Book of The Month!

I'm sure most of you have read a story of " rags to riches" but have you ever read about the complete opposite. Have you read about going from " riches to rags". About a boy living in a mansion with everything he wanted to to becoming a pool boy?  Thats what the book Pool Boy by Michael Simmons is about.

A boy by the name of Brett once lived in a mansion with his rich father with everything he could ever want, until his dad went to jail. Now he has to live in a house that's like trash compared to the mansion, and give up all of his old stuff. He has to work for the first time in his life to support him and his family. He will discover how hard work can be but also how much he can learn from it. Come read this book an find out what it's like to go from a rich boy living in a mansion, to a boy cleaning pools for a job.

O'Henry Notes.

• Known for Ironic plot twists and surprise endings
• Once charged with Embezzling funds from a Texas bank
• Began writing full time in New York after being released from jail
• Wrote at a rate of more than one story A WEEK
• Real name William Sydney Porter
• Dropped out of school at age 15
• After he embezzled the funds he fled to Honduras
• In 1984 he founded the Rolling Stone
• Some famous stories " The Gift of the Magi"  " The Furnished Room"   " The Ransom of Red Chief"
• The O'Henry award named for him
• All this from Student Encarta

http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/departments/Library/ohenry/

Masque of The Red Death Essay

In the story “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, a prince builds seven different rooms in a castle in an attempt to escape the Red Death. The room’s colors are blue, purple, violet, green, white, yellow, orange and black. The Red death is a plague that is like the black plague. The rooms are all different colors and six of them always have a party going on. The black room is a room most people avoid because it is scary and reminds people of the Black Death. The colors all have something to do with a stage in life. The color purple the second room has to do with Youth or the second stage of life. Purple is a symbol for the second stage in life which is youth, ages 12-20, which also represents playfulness.

                All the colors in the story symbolize the seven stages of a man’s life. They go from blue( birth) to black( death). They  also form one of the most important themes to this story that you can not escape death. The color purple is the second stage in a man’s life. The stage before it, blue, means birth or beginning.  Purple means youth or an age of being young. It can represent someone having energy and being playful.  The color purple relates to the ebony clock because the clock of ebony is like life ticking by. As it goes on it represents your life going by. The color purple represents part of that life that is going by so it symbolizes that.

                The color purple relates to my life because I could be considered in the age of youth as I am only thirteen.  Also it related to my life as I have already lived through most of it. Finally the color purple relates to me as I am youthful and energetic. The color purple is important in the story “The Masque of the Red Death” because it is one of the seven colors which are one of the major themes behind the story. The whole color theme itself is very important and there would not be much of a deep story without it.  Although the color black is probably the most significant in the story since it represents death, purple is still pretty important as it represent your early stage in life. Also purple is almost the opposite black which makes it very related to it.

                The colors in “The Masque of the Red Death” are a big part of the story. They work together to create a theme that most people will not catch but can be a theme if you think about it. Although I there isn’t much explaining to do on the symbolism of the colors they are very important nonetheless and should be talked about and though out as it does relate to everybody’s life.

http://blog.chloeveltman.com/2008/03/masque-of-red-death.html

My Experiences with Poe.

     So far in my whole life I have read only one Edgar Allan Poe story. That was the Cask of Amontillado. I enjoyed that short story a lot mostly for the suspense of it. It kept me wanting to read further into the story to see what happens. The end where the one man gets buried alive was pretty creepy but I loved it. I have hopes that more of Poe's story's will scare me and I will also enjoy them.

Picture of Poe.

http://poestories.com/view.php?photo=42bfc99c5f774

WebQuest.

1. Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He passed away at age 41 on October 7, 1849.
http://poestories.com/biography.php

2.The death of his mother influenced Poe's writings. Also when his father abandoned him and his sister his writing was also influenced. Finally all his drinking affected him. All this grief in his childhood caused his writing to be very dark and scary.
http://poestories.com/biography.php


3. I have five theories of Poe's death. One is that he died from rabies. Another theory is that Poe died from alcohol poisoning since he drank a lot in the first place. Some think that Poe died from heart problems or maybe tuberculosis like his mother. The Baltimore Clipper said he died from congestion of the brain which means brain problems. These are just a few theories but no one is exactly sure how he died.
 http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/person/death.asp

