Kaitlyn Chow                                                                                                  April 16, 2015

ELA Writing                                                                                                                    812

Heart Poem Reading Response

Response to Another Sonnet for Stephan

            Alvin Lester Sitomer’s poem “Another Sonnet for Stephan” stood out to me because of the main theme of the poem. The theme of the poem was life and growing up. Evidence that this was the theme was because the narrator writes about how they watch this little boy grow up in different stages. The poem flowed very smoothly and all of the lines related to the theme. Specifically, lines 1-4 stood out to me because it expresses the narrator’s happy reaction to the boys joy. It shows the relationship they had and how the narrator loved this young boy.

            The theme in this poem is not contradicted and, as I mentioned before, all the lines relate to the theme. The poem talks about the relationship between the narrator and the boy, and the sonnet continues to show that this boy grew up well. It keeps expanding and showing the different ways the boy was fortunate.

            The audience that the poem is written to is everyone. I say this because it’s a poem about a boy growing up, with the narrator alongside to watch him every time he does. It’s not specifically for guardians or parents, not for only boys, but for everyone because we can all relate to this sonnet in some sort of way. We all have our prideful and grateful moments where we are happy to be alive as the narrator seemed to be because of how proud he was of the boy growing up.

            Throughout the poem I have also observed the speakers tone. The speakers tone is proud and they seem to know this boy well, as they care for him deeply. The last few lines, lines 13 and 14 in the sonnet emphasizes the narrators feeling towards the boy by saying, “The boy, the youth, the man are each now gone/ Except that in my heart they linger on.” These lines have a great significance to the poem, as it ends in a beautiful way because the narrator seems very wistful and remembers the times when the boy was young.

            When I read this poem, I felt happy and grateful. The reasons I feel this way is because it was emotional to hear about how proud the narrator was of the growing boy whom he watched at a young age, and he appreciates the time with the boy as he grows. In addition, it also made me happy because the boy became successful, and he made the narrator proud and grateful for this boy in his life. Towards the end of the sonnet, even though, “The boy, the youth, the man are each now gone,” the narrator knows the boy became successful and grew up well, which made the narrator happy.

Kaitlyn Chow                                                                                                                 February 11, 2015

ELA                                                                                                                                                      812

Reading Response

Book: Athletic Shorts- Six Short Stories

Title: The Pin

Author: Chris Crutcher

Critical Thinking Question: 11) Who has "power" in the text? How is it shown?

             When your own father was the number two wrestler in the nationals, you could imagine the amount of pressure the son would have on wrestling. The Pin by Chris Crutcher is about the relationship between Johnny and  his father. His father wants Johnny to do good, and learn how to grow up so he'll be ready for the world. As a result, Johnny's father is very strict on him.

             Cecil B. Johnson is Johnny's father; number two wrestler at 177 pounds at the University of Oklahoma. Johnny is Cecil's son. His father wants to toughen him up because he: "thinks I'm too frivolous to grow up in the world" (36). Cecil expects Johnny to do what he says, and to learn from him. If he doesn't listen, Johnny says: "he's always roughed me up pretty good. Either with his open hand on the back of my head or with words" (38). His father pushes him to do better.

             Johnny's father wants him to learn from his mistakes. An example if this is that Johnny has to do ten push-ups per word that irritates him (on purpose) or is immature. Cecil wants Johnny to learn not to run his smart mouth. One time, Johnny purposely made an inappropriate joke at the dinner table."That's very funny, John," he says, but he's not laughing. "That's worth exactly one thousand thirty push-ups." (41) his father said in reply. And one thousand and thirty push-ups is just what Johnny did. Besides, he knew push-ups helped strengthen his muscles for wrestling too. Johnny also obeyed his father because he knew he had to face his father's consequence. If he cheated, he would have to start all over again.

             Johnny wanted to make his parents proud. He wanted to show his father that he could do things too, not always with his fathers help. Even if Johnny is immature sometimes, he wants to prove to his father that he is worthy. In particularly, this part shows it: "I want to do every one of those 1,030 push-ups to his specs. I want to hand him this year's state wrestling trophy and shake his hand with a grip that will bring him down to his knees" (45). Johnny wants to show Cecil that he is capable. That even though his father may be The Great Cecil B. Johnson, he can do things too. "I hate him because no matter what I do, it's never enough. But I love him, I must. I want to show him I am good enough." (45). Johnny feels Cecil thinks too little of him, that he isn't the son who would be as great of a wrestler as he.
             Cecil wants Johnny to grow up and be a man. He wants the best for his son, but sometimes, Johnny doesn't see it. We often as people question why we are pressured or pushed so hard by our parents. They want the best for us. Parents want the best for their kids, just like Cecil wants for Johnny.

Picture Book First Draft

Peter is a small boy at the age of seven years old.

His best friend, Ryan, is the opposite. Ryan is very tall.

They are the bestest of friends.

One day at school, Ryan was asked to take down some books from the shelf for the class.

Everyone thought he could do it because of his height.

But Ryan couldn’t reach it.

So he took a chair and stood on it.

He reach over to get the books, but someone pushed the chair. It fell, and Ryan fell with it.

The whole class laughed.

Ryan was mad. Peter was mad. The whole class laughed.

“What are you gonna do Ryan?” The bully said.

Ryan looked down at the floor.

Peter couldn’t just watch this, he had to do something.

Peter walked up to the bully.

“He might do anything, but I will.”

The bully laughed. “Ok shorty, do something.”

“Leave him alone.” Peter said.

The bully stared at him. Slowly, he backed away.

