Sunday, March 16, 2008

Dragon rider post #4

NAME          Max Gruenberg         DATE      3/16/08
TITLE              Dragon rider        TIME     2 hours
AUTHOR        Cornella Funke   PAGES      210-270
TOTAL PAGES THIS WEEK : 60 

This week's reading was very interesting.  There is a creature called a "Djinn" who has 1,000 eyes and each eye is looking at some other place in the world at a different time.  The Djinn takes on a genie form.  He is blue and is kept in a limo in the middle of a jungle.  To awaken him you need to honk the horn of the limo. The eyes are located all over his body.

 The Djinn knows everything because he has seen everything.  To ask the Djinn a question you need to ask it in seven words and it has to be a human that asks.  This would have been a problem for Ben, Sorrel, Twigleg and Firedrake but luckily they picked up Ben on the way and he is human.  They asked where the rim of heaven lies and the Djinn told the boy by letting him look in one of his eyes.  

  Twiglegleg is on a mission for Nettlebrand.  He is to spy on firedrake (dragon) and find out where his pack lives so that he can hunt them down.  Twigleg is becoming friends with the group that he is spying on.  He decided that he would tell his “master,” Nettlebrand that the dragons live out in a dessert far away. The purpose of that Nettlebrand would go try to find them. He would then get lost in a dessert where there are no living organisms for him to feed on.  When Twigleg decided this he got vary angry because Nettlebrand ate all of his brothers.  Twigleg’s master treats him very badly and the Firedrake and Ben treat him nicely so he doesn’t want to betray the people that are nice to him.

 

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Name:Max Gruenberg
Project Reflection
Project Title: MC Website Project
Class: BD
Dates: 3/12/08

  Purpose:
The purpose of this project was to pick and learn about a subject that had to do with moral courage.  We than were required to make a web page and enter it into a tough contest by the name of "think quest".  We were entered by our teacher in age groups according to our birthday's.  We were required to have sources and web pages with written content on them.  We had a lot of time to work on the site and today we uploaded them.

 What i learned:
At the end of this project i learned how to work hard and plow through even if it is hard.  I learned a lot about moral courage, Nazi's, mob mentality, the Salem witch trials and more.  I became a better editor by just looking at mistakes on dream weaver (site construction program) and changing them.  I learned more about formatting sources.  In the end i learned a lot about working with people that I usually wouldn't hang out with.  I also learned about the program dream weaver which we designed our site in.  Learning how to paraphrase was worth while because i will definitely use that in my future life.

Reflection:
I disliked this project.  A lot of the time i had almost no clue what to do even after asking around our group.  I did not have fun in this project because it was all deadlines and i didn't see where all this work was going in the process and that effected my learning.  If i understood the project more before i started it than i would have took advantage.  I was disappointed that i couldn't be the group leader because at first the project sounded really fun.  If I had group leader for my job i know that i would have done fine.  I would have realized what i needed to do.  When i didn't get this job i had already gotten a bad start.  This project wasn't all bad i learned some skills that i could use later in life like paraphrasing.

Artifact:
I plan to put my website on my DP.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Dragon rider post #3

NAME          Max Gruenberg         DATE      3/9/08
TITLE              Dragon rider        TIME     2 hours
AUTHOR        Cornella Funke   PAGES      150-210
TOTAL PAGES THIS WEEK   60

I think one of the most interesting part of the book was when the fairies were covering the bulletin board.  I thought that was interesting because they talked about how they transported, the way they defend themselves and and why they are annoying.  The way these fairies transport is using there tiny wings that let out dust. The dust is there protection is is sleepy dust so whoever smells it gets drowsy.  The thing that was also interesting is that it makes dragons more awake like caffeine does for humans.  They are annoying because they get in the way of signposts and you cant see where you're going.  The little homunculus,Twigleg casts a spell on the flying fairy's to make them go away but rite as the fairies drop to the ground he forgets the rest and the fairy's get angry.  Then they release the dust to make the team fall asleep.  As this happens Twigleg makes up a spell in the spur of the moment to save his friends from the fairies and it works for a little.  Enough time for Firedrake to see the Bolton board and find his directions.

A sad part of the book is howTwigleg is treated by Nettlebrand.  Nettlebrand killed all eight of Twiglegs brother.  Nettlebrand said that Twigleg is not allowed to fall in love or make friends with humans or else he will die.  Twigleg is very close to the human boy.  I think that they are friends because they stick up for eachother in debates about what the team should do.  Twilgleg would be long gone if that was true.  Nettlebrand just uses Twigleg and doesn't let him have any freedom.