3rd Quarter Reflections

In 3rd quarter, I had the chance to read Night by Elie Wiesel. It was a really good book to read, I learned a lot from it. I would say this is my favorite book that I read this quarter because I feel like I had the chance to learn more about a very serious topic that happened. The Holocaust is something I knew nothing about, but after reading it I really learned a lot about what was going on during the time of the Holocaust. It was really interesting to learn about it but it was very sad because of all the tragic events that happened.

    In English Language Arts, I think I made my biggest improvements on just staying on task more. At the start of the year I would get distracted easily and wouldn’t care because I didn't really want to do anything. Thanks to my teacher Mrs.Larson I was actually able to get back on track. If it wasn’t  for her caring about how I did in school/ her class, I wouldn’t have got this far.

    This quarter, I have accomplished my knowledge on the Holocaust. Before this quarter, I knew nothing about the Holocaust or what it was, but having the chance to go to the Holocaust museum, create a butterfly about the topic, read the book Night, and study this topic, I was able to understand what happened during this time in history. We spent a lot of time in class learning about this, and I enjoyed it because I love learning about the past and what happened. I'm just so glad I got the experience to see how lives were during this time.

    The most challenging part of 3rd quarter for me was the vocabulary tests. In the beginning of the year, I got excellent grades, but I think I’ve been slacking on my tests and haven't been studying as much as I should be. To improve my test scores, I can find more time to study for a while maybe every day or every other day to get better grades.

Life is beautiful vs. Night

While reading Night, and watching Life is Beautiful, I was able to find many similarities and differences between the two and was able to get a better understanding of what the prisoners went through while being in concentration camps.

    One of the main similarities that I found between this film and the novel, was a father and son relationship. In both, you were able to see how much care and love is between the father and son. I also noticed in both the film and the novel, the prisoners had a number assigned to them, which would be their new identification, it was like a tattoo in their arm, which was basically their identification. They showed that in the movie they had the numbers put into their arms, and in Night, Elie even told the number he was assigned while being a prisoner in the concentration camp. I also saw a difference within the similarity itself. The difference was that in the book Night, it was Elie taking care of his father, and feeding him incase he needed help, but in the movie Life is beautiful it's the father taking care of the son and feeding him incase he didn’t have enough to eat.

    In Life is Beautiful, Mussolini was the leader, while in Night, Hitler was the leader. One difference I noticed was that in the movie, you can definitely tell they tried staying positive. The father tried making the concentration camp seem fun for his son because he didn't want his child to be scared or worried because he was too little to be worrying about things like that. He wanted to have positivity. Also, in the beginning of the movie, it was a love story, everybody was happy, until they finally got taken away to go to the concentration camp. Even while being in the concentration camp, the father tried looking on the bright side of things to still try to have a positive life for him, and his son even though they were suffering and going through very bad and harsh times. While in the novel, they had to accept the fact that they were part of the Holocaust and had to live with these bad conditions no matter what. No matter if they tried to imagine the place as something else or making the best of it, they couldn’t because 1) Things were too hard, 2) The kids were old enough to understand what was going on.

    Sense of humor paragraph - While watching the movie, there was so much positivity and humor being spread. As stated in previous the paragraph, in the movie, the family stayed positive even while knowing they were going through terrible times. They tried making the place seem as friendly as possible. Life was shown as beautiful in this movie, I noticed lots of colors to show happiness, and they took care of their family. What I mean by took care of their family is that the father made sure his wife and son were taken care of and that he always looked on the bright side of their life to make his family happy. Even in the concentration camp he made his son, and wife happy. He’d play the song him and his wife heard in the play, and he went on  the loudspeaker with his son so his wife could hear. He did all this to reach out to his wife to show her that he still thought about her and that he will do anything possible to make sure she was happy.

Night Blog

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie changed a lot in many ways. His personality changed a lot since the beginning of the book. In the beginning Elie was a kid that was always about positivity, he never focused on the negative and always thought positive because he believed that if you thought positive, then positive things came. Although towards the end of the story he wasn't the same. He stopped caring about many things, he didn't cry about anything because he had been through so much, he didn't care about his life nor anyone else's. “I have nothing to say of my life during this period. It no longer mattered. After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more” (Elie 107). This quote shows how he doesn't care about anything including his life.

Elie’s beliefs have changed so much since the beginning. He was very pious at first but then he changed once he felt god was no longer by his side. He stopped believing because he believed god could stop evil and the negative, but since Elie didn't see it happening he stopped believing in his god that he once used to pray to every night/everyday. “Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent” (Elie 31). This quote shows how he has gave up on believing in God. He says god is silent because he is not doing anything about the problem. He stops believing in him because of the same reason that god won't help the people getting mistreated or killed. He is staying silent.

