

   

The Best Teen Writing of 2011 (11/3/14)

The Best Teen Writing of 2011

(Yes, I know it's 2014)

By: Myla Goldberg

Blog By: Sonny S.
Prompt(s):
Do any of the characters feeling change as you’ve read? Explain why or why
not.
Do you like what you’re reading? Why or why not?

In, The Best Teen Writing of 2011, I do feel characters change. In this book, it shows all of the best stories that teens have written. This means that there are several different characters. In the stories, I feel that sometimes the people can be a little picky, but ending up being the nicest person ever! People of all kinds write these stories, and in real life... people will change, overtime that is, but they do change. I like to see the different perspectives of people, all kinds people and writing styles. This is an excellent book to practice characterization, and other items like that.

I love ready, The Best Teen Writing of 2011. The reason why I love reading this book is because you get to see all kinds of perspectives from all kinds of different people. I find this interesting because everyone has a different writing style than the next guy. This book is very interesting because of this. The word choice people use makes their stories very detailed. Myla G. (the author) had a very good idea to put together all kinds of stories and writing styles.

Overall, this book can really help people practice characterization and other item under the category of Literature. I find this book very, very interesting because of it. I am astonished by the writing in this book and would love to read more books like this. This book will teach you all kinds of things... and you might not even know it. This book is also very enjoyable! So that's the reason I would give this book a positive review overall.