4.  According to the Edgar Allan Poe museum Poe's home was in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
http://www.poemuseum.org/life.php

5.The Poe Society of Baltimore thinks that Poe lived in Virginia.
http://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1921/quinnc02.htm

6.Poe was expelled from the famous Military Academy, West Point.
http://poestories.com/biography.php

7. Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, when she was only 13 years old and he was over 20 years old.
http://poestories.com/biography.php

8.  I think it's really weird that Edgar married his cousin and even odder that she wasn't even an adult yet.

9.  The Murders in the Rue Morgue is known as the first detective story .
http://poestories.com/summaries.php


10. The Tell Tale Heart was written in 1850. The Black Cat was written in 1845.
http://poestories.com/stories.php

11. The Raven was published in 1845.
http://poestories.com/stories.php
12. I think of this picture when I am reading Poe's stories.
http://poestories.com/view.php?photo=42bfc99c5f774

13. By far the Cask of Amontadillo. It was scary and suspenseful and kept me reading. It was my favorite Poe story so far and my only one.
http://poestories.com/comments.php

14. I love this dude hes awesome even though he isnt alive.
 http://poestories.com/guestbook.php

15.  first story. The Black Cat
     A man comes home drunk and kills his cat. This comes back to haunt him later and once again the killer is the narrator of the story.
The Gold Bug
     A story about two men who are looking for treasure. The treasure is the famous treasure of Captain Kidd. There are encrypted messages within the story and if you read the story you could even decode real messages!
http://poestories.com/summaries.php

16. I felt that listening to the audio version deepened my reading experience by hearing the expressions of the narrators voice.

17. The Poe Toaster is a man who came to Poe's grave every year and put an empty bottle of Cognac and three roses down as a " Toast".
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/library/news/toaster.asp

 18. One example of Poe in my life are the Baltimore Ravens named after his poem. Another example is Poe was number 4 on most searched terms in 1999. A third example is that a award for mystery writers is called an Edgar. Another example is that 81 films have been based on Poe's works. Finally a novel called the strange city is a book about the Poe toaster.
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/library/news/yourlife.asp

Welcome back!

     Welcome back to me English Blog. It's the second quarter and we are starting something new. We are off research papers and on to short stories. We will be reading from authors like Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare.
     I updated the theme of my blog and I also updated my current projects gadget. I hope this new theme looks good and can be easily read.
    I personally have never read any William Shakespeare books or talked about them so I am interested to see what kind of writing he does. Also I have heard that he uses sarcasm and irony in his stories a lot. I have only read one Edgar Allen Poe book but enjoyed it. It was only a short story but i enjoyed it. The creepiness of it kept me reading and the suspense also made me want to continue reading.
     Im excited to start short stories and read some books from some famous authors that are new to me.

Research Paper

                It’s a fact that we all know that some minority students do bad. Students of any race can do poorly in school. Now a fact most of us know is that not all minority students do bad in school. This is a stereotype that people have stuck in their head. All minority students that aren’t well off do poorly in school. That must change. Schools must help all minority students succeed in school, and erase the stereotype that all of them do poorly.

                Now one reason why some minority students do poorly in school is because of the life before they even enter kindergarten. This time in life is shown to be when the brain progresses the most              (Whitmire).  If they aren’t treated right this time intellectually then they’ll fall behind. One thing that can let kids fall behind in this time is not having enough literature in their lives. If they’re parents don’t read to them or they don’t read any at all then they’ll fall behind. It’s proven that if you have more books in your home and read them or someone reads them too you have a higher literacy rate (Evans). Another thing that affects children before kindergarten is not going to pre-school. Many kids that are well off are sent to pre-school as kids. Pre-k can help kids become more advanced with learning. They get a basic grasp on things like letters and numbers before kindergarten. The minority kids who live in poverty can’t afford pre-k since it’s not public so they fall behind other kids. They fall behind so much that this was discovered. "At the University of North Carolina, psychologist Craig Ramey showed that a high quality pre-school can boost IQ by 7-10 points with the gains holding as the child entered adulthood." (Whitmire). That makes a huge difference in learning and can let a kid who doesn’t go to pre-k fall behind.

