Journal #1 To Kill a Mocking Bird

Hi, I'm Dill.  I just moved into my Aunt Rachel's house for the summer.  I met these two really nice kids named Jem and Scout.  Jem is 10 and Scout is 6.  Their father is a lawyer and his name is Atticus.  Atticus is a real nice guy but he is kind of intimidating.  Scout is very smart. Probably one of the smartest in her class. I don't have a dad but I don't like to talk about that. I quickly became friends with Scout and Jem.  We always play around and reinact things.

I was the one who gave the idea to Scout and Finch to lure Boo Radley out of his house.Boo Radley was introduced to me by Jem and Scout.  From what they were saying he was a scary malevolent killer.  This interested me a lot.  Everyone calls him the Phantom of Maycomb but I want to see what he actually looks like and if the rumors are true.

When I met Jem he and I had a friendly argument.  It started off my me saying.

"Hey."

" Hey yourself," replied Jem.

I told him my real name which was Charles Bakers Harris and that I could read.  I didn't want to question Jem's pronouncements because I was trying to make friends with him.

Scout snapped back at me "So what?"

This made me feel bad but I couldn't let it get to me because I know that first impressions are important.  I felt like saying something mean back but I had to be careful.   I didn't know there background.

"Just letting you know that I can read," trying to to come off snotty. 

Jem insulted me by saying that I was 4 1/2 but I didn't let it get to me.  Instead I replied with my actual age.

" go n' on 7"

He told me I was very small for my age but I told him that I was little but old.  This didn't offend me to much because I thought that if people didn't know how old I was and they did know that I could read than they would be impressed with  my abilities.  Jem than cheered up the conversation by irking me to come over.  I had no other choice than to join them.  Our little talk went on back and forth.  It was basically a little introduction to each other.  I was from Meridian, Mississippi but My family originally was from Maycomb.  I told Jem and Scout and about the picture shows(movies) that I had seen.  They didn't have picture shows here in Maycomb except some Jesus ones in the court room.  I explained them to Jem and Scout and they were fasicnated.

intimidating: To be scary.

Malevlent: To have bad will.

Pronouncement: How one talks.

Journal #2 4-7

The door opened.  Scout scurried in through the door like something was chasing her.  while I was trying to figure out what she was running from I noticed that scout was chewing a hug piece of gum in her mouth.  Scout means well but she often comes off rude or obnoxious.  She was making a lot of noise with her mouth but I decided to ignore it for as long as I could.

"Scout, why were you running like you were being chased?" I asked.

"well, you see, I was walking home from school and I saw a piece of tin foil in the tree in the Radley home.  And I leaned over and grabbed it and it was chewing gum! So I ate it!" she explained.

"What? Scout you are never supposed to go or touch Boo Radley house.  Doncha know he will kill you! "  I exclaimed.

I didn't know anything about the Boo Radley house that was an actual fact but I have heard rumors about it, bad rumors.  Even if Boo Radley never killed anyone or wouldn't ever  kill anyone he still was mysterious and I didn't want my little sister to mess around inside the yard. 

"Scout, please spit it out."

" but Jem, its really good!"

"Now, before I tell Culpurnia on me."

I knew this would work because Culpurnia yelled at scout the other day for making fun of how the Cumington boy ate.  Scout spit out her gum and continued on.  It seemed as though Scout wasn't very happy during the year and somewhat bored most of the time.  I could tell from the facial expression on her face and her body language.  I think it was the new program in school.  She is ahead of everyone in her class and she is probably bored from listening to her classmates try to read.

Summer soon came and and scout and I were definitely ready for summer.  The first thig that we did and that we do every summer is roll each other around in the insides of tires.  We were having fun until I rolled scout in from of the Radley stems.

"Come on Scout! Lets get out of here"I yelled as Scout was laying right in front of the yard.

Scout got up and she quickly got out from in front of the house.

"Jem, I have a new game," said Scout.

"Well what is it than'" I said.

" It is going to be called "Boo Radley," Scout said in a scary voice

At first I thought this wouldn't be good considering that she had the courage to take something out of the tree of Boo Radley's house.  I did want to hear the idea for Scouts new game though.

