Independent Reading- Reading skills

I am reading the book The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks. Before I started reading the book I thought the book was going to be about a good time in a characters life. I made this prediction based on the illustration on the cover and the title. The cover image was the front porch of a house. I feel like this represents life because there would be alot of memories there. The title "The Best of Me" made me think that it was referring to the best time in a characters life because that time period is when they would be the best version of themselves. The first line of the book is "For Dawson Cole, the hallucinations began after the explosion on the platform, on the day he should have died." This line I think was a very good first line of a book because it instantly made me interested. I started to wonder if Dawson Cole had been in the military. I also wondered if anyone else died and how the hallucinations were affecting him. A text to world connection I made is in the book Dawson Cole experienced an oil storage tank exploding, and this also happens a lot in the world today like the oil spill in the ocean. A text to text connection is in the book Dawson suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and I read an article that talked about soldiers who are coming home from being deployed and are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

Independent Reading- Theme and Summary

The theme of The fault in Our Stars is live your life to the fullest because you don't know how long you have left. This theme is developed throughout the book as Hazel tries to experience a lot of things before she dies. The theme is strongly supported when Augustus dies and he did not get to do everything he wanted to do in life. This book is about a teenage girl named Hazel who has cancer. She meets a guy named Augustus at a support group. They both know what it is like to be a teenager battling cancer. They bond over this and they fall in love. The story is about their struggle with cancer through their relationship. Towards the end of the book Augustus's cancer gets worse and this changes their relationship. To find out what happens you should read this book.

Independent Reading- Analysis

In The Fault In Our Stars, the author reveals information on the main character, Hazel, through her thoughts. I think the setting impacted the story greatly. When Hazel was in Indianappolis she had a fairly normail life because she lived in a normal city. When Hazel and Augustus traveled to Amsterdam, a city with exciting new things, they were both happy and they fell in love. I think the setting of Amsterdam made them fall in love becasue it was a new enviorment and they were able to experience it together. The theme of live your life to the fulllest because you never know how long you will have left is developed throughout the text. As Hazel gets closer to the end of her life she starts wanting to do more with her life like go to Amsterdam. When Augustus dies, as the reader we can see all the things Augustus didnt get to do in his short life through Hazels thoughts. A line I found particurally interesting in the book is "The book ends in the middle of a". (pg.49) This quote is when Hazel is describing her favorite book. I like how the author ended that quote in the middle of the sentence to show that Hazels favorite book ends in the middle of a sentence. I have never seen an author use this technique and I really liked it. I also liked how the author used a lot of imagery in the book. An example is "The land seemed sunk into the ocean, little rectangles of green surrounded on all sides by canals." (pg. 155) I think its important for an author to include imagery in their story because it allows the reader to make a mental picture of the story in their head.

Independent Reading - Characters

I read the book A Walk to Remember. In the book Landon, a bad boy who is mean to anyone that is not considered popular, changes throughout the book. Landon meets a girl named Jamie. She is not considered popular. He slowly falls in love with her as she helps him practice lines for a school play. Landon learns that popularity isn't important because his old friends ditched him because he was dating Jamie. Landon finds out towards the end of the book that Jamie has cancer. This completely changes Landons outlook on life and he tries to do everything for Jamie. When Jamie passes away Landon considers her his angel because she completely changed his look out on life. Landon is a dynamic character and a round character because he changes over time.

independent reading- Reading skills

I read the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett. As I was reading this book I continued to ask myself if the characters in The Help would continue to get mistreated. This book foccused on discrimination in America. A text to world connection I made is that there is discrimination going on in places today including South Africa. A text to text connection that I made was The Diary of Anne Frank. Like The Host, this book includes discrimination against a group of people and the story is told by one of the victims of the discrimination. A text to self connection I made is that like the character Minnie in the book, it is hard for me to trust people once they have done something wrong to me. This is seen when Minnie is asked to share her stories on what it is like to be treated the way she is. Minnie is relunctant to share her stories because she can get in trouble if someone finds out thier her stories and she doesnt know if she can trust the writers of the book because she is a white woman who was harsh to her in the past. As I was reading the book I predicted that Aibileen would get caught and go to prison. My prediction was wrong. Aibileen was not caught and it was a happy ending.

Independent Reading- Theme and Summary

I read the book The Hunger Games. This book is about about a country with 12 districts. In this country, every year, they have a fight to death called the hunger games. Katniss Everdeen has a little sister named Prim. Prim gets chosen to be one of the tributes for the hunger games. Katniss volunteers to take her place. The book is about Katniss's battle to survive in the arena against the other tributes. The theme of this book would be Enjoy life no matter what its like because it can change for the worse in an instant. I think the theme is this because in the beginning of the book Katniss's life is not great. She lives in a poor part of the country and she has to work very hard just to get food and other basic items for her family. Katniss does not appreciate her life at this time. She only sees the bad things about her life. Once Katniss gets put into the hunger games she starts to feel differently about life. The reader can gather this information from her thoughts. Katniss is trying really hard to stay alive in the arena. Life is a constant battle in the arena. She misses her life back home in district 12. Although her life wasnt great at home, it was still alot better than it was in the arena. This shows the life lesson that Katniss learned;  Enjoy life no matter what its like because it can change in an instant.

Independent Reading- Book recomendation

I read the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This book is about a country with 12 districts. In this country, every year, they have a fight to death called the hunger games. Katniss Everdeen has a little sister named Prim. Prim gets chosen to be one of the tributes for the hunger games. Katniss volunteers to take her place. The book is about Katniss's battle to survive in the arena against the other tributes. If you want to know what happens you should read this book. I would rank this book an 8 out of 10.