Another thing that majorly affects a kid’s success in school is their home life and parents. The condition of their home and how they live affects their performance in school. Also how good their parents are affects performance also. It’s proven that better parenting helps children perform better (Whitmire). If the parents parent better a few things will improve with the child. First the child will be on better behavior which helps in school. Second the child will be more willing to learn because the kid will understand the importance of a good education if their parents raise them good.

The next thing to do with home life is what is in the home. If the kid is surrounded by books and literature they will do better in school. The reason being is that reading the books helps the child understand English more for English class. Also reading literature better than watching  T.V. all day. Finally having the books helps the child learn to read better if they read a lot. This skill helps a lot in school .Another factor at home that affects school performance is support from parents. It’s shown that minority children’s parents usually offer less support (Whitmire). This hurts the kid in school a few ways. First the kid will generally care less about school.  They’ll care less if their parents don’t care if they do good or not. Also if their parents don’t support them they can’t get help. Even if they try in school if they need help but the parent doesn’t care how they do the parent won’t help. That can hurt a kid’s performance in school. Finally the social factors of a child’s home life and the economic factors outweigh anything the school can deal with (Evans). This is backed up by this statement "The achievement gap has much more to do with social and economic factors than schools can deal with"(Evans). This means that the social factors a home are things a school can change a little but not much. The economic factors on the other hand are too big for a school to deal with. That makes home life problems not the schools fault.

                Finally the condition of a school plays a big role in how a student succeeds. How good the schools physical condition and condition in the form of good learning tools affects a child’s performance in school. First off the factors that aren’t the physical condition of the school play a big role in a student’s success. For example the size of a class affects a student’s performance. Bigger classes are shown to reduce the success of children (Whitmire). Larger classes occur in schools who can’t afford more classrooms or teachers. Also things like lack of computers, and violence in schools can reduce the performance of children (Evans). Next it is proven that improving these conditions will help a minority student more than a white student(Judith). Since the minority student is the focus of this paper this is important as doing this will help the minority student do better in school which is what is needed to be done to erase the stereotype all minority students do bad. Third of all a student’s success in school is related to the educational background and goals of the other pupils (Judith). This basically is saying that the attitude and academic background of the other students will rub off others and help determine how much they succeed. This is known as when how one student acts affects how all the other students act also. Finally there is the issue of how other peers will look on at you. Some minority students are afraid that if they do well and behave in school they are acting “Too White”. This is shown in this statement. " Some minority students believe if they behave and do well in school they are acting too white"(Evans). This pretty much means some students have the ability to do good but are afraid their peers will make fun of them if they act different. Note that this isn’t too common in good students.

                One opposing argument is that all minority students do poorly in school no matter what. This could be because minority students score on average lower than white students (Judith). This is a very wrong statement.  For one a lot of minority students succeed in school. A lot do better than white students. For example many Asian students score better than white students (Evans). They are on the same level as white students most of the time. A lot of the time African American and Hispanic students score up there as well.

                Another opposing argument is that minority students do poorly just because they go to a public school and this too is wrong. For example in public schools parents are more involved with the school (Whitmire). This helps the kids do better because the parents care. Also rural and small towns spend more money for minority public schools (Whitmire). This of course helps the school be better and the students do better.

                Minority students have some problems needing fixing but everyone does. A lot of factors play into why minority students don’t do well sometimes. Bad parents, bad school conditions, and violence are a few things that can reduce performance of a student. If we can make these things better we can help minority students do better for this reason. School need to help the minority perform better in school and drop the horrible stereotype that they can’t succeed in school!

Works Cited

"Excerpt from Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman Report)." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.

Evans, Robert. "Reframing the Achievement Gap." Phi Delta Kappan Vol. 86, No. 8. April 2005: 582-589. SIRS Researcher. Web. 20 Sep 2010.

Whitmire, Richard. "The Education Gap: Why Minority Test Scores Lag." Gannett News Service. Nov. 5 1997: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 16 Sep 2010.

Graphic Organizer

Notes article 3

Notes Article 4

"Excerpt from Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman Report)." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.

·         “The great majority of American children attend schools that are largely segregated—that is, where almost all of their fellow students are of the same racial background as they are”

·         “More than 65 percent of all Negro pupils in the 1st grade attend schools that are between 90 and 100 percent Negro. And 87 percent at grade 1, and 66 percent at grade 12, attend schools that are 50 percent or more Negro. In the South, most students attend schools that are 100 percent white or Negro.”