"Okay, so we are going to act as the Radley family," Scout said.

I thought this idea was silly but I couldnt hurt scouts feelings.

"Sure," I replied.

As the summer went on and on our game became modified and complicated as we acted out the Radley home or at least how we though the Boo Radley home operated in the inside.  One day we were playing and Atticus came out.  We stopped out game and stood suspiciously. Atticus asked us if our game had anything to do with the Radley.  I told him that it didn't.   From than on I felt some resistance from Scout when I wanted to play the game.  Scout was probably scared that Atticus would get mad at them but there seemed to be something else on her mind.

As the summer went on Dill and I became good friends and we continued the Boo Radley game.  Scout spent most of her time talking to the widow next door named Ms. Atkinson.  I had no clue what they were talking about but it seemed like the more she talked to her the more she didn't want to play the Boo Radley game.  It came to me though that since Dill and I had become such good friends that Scout might have felt left out from the planning that Dill and I did.  Dill and I were very curious of what Boo Radley looked like and if he was even alive. So we got a note and asked if he would like to get ice cream.  Dill and I attached it to a fishing poll and was going to attach it to his house Dill and I held the fishing poll and we were about to attach it and than Atticus came out.  Atticus got angry at us and told us not to bother Radley by playing the Boo Radley games or trying to attach notes to his house.

Immigration Project Reflection

                                                Immigration Project Reflection

            I had a great time reading this book because it really interested me.  It was a true story for most parts of the book which I didn’t like as much as the scenes where Maxine Kingston is training to become a woman warrior.  I am glad that I chose this book because I always wondered how Chinese got to America.  I learned a lot about the Chinese culture.  For example the discrimination against girls in the Chinese community.  The Chinese would put down girls all the time for not being able to be good at anything which isn’t true.  I learned this because in the book the parents never really paid attention to Maxine Kingston (main character).  I also learned about the focus in education in the Chinese community. 

            If I were to add something to the literature circle process it would be the meetings.  I think that meetings are a good time to discuss the book with other people. Also it is a great time to listen and share opinions.  I think that blogs are just like reading it by yourself.  It was good that we had responses though because it was a way of getting peoples opinion in some ways.  I think that it would be better if we were able to have the posts due later in the night. This would be good because it is hard for some of us to get it done because we have extra curricular activities.  Yes we could do it later in the night, but it doesn’t work with our reading schedule.  I also think that if you extended the due date than we would have better quality work. 

            I got a lot of my group member’s opinions by reading their blogs but it wasn’t as fun as just talking with the person.  I was able to really focus on what they had to say because we had to right a response on it after words.    I think that the lit circle meetings with the vocab and character analysis were a little much.  It seemed as though people weren’t focusing on the book but on what they had to do for the lit circle meetings.  The problems with the blogs were that they were all located on various dates so I think it would help if we could pick two specific dates in the week that were good for blog dates.

            I think what we could do is keep the literature circle meetings and the blogs but we shouldn’t have anything due for the literature circle meeting and we could just talk about the book.

            There were a few options that we could pick for our  painting signifying our book.  I decided that the book cover had to include words which I didn’t want to do.  The the interpretation of the novel had more force on symbolism so I picked a specific scene that struck me.  I chose this because I could incorporate some symbolism into my artwork and still just have some important parts of the book in my painting without having to describe symbolism.  My painting could be considered a interpretation of a novel because I have a lot of symbolism in it but there are some parts of my painting where the title “interpretation of novel,” wouldn’t work out so well.

            I think that the book that I read and my painting closely resemble each other because if someone were to read the book and than look at my painting they would easily remember some specific and symbolic moments from the literature.  I have a lot of scenes that are intertwined with symbolism.  For example the bunny of fire is a scene in the book but it also represents a metaphor in the book.   Some of the images in my painting are just random things from the book.  For example the 13 beads that Maxine got in her fantasy life for every year she trained with an old couple to become a woman warrior.

            I feel like I tried my best on my painting.  I feel like I incorporated as many important and representative scenes in my painting as I could.  I also felt like it was a good painting for me because usually I don’t put my full effort into art pieces if I am forced to do them.  I like creating things myself and painting them.  It usually turns out not as good as it would if I had passion for what I was doing.  I must say I didn’t have many feelings when making this painting because I couldn’t see myself in Maxine at all so I was just painting what scenes I remembered. 