The way Elie knew right from wrong changed quick. In the beginning of the story he was a very calm, humble and caring. By the end he is still the same, he cares, is humble, but he isn't calm anymore. He would get angry whenever the Nazi's would hurt his father or any Jew in anyway. He grew so much hate for the Nazi's and couldn't stand living understand terrible conditions. “I began to abuse his neighbors. They laughed at me. I promised them bread and soup. They laughed” (Elie 104). Elie abused some men that were near his father because they'd hit his father even though they knew he was ill but they did not care and they hit him and took his bread. Elie got mad so he abused the men. It showed that Elie wasn't calm and got furious really quickly, and this shows how his mood or morality changed from the beginning to the end.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam , 1982. Print.

Butterfly Project

"Dusk"

The dusk flew in on the wings of evening . . .
From whom do you bring me a greeting?
Will you kiss my lips for him?
How I long for the place where I was born!

Perhaps only you, tranquil dusk,
know of the tears shed in your lap
from eyes that long to see
the shade of palms and olive trees
in the land of Israel.

Perhaps only you will understand
this daughter of Zion,
who weeps
for her small city on the Elbe*
but if afraid ever to return to it.
  -Anonymous
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Holocaust Restriction

What I learned was that the Nazi's restricted many things from the Jews. Jews slowly became poor because of how much restrictions they had put on them. Poor was how Nazi's wanted to see Jews and Hitler made sure of it. They would take their homes, furniture, family, and money. Many people would be sent to concentration camps, many were killed or tortured. A concentration camp is a camp where they send kids and adults and their they torture them and they live in very bad conditions. There is up to 3 people in one single bed and the beds are like bunk beds. There is no mattress just wood.

I think the monument was built to show people or to teach people how or what those people were facing back at that time. Most likely to honor those people that fought for what was right and not wrong. People were dying and being harmed each day and those that fought for the right things are the heros they are honoring. Standing up for what's right at that time was hard because if people didn't let Nazi's do what they wanted to or refused to do what they were told to they got beat or tortured.

What I noticed about the number of laws passed in certain years is that some were irrelevant. What I mean by that is that it some laws made no sense at all. Jews were even restricted from having pets, buying bread, and going out after 8pm. Like what kind of laws are those? People have the freedom to anything want and they shouldn't be taken away because of their culture,religion, or race. Nazi's made it so hard for Jews to get what they wanted in life and the laws were just unnecessary. Nazi's just wanted money but that's not the way they should have done it. They could have talked it out but since Hitler was full of hate is way of talking was violence.

I think the hardest restriction was Jews not being able to graduate. If Jews weren't allowed to graduate that means they can't go to college to get a better education. Without education they can't find good jobs and since Nazi’s were taking away things from Jews, those Jews that at least had good jobs had good money meaning they can still support themselves pretty well. Since their homes were getting taken away most Jews couldn't do anything. The ones with money had the chance to move to another country but the ones with little money couldn't. This is why the education for those that weren't able to graduate was very important. Nazi’s took away their permissions away very slowly and they restricted so much that Jews were poor afterwards. They weren't able to do anything for a long amount of time. Jews of course were very frustrated because they were powerless while Nazi's had all their money. All those kids that were supposed to graduate didn't because of Nazi's they and those kids could have gotten jobs and probably even found out ways of how to get money even Nazi's took some away. The education for these people was important but thanks to Nazi's they had no future.

Quarter two

Out of all the books that I have read this quarter my favorite one is Ever lost. The book is about these two families that crashed their cars into each other and their kids flew out the window and into a forest. In that forest they met a boy that has been living there since he was very young. Since no one else was there with him he never used his name and after a while he forgot it and never remembered it again.

I think that I made the biggest improvement in vocabulary. I say this because even though it was the last day of quarter two I got a good grade on my vocabulary test. I only had a negative three points and before I've had negative ten or eight. I think I have improved because of the studying I have done at home. If you're having trouble on your vocabulary quizzes I highly suggest you study more to get the grade you're looking for.

The hardest part for me in quarter two was the vocabulary quizzes. No matter how much I studied them I would never get a good grade. The main reason I think it was hard for me to get a good grade was because I only studied alone and when you study with multiple people they can test you on the words. So if you have trouble by yourself try studying with more than one person.

Book Talk

I am reading "Wonder" by R J Palacio, a fiction book.

     The story mainly takes place in two different places. One is in the character's house and at school. The main character in the book that I'm reading is August. August was born with a disability, and looks very different than the other kids. Nobody talks to August because of the way he looks and because he's different from them. August is described as scary looking, so far in the book there hasn't been a solution to this problem yet but the problem is August's disability. If it weren't for this, he would have a normal life just like every other kid does too. The whole mood or theme changes in the story. I mainly find it sad because no body talks to August just because of the way he looks or his disability, everyone is the same no matter what. The theme of this text/story is not to judge someone by how they look, people are judging August because of how he looks/disability, and they even called scary looking which is worse. People just judge by appearance not by who you are.

I like this book because it gets you wanting to read more of it. In every chapter the author gives everybody's point of view. The point of views he gives are from, August, his classmates, family, and more. With the author doing that you can see how everybody feels while this problem is going on. I recommend some people to read this book because it is honestly read good.