Kaitlyn Chow

812

Observing my Surroundings

#2

        I come across homelessness often, because I live in New York and there are many homeless people here. But not just here. All over the world. They should be noticed, not overlooked. I find them in train stations, sitting outside busy places or all over Manhattan.

        Homelessness is a big issue all over the world. So many people go to sleep with no shelter over their heads. Nothing to protect them from the heat in the summer, the cold in the winter or the cold rain storms. I feel sympathy towards these people because they 

don’t have a home to go to. They live a life on the streets, where there are things like rodents and wild animals, bugs and harsh weather. Everyone should deserve to have safety. A home is a necessity it’s where you cleanse yourself, sleep eat and entertain yourself. To live life worrying about how you’re going to survive each day is heartbreaking. They live on the streets because they are less fortunate, and we should help them. It’s wrong to leave these people on the streets when you go home to so much more, and they have nothing but a miserable life.

Kaitlyn Chow
812

Writing Project For Social Awareness

            The writing project for social awareness project serves the purpose of writing about important social issues around the world that we need to become aware of. We each picked three things to write  and think about. I chose the following three to write about from the list.

2.        Observe your surroundings (school, home, neighborhood, media). Write a list about all the scenes or situations you come across on a daily basis that you think are unfair and/or not right in some way. Pick one of the ideas from your list and write a longer entry about it - 2-3 paragraphs. Describe the problem, what's wrong with it, cause and effect, and possible solutions.

4.        Write a reading response on a social issue in a literary work (your independent reading book, short story, essay, or poem/song). Write a 3-5 paragraph reading response. What problem/issue is it about? What is the message? What does the text make you think, feel, and/or know about the issue?

5.        Write an original literary piece (poem, song, short dramatic scene, personal narrative, etc.) responding to a specific social problem/issue. Be creative, detailed, and specific. Also, write 1-2 paragraphs describing your process in writing the poem and what problem/issue it is about. 

Kaitlyn Chow                                                                           November 18, 2014
ELA Blogpost #5                                                                                               812

Nonfiction Reading Response

Upfront Magazine

            The article I have picked is called, "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page?" by Alessandra Potenza. The article is about how you should start being more cautious about what you post on things like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because colleges look at them to help consider whether or not they want you in their school. Colleges aren't the only ones who scout social media to consider you, but managers at the job you are applying to look at it as well. They look to see your personality. They don't want people who post inappropriate things or insults because they want a good student/employee and they judge that partially based on their social media. The article wants the reader to be aware that they are being viewed by colleges or job managers to consider them because the author has realized that, "what you post online can have real consequences." An example of this was given in the article when a girl from Findlay, Ohio posted a complaint about the small tips from customers on Facebook. Her managers were notified about it throughout one of her Facebook friends, and she was fired. This person was included in the article because it was an example about how Facebook posts can really matter, and you should be cautious about what you say. 

            The author wants the reader to be amazed that colleges and managers really do look you up on Google to help determine whether or not they want to accept you. The author wants to make you feel like you should be careful about what you post, because it can determine your future. If the job  you're applying to sees that you post appropriate, positive things they are more likely to consider you than if you posted inappropriate things. It's almost as if the author is warning the reader by pointing out multiple consequences you can get for posting inappropriate things. As stated in the article, "more than 90 percent of (jobs) recruiters check candidates' social media profiles." The author gives numbers numbers to give the reader an idea of how many people actually check your profile so you can see how many people are actually serious about it.

            This article has changed my thinking because I feel like now I am aware that posting things can change my future, I want to be more cautious about it. I've decided that because I can post positive things, I will. I can make the choice not to post inappropriate things, so I won't.

Citation

Potenza, Alessandra. "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page." October 6, 2014. Upfront Magazine. November 14, 2014. <http://upfront.scholastic.com/>

Kaitlyn Chow
November 6, 2014
ELA 812

Book Response

Looking For Alaska by John Green

          Smoking and cursing are things people frown upon, however, the book Looking For Alaska contains these things. Looking For Alaska by John Green is about Miles, who goes to high school and adopts bad habits such as smoking, cursing and breaking multiple rules. This book should be banned because although it does show a lot about the value of friendship, it contains many examples of rule breaking, bad influences and inappropriate issues.

          Drinking becomes a main habit in the book, and they do it for fun and act like it’s cool to do it, and that it’s no big deal. This an incredibly bad influence on the readers of the book because they are getting drunk by underage drinking and that is a horrible example to set. They play drinking games and sometimes turn to alcohol to reduce stress, like when Alaska died. An example of this is when Miles goes to Takumi for alcohol after Alaska dies. He says, “Do you have any alcohol?” and Takumi asks why. In response, Colonel says, “Uh, because we want to get drunk?” as if it were so obvious. This quote shows how easily the Colonel and Miles are around alcohol, and they don’t take drinking as a serious thing. 