If I had to enhance the quality of my art piece I probably would have taken out the beads and ghost and put in some things that were more important to the book.  I think that if I were to do it again I would have painted the lighter colors and than paint the black background so it would look crisp.  I good thing that I did with my painting was that I was the first one to start so it was easy to make mine look good.  A few minor changes that I would have made would to make the orange in the fire yellow and to make the red in the fire, orange.  I also would change the eyes on the ghost.  I would take the red off my swords.

When I was brainstorming all the scenes I wanted to do, I was thinking a lot about metaphors and symbolism and I found parts of the book that  could relate to a small portion of the book.

The interview portion of this project was my favorite because my interview went smoothly and I met a nice guy who was very friendly and cooperative.  I loved how I got to organize everything and it made me feel like an adult because I was talking and scheduling with them. 

I really enjoyed interviewing multiple times because it was good in several ways; it gave us time to think about the next interview, we became friends with our interview partner and we were able to talk to someone in all kinds of different strategies using the modern-day technology.  I could see how this would be hard for someone who is really busy and doesn’t want to commit to you but since the person I interviewed was very friendly and flexible it was a easy process.  In the email interview I send questions to my person and he answered them in an easy format with complete sentences, proper grammar and colorful writing.  When I was on the phone with my interviewee I was able to ask him a lot of questions with follow-ups and he answered them exactly how I said; slowly and clearly.  The in-person interview was originally going to be at starbucks but we agreed that it would work better at my dad’s office because he worked there.  He and I were able to get personal and talk about things that we couldn’t exactly express through an email or over the phone.  I was able to read his feelings through are facial expression, body language and hand gestures.  We talked about girls to the problems in the Middle East and my interviewee didn’t hold back.  At one point we got in a great conversation about the problems in Lebanon and the middle east in general where I really got to pay attention to what my person was saying without having to write it all down.  I think that was one of the things that wasn’t good about the in-person interview was that you had to be writing what he was saying which wasn’t polite at times because we should have been making eye contact not facing down towards your piece of paper.

In the email interview I learned the basics about Lebanon which were the religions (Muslim, Judaism, Christianity) , languages (Farsi, Hebrew, English).  In the over the phone interview I learned about his experience coming to America which was good and he said he was treated nicely despite his appearance and accent.  In the in person interview I learned about his place on the problems in the Middle East.  Basically he has given up all hope on the resolution of the problems.

 I think that hearing about my interviewee’s life back in Lebanon helped me understand how different cultures can be.  I also learned how it could be rough and nice for some people who come.  For example my interviewee has to stay employed to stay in the country but he found friends and started a new life for himself from scratch.

I haven’t given my interviewee his present yet but I really think that I did a good job when I painted the product that I will eventually be giving to him in person at my dad’s office

Final post Woman Warrior

Quote:"Fresh-off-the-Boat's, as the Chinese-American kids at school called the young immigrants." Fresh-off-the-Boat's, as the Chinese-American kids at school called the young immigrants."

Response:  I wanted to do this quote also.  It was Ben's. I wanted to do this one because I have a good connection to this.   thought it was funny how they were doing this because this kind of thing happens everywhere.  Mostly, it comes from comedians who usually make fun of their own race by using stereo types and things like that.  Sometimes this kind of joking around can be really funny but when it is over emphasized people think they can say racist things to people which isn't okay.  My theory is that if you are a certain race/ethnicity/religion you can make fun of that and that only.  Connection:  A connection that I have with this is that a lot of the time, at this school and others, people often make jokes about stereo types.  In my opinion Stereo types can be good and bad.  For example the stereo type is that chinese people can do math.  I believe this is a good stereo type because it is positive.  But there is also a down side to this theory. I also believe that judging someone in any way is wrong weather it is how you look, talk,walk etc.  Also I think that stereo types can lead to big things like the holocaust.  I am sure that the holocaust started with little Jew jokes that expanded and than people started believing that Jews were responsible for all the problems in Germany.  Than from there it was easy, Hitler, a powerful dictator, could get everyone to blame the Jews while Germany was having problems.