After school, Peter noticed Ryan was still feeling sad.

“Come on Ry, lets go get some ice-cream.” He said, hoping to cheer his friend up.

Peter knew just the place to get some.

“You can go in, I don’t feel like having any.” Ryan said.

“Come with me. It’ll cheer you up!” Peter said.

Ryan nodded his head no.

So Peter went in alone.

He walked up to the counter and said, “May I please have some vanilla ice cream?”

The woman didn’t hear him.

Once again Peter said, “May I please have some vanilla ice cream?”

But again, the woman did not seem to hear him.

Peter walked out of the store with no ice cream.

“What happened? Where’s your ice cream?” Ryan asked.

“The lady in the store didn’t hear me, because I was too short, so I left.”

“Well then I’ll order it.” Ryan said.

And this time, they went into the ice cream shop together.

Authors Note First Draft

Planning Page:

Main Character: Peter

Age: 7

Issue: Fitting In

Setting: Everywhere

Flaw: Too Small

Examples: The candy store, getting a job, Rollacoasters, clothes don't fit,

Kaitlyn Chow

Argument Essay

Rough Draft

         There is many arguments on whether or not the book Looking For Alaska should be banned or not because of it’s inappropriate content. Looking For Alaska is about a boy named Miles Halter who starts high school at a boarding school named Culver Creek. He starts out to be a very innocent, very naive boy. However, as the book progresses, he starts to change by breaking rules with his friends, doing things such as smoking and drinking on campus, setting up multiple pranks and breaking into dorm rooms. This content has caused many questions for students, teachers and schools to decipher whether or not this content is appropriate for young adults. Looking For Alaska by John Green should be removed from middle school libraries because it contains many inappropriate issues and influences young adult readers with them.

         Many would like to ban the book Looking For Alaska because of the content in the book. For example, in the article “Banned Books Awareness: Looking For Alaska” a parent protested that it “went against what she was trying to teacher her child.” It was banned shortly after as pornography in Knox County, Tennessee. In Tennessee, Looking For Alaska banned the book from class reading lists as well, claiming that it was “too racy.” It might be considered racy because of it’s sexual content and bad behaviors as well. An example in the book was on page 126, when Miles and Lara are alone and Miles gets a “blow job.” It was mentioned in the article, “Tennessee School District Bans Novel Over Teen Sex Scene,” when a district in Tennessee said that, “two pages in particular were graphic enough in sexual description that we felt it wasn’t appropriate.” This particular scene included using words like “penis” and depicted a clear image in the readers mind of the “blow job.” A big part of why many would also ban this book is because it make the reader feel uncomfortable with it’s content. Readers want to read something that takes them into another world, but not make them feel insecure or uncomfortable.

         The content in this book was also not appropriate for young adults readers, as many claim. Looking for Alaska has been “challenged for sexual content, explicit language and characters consumption of alcohol.” A specific example is on page 94, “Alaska went in alone I walked out the door five minutes later . . . three cartons of cigarettes, five bottles of wine and a fifth of vodka.” As you can see here, they consume lots of alcohol in this book, not to mention the fact that they are all under the age of twenty-one. In addition, this book also “appears on the American Library Association's list and the most frequently challenged books in 2012.”  This book shows many bad influences that is not appropriate for young adult readers.

         Although, it is also argued that Looking For Alaska should not be banned. Parents objecting the prohibition of this book say that the book, “isn’t pornographic in even the broadest sense of the term as the most objectionable word used in the realistically-rendered sex passage is “penis.” This word however, is hardly used in any young adult books because most authors know that there would be a lot of controversy over the use of that word. In addition, the word was used in sexual context, not by describing a part of a human body. Therefore I argue that this is pornography. To further explain why this book should not be banned, John Green, the author himself, made a video in response to all the controversy between the book being banned. He said, “I am extremely grateful to all the teachers and librarians . . .who understand that I am not out to corrupt teenagers, and who further understand the importance of reading books critically and thoughtfully as a whole, rather than focusing on individual scenes ripped from their context.”  How exactly though, are the scenes in this book being “ripped from their content?” John Green wrote those particular scenes of sex, drinking, smoking, pranking, hazing and stealing on purpose. Not in a way to teach however, because it influences readers more than it would prevent young adult readers to do these things.

            And so we have it, Looking for Alaska should be banned because of these inappropriate issues in the book. You have seen the many scenes where there are words in the book that aren’t for young adults, bad influences on the readers. There is cursing, hazing, underage drinking and stealing. So many things that are frowned upon by many, they are in this book. It should be banned because of the way that John Green writes about it, and makes the characters not care about their behaviors, and that they don’t think it’s wrong.

Kaitlyn Chow

812

The Story Behind It

Continued from #5

         I wrote this piece out of the top of my head. It was my best idea, and I know that peer pressure drinking goes occurs often. So I wanted to give the reader an actual scenario where it happened, I wanted the reader to feel like they were there,watching it with their own eyes. Peer pressure drinking is hard, because a lot of people don’t want to drink, but with an audience in front of you, you also don’t want to chicken out. It’s a very big social issue around the world, and is also something that needs to be stopped.

         I choose the main character, Doug to be alone so that it would be four people against one. So that Doug actually felt pressured to drink. I also wrote the thoughts that were going through his head when Katrina thrusts the bottle into his hand. I wanted the reader to understand what people face when they have the bottle and everyone is looking at you, expecting you to drink it. I also made the character seem strong, but inside, he was very vulnerable. I did this to show that what he was saying was so different from what he was actually feeling. Someone may act like something isn’t a big deal but inside they really want to disappear.