Final Reflection

The three most important things I've learned his year is, work hard, don't doubt yourself, and be determined. I had plenty of fun in Mrs.Larson's ELA class, but one thing that I will always remember is when we would laugh and joke around saying vocabulary words and use them in a sentence to talk to one another. It was funny when Jorge and Isaiah would use the word debacle in the wrong way then Mrs.Larson would correct them. The class had its days where it had to be serious but we would always have fun no matter what. The people in that class are very funny and nice and try to help when they can. I remember the nicest thing someone did for me in that class is help me study so I wouldn't get a bad grade on my vocabulary test. Something I taught my classmates this year is to be happy and enjoy the time they have, whether they're popular or not. Life is too short to invest our time in people that don't care for our wellbeing. Just live life and don't worry about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow. Go with the flow and everything will be okay.
    I feel like I made the biggest improvement in the way I write and annotate articles or passages. In the beginning of the year I didn't know how annotate how I do now. Now I write things down, ask questions, I think more, and it's all thanks to Mrs.Larson’s ELA class. Even though things got hard I still persevered and got through it. One thing that was challenging this year was the vocabulary because they were words I never really understood or knew what they meant. I think the best piece of writing I did this year was my “I believe” speech. I believe that is my best because that speech shows how I really am and what I'm interested in. That speech let me express my feelings and myself more than anything else I have ever done. Out of all the books I read this year I'd have to say The Giver was one of the best books I have ever read because it gave me another perspective of the world and that we should appreciate the memories we have with people no matter if we never got along with them.
    The advice I would give students in this class next year is that to work hard, have a great bond or friendship with Mrs.Larson, because even though she is strict, she is a very fun person and she's only strict because she doesn't want to see you fail. She is one of the teachers that would never give up on you no matter what.

Heat & Texas article Blog

Do immigrants choose to stay away from police or anyone that works with the government because they're afraid they might get deported? This question relates to both the article Texas announces lawsuit against local officials considered hostile toward 'sanctuary cities' ban, and the book Heat, because in the article, immigrants are scared, and distant with the police. In the book however, the main characters do not stay away from the police, they just make sure that they limit their conversation with a police officer in case they ever have to talk with one.

In both the article, and book, they share information about immigrants a different way. In the book, I recall that the main characters, Michael, his brother Carlos, and his friend Manny were discussing how they were going to talk to Mr.Lima without him finding out they were Cuban immigrants.”They definitely asked you for Michael’s last name?” Carlos asked Manny. “I thought about giving them a middle name or something, just to throw them off for now,” Manny said. “But if they found out later I'd lie about something that easy to find out, I figured they'd be asking themselves why I lied about something that easy to find out” (page 58). This quote shows how Carlos and Michael are afraid of getting discovered by the police or government that they're immigrants. Michael looks at New York as his home, and as his chance to actually accomplish his goal of making it to the Little league Baseball series.

In the article there are many ways that show people are distant from the police and that they're afraid to ask for their help because they're afraid they might get deported. In the article it states that people are standing up for their freedom no matter if they're immigrants, and one person mentions that people are distant from police nowadays because they fear them. “We want them to help us solve crimes… I'm afraid that people will shy away from the police altogether.” This quote shows how the government/leaders fear people getting distant with the police just because they're immigrants. They want them to feel safe in their country or state, they don't want them to worry about deportation.

MLA Citations:

Lupica, Mike. Heat. New York: Puffin , 2012. Print.

Jarvie, Jenny . "Texas announces lawsuit against local officials considered hostile toward 'sanctuary cities' ban." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 11 May 2017.

Heat Blog

In the book Heat, by Mike Lupica, there is a character named Ramon and another character named Michael. The book started off with Ramon, a 16 year old boy that lived in New York. He was a troublemaker, he was a thief, he would go around stealing people's money so that later on in his day he'd spend the money on a girl of his choice. One day Ramon was bored and decided to go steal someone else's money. He stole this old lady's purse and ran off with it. The lady told a police officer and the officer ran after Ramon, but he was too slow to catch him. Ramon ran past a park with a baseball field, there was a kid named Michael. Michael was a good baseball player, he was really good at pitcher. Michael saw Ramon running and he saw the police officer running after Ramon. Michael threw his baseball at Ramon, hitting him behind the head. Ramon fell and blacked out, when he woke up, the officer put him in handcuffs and walked away with him. Michael continued on. He went to home to home to his brother Carlos. Michael and Carlos are both Cuban, they're immigrants and are trying to hide the fact that they can't be staying unless they have papers. Carlos, Michael's brother, is 17 years old and is waiting to turn 18 so he can get papers for him and his brother Michael. A few days later Michael goes to play baseball against his friend Manny, this girl watched them play. Michael went to her as soon as him and Manny had finished playing but while Michael headed towards her, she started to run away.  A couple days past and now Michael and Manny met up to play baseball again. The same girl was watching them, Michael threw the ball over to her trying to let her know if she wanted to play. She threw it back and then headed over to them. They played for a couple of hours and then the officer that arrested Ramon showed up with man named Mr.Lima, he was looking for Michael because they had heard how good he was. Michael told Manny to tell the men he wasn't able to stay, he chased after the girl that watched them play. Her name was Ellie, she was a really good pitcher like Michael. Since Michael's dad is dead, is hard for him to get around. Mr.Lima talked to Michael and told him to tell his father to call him or email him directly, but since his father is dead, he has no one to help him out.

Throughout all the chapters I've read Ramon hasn't came out, so why did the book start off with Ramon then transitioned to Michael. I wonder if Ramon was just a person in the book to present us to Michael or if he actually serves a purpose. Does Michael meet him later on in the book or does Ramon work with Mr.Lima. It did mention in the book Ramon runs really fast so it might even be possible if he is in a baseball team and goes against Michael's team.

I think the characters can be realistic because they're all human and nothing is fiction about this story. The characters in this book face real life situations like being an immigrant, growing up with nothing and having a hard and painful past and finally getting ahead in life. The characters have hobbies and jobs they have to do throughout the day. Michael, Manny, and Ellie play baseball. Carlos has to work and make money for his little brother. Although Michael's dad isn't really a main character he was still a character, he died and in life people die. It's part of life, therefore, I think these characters can be real.

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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