·         The average minority student scores lower than the white student

·         Southern students for any race score lower on averae than northern students

·         In the North and West about 20 percent of Minority students drop out of school

·         The average white student is affected less by school conditions than the minority

·         Improving the condition of a school will help minority more than white student

·         A students success is related to the educational background and goals of other students

·         Nonschool factors lower grades also

·         Some minority students perform much better than white students.

Article/notes 2

Evans, Robert. "Reframing the Achievement Gap." Phi Delta Kappan Vol. 86, No. 8. April 2005: 582-589. SIRS Researcher. Web. 20 Sep 2010.

·         “the achievement gap has far more to do with social and economic factors that schools cannot control.”

·         The most definite gap is between Asian/white students and African American/ Hispanic students

·         Many minority students do great in school

·         Most bad minority schools are predominantly Urban

·         Some things that lead to less success are bad teachers, Violence, Few computers, large classes

·         Minority kids living in good conditions can do bad also

·         What kind of things kids do outside of school shape their in school success.

·         Number of books in a home affects literacy

·         “Much of the achievement gap appears to grow over the summer, not during the school year.”

·         Some minority students believe if they behave and do well in school they are acting “too white”

Notes for article.

 Whitmire, Richard. "The Education Gap: Why Minority Test Scores Lag." Gannett News Service. Nov. 5 1997: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 16 Sep 2010.

·         Most of the learning gap occurs before minority children enter kindergarten.

·         “In SAT scores, the gap is roughly 100 points in both verbal and math.”

·         There is not that much proof teachers and students of the same race do better.

·         Rural/ small towns actually spend more on minority students.

·         The reason that most minority kids fall behind before school is parents font read to them, and the community is weakened without things like good family, community interactions, church.

·         “At the University of North Carolina, psychologist Craig Ramey showed that a high-quality preschool can boost IQs by 7 to 10 points, with the gains holding as the children entered adulthood. Their average IQ is 100.”

·         Smaller classes have proven to help minority classes more.

·         Better parenting will help children perform better in school

·         Private minority schools score better than public

·         Parents are more involved in public schools

·         Minority families offer less support to students

My Research Topic. Racism in School.

    My topic is about racism in schools. I want to cover things like how teachers are racist towards students and how students are racist to one another. Also I want to cover how the ethnic population of a school affects its condition.
    My questions are
1. How does race affect a students success in school?
2. How do ethnic population of a school affect its condition or funding?
3. Are teachers racist towards students or is it only a student to student issue?
4. How does racism in school affect life at home for victims?
5. Do victims of racism receive a worse education from the teacher because of their race?
6. Do school districts with a mainly minority population receive less funding.
 Those are my six questions about my topic of racism in school. These are the topics I would like to cover about racism in school.

Preliminary Research.

Book: Whale Talk

Topic: Racism in Schools

Search Terms

1.” Minority Race School Achievement”

2. “Funding for Public Minority Schools”

3.” Segregation in Schools”

4.” Civil Rights in School”

5.” Conditions in Minority Schools”

6.” Teachers in Minority Schools”

7. “Failing rates of Minority Children in School.”

Racism in School.

                The main issue in Whale Talk is racism. Since it happens in school, racism in schools seemed like an appropriate topic.  One statistic I know is that 365 out of 596 schools in Chicago are failing. These schools are predominantly Hispanic or African American. This goes to show these minority schools aren’t being funded enough. Also the drop- out rate for Hispanic students is higher than for white students. This shows that these students don't receive enough attention or do poorly so drop out. Finally the U.S. government spent 656 million on military operations last year and 43 million on covert ops. This goes to show that we can and should put more money into funding schools since we put so much into other things..

                I am happy with my topic. It relates to my life because schools around me have this happen to them. One school close to me recently failed. I think this should change and we should be aware of it.

http://www.education.com/reference/article/racism-schools/?page=2 Info

Picture http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/11/afrikaner-poverty-malnourishment.html

Novel Pen Pal Letter.