           In the book, there are also many times when they smoke. Most of the time, Alaska is the one to influence them to smoke. She sometimes supplies them with cigarettes. “So, Alaska. Sell us some cigarettes,” the Colonel says on page 15. They depend on Alaska a lot, and she’s mainly the one who’s influenced them to this sad life of drinking, smoking, breaking curfew, cursing and setting pranks. This was also an example of them breaking rules because it was against the rules to smoke on campus, yet they still did it.

          Miles has changed throughout the book, and he’s definitely not the same person as he was when he first started going to Culver Creek high school. Before he attended this school, he never experienced the feeling of drinking alcohol or smoking. It’s described so the reader can infer that his parents were considered overprotective of Miles, and this is part of the reason why he felt like he was bad when first doing these things. As Miles says in the book, “I swallowed hard, and there, yes I did it. I was drinking on campus.” From this quote I can tell that Miles felt accomplished in this action because he’s never done something as rebellious as that. He felt like he was now cool and was even a bit shocked, proud even. Most of them reason why Miles did all these things was because Miles was peer pressured into it. The environment that John Green created for Miles affected him in a bad way, and he is now a bad influence.

          Banning this book would be the right thing to do because of the inappropriate issues. Looking For Alaska can relate to readers because by reading this text, they might think that these things are okay to do in their lives. However, the actions in this book should not be copied because underaged drinking and drunk driving is illegal. In addition, drunk driving puts others in danger as well. Also, smoking is brought up a lot in the book, and I feel like you shouldn’t smoke because it’s one of the worlds top killers. Looking For Alaska does not set good examples and should be banned for it’s inappropriate content.

Kaitlyn Chow

Synthesis Page

It's Not Summer Without You

Main Character: Susannah Fisher

The Quest: Susannah needs to overcome her cancer

The Task: She needs hope and perseverance

The Journey: Her cancer was not as bad at first, but then it got larger and started to spread rapidly around her body and she became very weak and always tired

The Departure: Susannah showed great confidence, saying that she'll fight the cancer, for her two boys and very close friends

Initiation: Susannah says that she'll fight through it for her boys so she can stay and take care of them

Road of Trials: Belly and her mother come by to Cousins, where Susannah is staying, to see her frequently

Innermost Cave: Susannah is able to see the day that one of her sons, Conrad, takes Belly to her prom, and even though she wasn't well, she was very happy to see this. By this time, she knew she wasn't going to survive the cancer. Susannah starts to write her will and special letters to the boys and Belly that were to be read after she passed.

-Susannah went on a quest for love and acceptance, because even though she knew her chances of surviving were slim, she looked like she wasn't because she was strong and optimistic about it. She wanted to protect the people she loved from knowing till the very end.

-After Susannah has passed, Belly was by influenced her  because Susannah was sweet, very loving and like a second mother to her. She always understood Belly and cared a lot about her, no matter what. An example of this is when Susannah's husband abandoned her at the hardest time, she still loved him.

-In the end, Susannah turned out to be a tragic hero.

Reading Response

What Happened to Goodbye

Sarah Dessen

  Throughout the book "What Happened to Goodbye" Mclean slowly finds out who she wants to be. All people are different. Some are kind, some are innocent, some are adventurous and some are rebellious. Mclean, however has been moving constantly for three years, and hasn't had the chance to really settle on the person she wants to be. However, Mclean starts to gain confidence as the end nears the book.

 When Mclean comes to Lakeview, she thinks that she doesn’t really fit in. However, she soon makes friends with popular kids. One day when she was eating lunch with them; Dave, Ellis, Heather and Riley, Mclean invites the outcast Deb to come sit with Mclean and the rest of them for lunch. On page 90 Mclean says, “I felt both Riley and Heather look at me, but I kept my eye on Deb, who looked so surprised --shocked, even-- that you’d have thought I’d asked her to lend me a kidney.” This is evidence of Mclean showing her brave side. She’s slowly growing her confidence, and asked Deb to join them, knowing the risk of her only friends leaving her. If she was scared inside, she didn’t show it. She was determined and felt like Deb shouldn’t be left out, because she was a good person. Mclean invited Deb right there, in front of the popular kids, and she didn’t care. She’s gaining confidence little by little.