Question:  Do you ever stereo type yourself? other people? why or why not?

Quote: There was dating and dances, but not for good Chinese girls.  "you out to develop yourself socially as well as mentally," the American teachers, who took me aside, said.

Response:  I think that the teachers, for some reason, are trying to urge the Chinese girls to socialize more instead of studying a lot.  I think this is half good advice and half bad advice.  I think this is bad advice because the teachers don't understand their cultural background which is focused on education and not always socialization.  I think this is good advice because you have to have social skills to get anywhere in life it doesn't always just come from education.

Question: What do you think is more important? personality or education?

What is higher priority to you? Socialization or education?

Quote 1:  "I had worked the soil, which is its flesh, and harvested the listen to its voice in the thunder and feel is threatening in lighting." pg. 29 1rst paragraph

Response: I really like the metaphor in this quote.  I just noticed this from a long time ago.  In my life I always try to see things as a metaphor.  It always helps me understand things.  In this quote it was talking about when the main character was training to be a warrior and she was taught that the earth was in resemblance to a dragon.  and how the soil was the skin, the trees were its hair, its voice was thunder and so on.  It is always hard to understand how the world works so comparing animals to how the earth is is a useful strategy to widen you mind about this huge concept.

Connection:  For me I always use metaphors to help me understand things for example: When a friend gets mad at me I think of it as a caterpillar.  When they are friendly and nice they are a caterpillar but when they are in the cacoon its just a stage that they are mad at me. Than they turn into a butterfly and we are better friends than we were before because we endured so much together.

Quote 2:  "If it tastes good, its bad for you,  if it tastes good its bad for you."

Pg. 92 4rth

Respnse:  This kind of shows how the mother is crazy because they are talking about brains of a monkey and how its bad so its good for you.  I don't understand why the mother is so crazy in this book.  She is a complete ghost hunter and she acts like a witch.

Connection:  my mini connection to this is is that I don't eat vegetables and I think that they are disgusting though they are good for people.

Woman warrior post #3

Quote: "I do not give in," she said.  "There is no pain you can inflict that I cannot endure.  You're wrong if you think Im afraid of you.  Your no mystery to me. I've heard you sitting ghosts before, Yes, people have lived to tell about you , You kill babies you cowards. 

 Said my the mother in the middle of pg. 70.

I cannot tell weather the main character is dreaming or not but basically her mom has gotten really full of herself.  She has made herself one of the smartest kids in her medical school class.  She is now kind of known as the town star.  It sounds like the Mom has gotten crazy also.  I don't understand what is going on with the ghosts.  They say that the ghost is eating babies.  I think that anybody who believes in something that eats babies then they are crazy but thats just me.

Question:  If your mom moved to a new country got a good job, and became slightly crazy.  what would you do?

Quote:  professional women have the right to use their maiden name.

I think that the book said that because the the Chinese culture the women is not as honorable as the man.  I think the reason for the maiden name is because whenever a women is a professional at something they should get some privileges and maybe her maiden name is honorable in the chinese culture.

Question:  Is your middle name honorable?

would you use it when you are a professional at something?

Quote #1: "they think we are carrying these sticks for our own fire." Pg 51 paragraph

Significance:  This shows, like Ben said, how people who immigrate to America don't always have an easy life .   The Aunt said this because they were trying to get money from people and the main character wasn't yelling that it was for sale so the people just thought that they were walking with their own wood.  This was very sad because they had to walk back and forth selling wood as their children would beg.

Connection: I cannot really connect with their situation.  I have never really felt the feeling that they were.  I do feel sorry for them though.  It makes me sad that people had to go through situations like that.

If you were put in that sort of situation how would you feel and what would you do?

Quote #2: I looked at their ink drawing of poor people snagging their neighbors flotage with long flood hooks and pushing the girl babies on down the river.

Significance: In the chinese culture the girl is not as important as the boys because the boys, in the asian culture, have a reputation for being smart and for being warriors which is honorable.  This was significant because i would have been very offended if I was a girl and my parents were drawing about me being sent down a river. 

If you saw a picture like that how would you react?