2015 Goals

I want to maintain a B and above grade this quarter and make honor rolls. I want to achieve this because I want to extend to my full potential. I will achieve this goal by studying to every exam and set smaller self goals. I will also get on time to my classes and pay attention.
A personal goal that I want to achieve is reading more books. I want to achieve this goal because I also want to expand in my vocabulary. I will achieve this goal by reading more and reading about other books too.

The boy who dared summary/reading strategies

After finishing up this book, I realized that this whole book wrapped up very good. Although it may be non-fiction, this book left you thinking. Continuing my latest summary, Helmuth and his two friends, along with his followers, get arrested by the gestapo. They are each charged with treason and each given the years that corresponded to their crimes they committed. After Helmuth spent over a year, he was killed in guillotine.
A reading strategy that I use often is the character analysis. By practicing this strategy, it helps me understand more and more about the main character and the side characters and how they feel about what is going on throughout the book. It also helps me make predictions about the book and how I feel the character would act in such situation. I like using this strategy when I read especially when reading "The boy who dared" because it really made me feel like I was in Helmuth shoe's and gave me a taste of what he was going through and the battles he had to face. Also let me have predictions on what I would think Helmuth would do in future situations.

The Boy Who Dared summary/signpost

The boy who dared starts off with him in a cell somewhere where he has flashbacks to when Hitler rose to power. It shows how Helmuth likes and enjoys practicing his religion but soon fades when he hear Hitler's convincing speeches and persuasive words to save the fatherland. Soon after he's out of middle school, he is forced to join the Hitler youth. Helmuth does enjoy the activities the youth does but still hate the idea and grows on hating Hitler even more. So much that he has had enough. He and 2 of his friends made small information pamphlets about the war going on, and what Hitler's real plan is. Inspired by the radio station Verboten, he buts these pamphlets all over town. Everything was going good until he gets caught by a secret agency to end any source or rebellion towards Nazism.

While reading this book, I came across many A-ha moments through out the book. When Helmuth was young around middle school, it shows how he really did like what Hitler had to say and what his idea was. When the A-ha moment came to place, and Helmuth realized and found out what Hitler's real plan was and real turned his mentality on Hitler and what he though of him completely changed. I realized that this was one of many Helmuth's A-ha moments because through out the book he explains that now he realizes what he has planned, and Helmuth actually does something about it. Which really leads me to the question of why he would risk his life and stand up for the jews and what injustice was happening. It really puzzles me because being a kid, with friends and people who love him, why would he risk his good life that he has to a problem that doesn't have anything to do with him, let alone affect him?

Holocaust blog post

I believe that people were bystanders because they kind of grew into it. Some of the part is maybe because it wasn't their problem and it didn't affect them. It is pretty easy understand that if it isn't your problem, then you shouldn't put much thought into it. Even if they didn't want to make a change, they couldn't because they were probably scared to or didn't want anyone to think something else about them. I also believe that those who did stand up was because they were fed up with the situation and didn't really care about what other people thought about them. Maybe they were inspired to do such thing because they saw someone else do it. I really don't know what I would do in a situation like this because I wouldn't think much of it if it wasn't affecting me, but if it was, I would try and do something IF I wasn't to scared to do so in the first place. Because some those who were affected by the Holocaust were scared for their lives because anything you would say that would sound disrespectful, the Nazi's wouldn't hesitate to kill a Jew.

Holocaust Paragraph

I believe that many people didn’t even realize what was happening and when they did, everyone else agreed in what Hitler thought about them and they just didn’t want to stand out and call a whole society wrong. I also think that those who did stand up to the Nazis were because they were tired of seeing all these injustices happening to the Jewish people. Honestly I don’t know what I would of done, because if I had a family I wouldn’t risk getting arrested. Only if the injustice was happening directly to me or any of my family members then I guess I would have to.

The Leanin' Dog Summary/Plot

This book is about a young girl around the age of eleven by the name of Dessa Dean. Starts off with her and her dad living in the icy mountains of Colorado. Just another normal day, she explains. Turns out she was a weird fear or phobia of being alone outside due to her mother's tragic death in a blizzard. After her mother's death, Dessa Dean was all alone. Her mother was her role model, and her best friend. Typical father who only stays at work, rips Dessa Deans heart when she needs him the most and he just stays at work. Dessa Dean was sure she would never be happy again. Until on cold day when her father was out getting fire wood, she hears scratchings at the door just to find out it is a chocolate lab starring at her. It took her another couple encounters for her to finally accept the dog. She has so much fun just like she did with her mother. Little by little the hole in her heart is filled with her dog's love.
Out of many interesting parts of the book, the part that really stood out to me was the part when Dessa Dean's dog is scared away by her father out of rage, the dog runs into the white snowy forest. Little did she know that there was a big blizzard about to start while her dog was still out there. Dessa Dean overcame her big fear of going out farther than her porch and even more because there was about to be a big snow storm. I really found this part interesting because it shows how much love Dessa had for her dog. The falling actions leading after this was also a big problem because after Dessa had found her dog, it was already to late and the storm was so strong he got lost in the woods. I have yet to find out the resolution but I am pretty sure that Dessa's father will find them because throughout the book the dog had always barked loudly. Maybe towards the end of the book, her dog will also bark out for help and they will be found.

Assessment

• Paragraph 1: What was the argument in the article? What evidence did they give to back up this claim? What do you think about the issue? What did you learn that was surprising/interesting/upsetting?
• Paragraph 2: What was the argument in the poem? What evidence did they give to back up this claim? How was reading the poem different than the article? How did this form affect the meaning or your understanding of the poem?

The article I am reading is called "Don't buy Nike". The argument in this article is that the workers in the factory are being physically abused an they are being extremely underpaid for their work and their hours they put in. I know this because throughout the article, it explains how workers only earn 1.25 a day from a hard days work. They workers also state that they are working in very hot conditions in the factory. I really don't agree with the terms or the things that the workers have to go through in order to make this meager amount of money. What really upsets me is that the problem also comes and still exist is because the government doesn't do anything to help and prevent the problem. They can do many things to stop and prevent it by doing sweeps of suspicious buildings or make the companies have review or a paper to fill out about their workers.
 The poem I am reading is called "The Sweatshop". The argument of this poem is about the narrator working in the horrible conditions of the sweatshops the narrator is in. The narrator explains his/hers time in the sweatshops as hard, tiring, and make you so dreadful that you won't even know what you are doing anymore. The narrator also explains that after a while of working in one if these shops, you tend to forget who you are, and since you do the same movements over and over again, you feel like a machine working nonstop. It shows all of these problems the narrators faces in the poem time after time. Showing how the narrator feels while he/she is working. I think that the poem really did express more than the article because the poem used certain words that made you feel like you were the one working. Another thing that that made the article and the poem different from each other is that the article has more facts about the topic and has more opinions of the other people that were there. This form of the views on sweatshops really made me feel like I was the one working in the shop because the the narrator explained every single thing they feel when they are working in these horrible conditions.