Independent reading-Reading skills

For the book The Host I made predictions throughout the book. In the beginning I thought that Wanda would be taken over by Melanie and Wanda would be taken out of the host body. This prediction was not correct because Melanie did not have enough power to do this. In the middle of the book I thought that Jared would kill Wanda when she showed up at the underground cave. He did not kill her and then I started to wonder how Jamie would react to her prescence in the cave. I thought that he would be curious and this turned out to be true. Jamie snuck to the end of the cave where Wanda was and was spyingon her because he wanted to know more. I predicted after that, that the humans would be captured by the seekers. Although a seeker did find them, they were not captured. I wonder why the other seekers let that seeker go looking for the humans by herself? I think this book relates to the world because the humans judge Wanda by what she is not who she is. This relates to the world because often racism occurs and people judge what a person is like based on what they look like. This book also reminds me of the book Twilight. Like The Host, Twilight has an "alien" or not real species in the novel. In both books the main character fallls in love with someone that isnt thier species and who are dangerous. The Host relates to me because Wanda does in the book, I form my opinions on people based on thier actions and character.

Independent reading- Analysis

Conflict in the book The Host is what helps the reader get to know the characters. You get to know Melanie through internal conflict between her and Wanda. The author uses both internal and external conflict to have the reader get to know Wanda. The internal conflict that Wanda experiences is the disagreements between her and her body who is Melanie. The external conflicts that she experiences are the ones with the other humans. An example of one of Wandas external conflicts is when Kyle tries to kill her. Wanda was able to defend herself and he fell into the rushing rapids of the underground river. He is about to drown in the river but Wanda saves him. I think the author was trying to show the reader through that conflict that Wanda is a very caring person because she didnt hold a grudge against Kyle and she risked her life for Kyles. An example of an internal conflict that Wanda faces is when she has to decide if she wants to tell the humans how to turn an alien back into a human. Wanda struggles with both the pros and cons of this decision. She finally decides to tell the humans how to do it. This reveals that Wanda is a very unselfish person and very ethical because she did the morally right thing even though it did not benefit her. The author uses imagrey when describing the conflict which really adds to the story. As readers we can then picture what is happening. For example when the conflict between Kyle and Wanda happend, the author described sound,touch, vision, and smell so that the reader could picture it.The following link helps explain why imagrey is important and why you should include it in your writing like Stephanie Meyer did when she wrote The Host.  http://poeticvine.hubpages.com/hub/The-Importance-of-Imagery-in-Writing

Theme of The swimming contest

Friendship can still exist through hard times. 

We said this because even though the two characters on opposing sides of war, they still were going to swim together in the end which shows their lasting friendship. 

Independent reading-Book recomendation

I read the book The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I would recommend this book to young adults who like mystery, action, and romance books. I think this book is very good because you are always on the edge of your seat wandering what will happen next. I think this is important because it keeps you from getting bored. The Host is about the future of the earth is taken over by another species. This species thrives by living in a human host body. The story begins with most humans already captured but a few remain in hiding. Melanie Strider is one of the remaining humans. She gets captured and Wanda, an alien, gets put in her body. But there is a problem, Melanie is still present in the mind of the body. If you want to know what happens you should read this book.
I would compare this book to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Just like The Host, Twilight keeps you on the edge of your seat and they are both mystery and romance books. If you liked Twilight you will definately like this book.

Independent reading- Theme and Summary

The theme of The Host by Stephanie Meyer is don't judge someone by what they are but by who they are. This theme develops over the text because Melanie, Jared, and the other humans start to like Wanda even though she is an alien. They start to let go of the stereotypes and judge Wanda by who she is not what she is. Wanda begins to do the same thing with the humans because in the beginning she thinks all humans do things violently and by the end she realizes not all humans are like that. A specific detail that shows that Wanda is not like the rest of her species is when she saves Kyle's life even though he tried to kill her. Another detail is that Wanda gave Melanie her body back which none of the humans thought that an alien would ever do. A summary of the end of the book is Wanda and Melanie start to like each other. Wanda begins to feel guilty for taking Melanie's body so she decides she is going to give it back. The humans are all shocked and thankful to Wanda for this. This supports the theme because it shows who Wanda really is.
The following link takes you to a short story which I feel further describes how Wanda might have felt when people wrongly judged her.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/dontjudgeabook

Independent reading-Characters

The main characters in the book The Host is Wanda and Melanie Strider. In the beginning Wanda is very loyal to her species and has no sympathy for the humans. As Wanda begins to interact with Melanie through memories and thoughts, she starts to see the world by a humans perspective. Wanda then decided to go to where the rest of the humans are and turn against her species so that she can help Melanie. This is really revealing of Wanda's character. In the beginning of the book I didnt really like Wanda because I sympathized with the humans and Wanda was against humans. Wanda is a dynamic and round character because she is a fully developed character who changes throughout the book. Melanie in the beginning of the book despises the aliens and is loyal only to her family. As she gets to know Wanda she starts to like Wanda. Even though Melanie was always taught to hate aliens, she loves Wanda because she did great things for her. Melanie shows that she can judge someone by their personality and not what they are. The characters really learned who they really are when they got put in difficult situations. When Wanda saved Kyle's life even though he tried to kill her, showed she is genuinely a good person. The author revealed the characters personalities by the actions they do and their interactions with other characters.

Summer reading

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Rank: 7

The Fault in Our Stars is about a teenage girl named Hazel who is batteling cancer. Hazel meets Agustus in a support group and soon they fall in love. Agustus is facing cancer also so they bond over that. The rest of  the book is about the struggle that each of them face as they go through thier life with cancer. The theme of The Fault in Our Stars is live your life to the fullest because you dont know how long you have left.