703 Churchville Road
Bel air Maryland 21014
September 3, 2010
Dear The Tao Jones,

     Hi my name is Cole . I really enjoyed reading the book Whale talk which is about you and your struggle against racism and bullying. Over this summer other than reading your book I did many things. I went to Chicago and stayed at a resort for a PCA convention. I also went to Ocean City and Fenwick. I know you are just getting out of High School while I am just entering it. I am a Ninth Grader at John Carroll. I like to run which is a similar sport to yours, swimming.
     I thought that the book was great. I really enjoyed it and thought you handled yourself well in a lot of tough situations. For example when Heidi tries to rub her skin off you manage to keep calm while your dad chased after Heidi’s father. Also when you risked your own life to save a baby deer that was being hunted, you were being selfless. I can’t deny you lost your cool once in a while but that was only when others were hurt, and never for your own revenge. For example when you found out a boy was hurting you girlfriend’s friend you chased after him.
     I think Chris Cruther’s writing style was very realistic. He told the story almost exactly like it happened. I felt like I was reading a journal somewhat of your experience through your last year of High School and a few flashbacks. I think you were a very realistic character. You acted like a normal person would and seemed like a normal High School student. I definitely could believe you to be a real person because you seem to have a realistic personality.
     I have a few questions for you about your story. First off is how you think your life would’ve unfolded if your dad had not died. Would it be a change for the better or for worse? Also how do you think your life would’ve been if never met your therapist Georgia. Would you have been as athletic as you are now? What would your personality be like?
      There are a lot of ways to raise awareness about racism and bullying. One of the easiest ways is to simply approach your parents or teachers about it. They can easily help with your problems and it makes them aware of it. Also you could make a website about it. You could list the effects of it, and how you can help stop it. This would make people more aware of racism. I think that this novel didn’t make me more aware of racism and bullying than I already am. They are both real problems in my world and I see the every day. They aren’t always major but they do happen.
     Well I must stop my letter here T.J. I think you were a great person how you helped Heidi and deserve the best in your life ahead of you. I wish you the best of luck and keep your calm and helpful attitude always.
Sincerely



Cole. A

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.woodbridge.lib.nj.us/teenslookwhatwefound_files/image006.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.woodbridge.lib.nj.us/teenslookwhatwefound.htm&usg=__lMHBvs6vXl3yo4tSMQWtgp0YxaY=&h=186&w=128&sz=4&hl=en&start=0&zoom=0&tbnid=PRMnSYBM-g5hGM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=70&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwhale%2Btalk%2Bbook%2Bcover%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D585%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=78&ei=MYuNTKuyI8GBlAewuIVh&oei=MYuNTKuyI8GBlAewuIVh&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=41&ty=45

Book Introduction and Summer Reading Questions.

     My book is about a High School Senior named T.J. Jones. He is struggling against bullies and racism all while trying to run a swim team for his school, Cutter High. The author Chris Crutcher is a writer who usually writes about serious social issues and other serious subjects. A lot of his books are not accepted by some schools because of the content they contain.
   Now for the questions.

1.      Who is the main character and what is he like?

The main character’s name is The Tao Jones or as he is usually called T.J. Jones. T.J. is a very athletic person who is a great swimmer and basketball player. He is a helpful person who volunteers a lot of his time to other things. He is also a stubborn person as he finds it hard to let go of bad things that have been done to others.

2.      The three parts of the story.

The beginning of the story covers how T.J. got adopted and why he is creating a swim team for his school. The middle of the book tells about how the swim team gets better every swim meet and the social problems each character starts to overcome. The end of the book is when the team finally achieves their goal- which is to get varsity jackets, and they all overcome their social issues. However, T.J. sacrificed his jacket so everyone else could get one.

3.      Experiences characters had and what the author is trying to say through them.

T.J. Jones has a lot of bad experiences usually included bullying, racism and even being shot at.  He is called racist terms by other adults and is even shot at after a basketball game by the angry loser, but T.J. manages to ignore it all. I think Chris Cruthcher is trying to say that you shouldn’t let bullies get to you. If you ignore them like T.J. does, you will be better off like T.J. is at the end when all his bullies are punished or change.

The Issues

            1. How does bullying affect three characters in this story.

            2. Two specific events where these social issues seem real and important.

One specific event is when the little girl rubs her own skin off to try and look white. This makes racism seem real and personal because it could really happen to someone we know and can inflict a major injury. It could really happen because the girl’s father tells her to do that. Another event is when T.J.s father is killed because they took in the Heidi. This seems real and important because once again it could really happen to someone we know and can change people’s lives forever like it did to T.J.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/chris-crutcher/whale-talk.htm