  Mclean’s parents are divorced; her mom left for another man and Mclean stayed loyal to her father, staying with him. Mclean doesn’t like her mom for leaving her dad when he didn’t deserve it, and because of this, she avoids her calls, makes excuses for meet-ups and, overall, doesn’t want any relation with her. However, she ends up planning to go to a basketball game to meet her mom and other family. She got so scared and nervous, she asked Dave to come with her. Mclean needed someone to be there for her, not only to accompany her, but to make her happy. That’s a step forward for Mclean, because she invited Dave to the game to meet her mom, who she really doesn’t like. Mclean says, “And despite my dad’s confidence that this was a good thing, it suddenly felt like anything but. Which is why I panicked, and did the last thing I ever would have expected. “Do you want to come?” I asked Dave.” Mclean shocked herself on inviting Dave, yet it’s good for her, that she’s making friends and becoming confident.

  Mclean has started to become good friends with Riley, Ellis, Heather, Deb and Dave. They like to hang out with her, and even helped her build a model of the town for a community project. When Mclean hangs out with them, she gains more confidence because she’s honest to them, and she’ll talk to them. When Mclean, Deb and Dave were working on the model together, Riley, Ellis, and Heather came to come pick him up to go to Riley’s house for dinner, and Riley saw them there, hard at work and invited them to come. Mclean described it by saying, “Riley took one look across the model and then said, “You guys can come. I mean, if you want.” So they have accepted Mclean for who she is, and she’s happy about it. She gets invited to hang out with them and knows that they really are all friends now. 

 This shows that not all people can find their true personality, and the environment around you helps influence who you want to be seen as. As for Mclean, gaining confidence in herself was found by spending time with friends.

Kaitlyn Chow                                                                             September 15, 2014

                  

Reading Response

Mia is a seventeen year old girl who carries the love of music. She was caught in a very tragic car   accident, and is now the only survivor in what was her used to be family of four. This accident brings Adam, her boyfriend, and Kim her best friend, to come closer as they work together to have hope for Mia. Before this accident, they didn't know much about each other, just who they were and that was it. Mia desperately tried  to bond them by force; however, she gave up on them because they insisted that they just didn't 'click' with each other. Throughout the story, Kim and Adam have seemed to bond together, realizing that their friend might not survive this battle.

One example that shows why Mia's condition brings Adam and Kim closer is because when her relatives found out about the accident, they came rushing to the hospital. Kim came as well and, realizing that Adam was missing, went out to go find him. She knew that Adam was really close to Mia, and he needed to be aware of the situation. Mia, knowing that Kim, went out to look for Adam in the club he played in with his band, and went through all that trouble to get him, was very appreciative. For example Mia said, "It was Kim who must have braved any number of bouncers to find Adam. And Kim who must've braved telling Adam....And now, because of her, he was here." This shows the understanding that Kim had of Adam needing to know about this, and about Mia needing Adam there.

In addition to that, there is yet more evidence of Kim and Adam starting to bond and look out for each other, like when Adam and Kim tried to go in and visit Mia, who was in a coma in the ICU center and the nurse says, "I'm sorry, visitations are restricted to immediate family only." At this, Adam goes slump, almost falling to the floor. However, Kim is there, to catch him, to support him. Then she also takes her part in persuading the nurse to let them in, although it doesn't help the cause because they are still not allowed to go visit Mia. Notice how Kim caught Adam; she knew that he felt so defeated, and even if she did too, she was trying her best to tolerate both of their despair. As Mia described Kim, "Adam has about a foot and fifty pounds on Kim, but after stumbling for a second, she adjusts to the burden. She bears it." Kim would be there for Adam now, and she knows how hard it is, but she can bear it.

Lastly, Kim and Adam work together a plan that would get them into the ICU to see Mia. So, they work together to distract the nurses and break into Mia's room. They hide in a supply closet, gathering ideas that might help them get in. They did argue, but they still considered what each of them had to say. And when they needed a light to see in the dark closet, Kim, being the resourceful person that she is, "pulled out the cell phone her mom gave her...and a square light softens the darkness. "Now, thats more like the brilliant girl Mia brags about," Adam says." This shows us that Adam and Kim are on good terms and working together so they can see Mia, cause they both need her.

Although Adam and Kim had no interest in knowing each other in the beginning of the book, seeing Mia in that condition brought them closer to each other as they supported one another. They were both close to Mia, and it was hard to accept what happened to Mia and her family. However, they didn't accept the fact that Mia was in a coma, and that she was the only one out of her brother and parents to survive the dreadful car crash. Yet, Adam and Kim managed to encourage each other and try to stay positive; doing more than they'd ever said or done to each other before.