Semester 1 Reflection
Mrs. Bross Honors English 1A
Bryce Conner bell2

What I read? Did I Enjoy it? and What's Next?!

       This semester was successful but relatively slow reading wise because I'm trying to a read at least two books a semester for independent reading. And I did accomplish that, but I feel like I could do better. so next semester I'm going to try my hardest to read more books.

       Well to start off I read a novel called Travel Team by Mike Lupica. Its about this kid who has a passion for basketball and is going through tough times because of his parents divorcing. So it makes it even harder for him to practice knowing his parents are separating. He is a very small kid height wise, but he is one of the best passers you will ever see. But when he makes the team. His height difference in all the kids makes him not play as much and he gets frustrated with everything and this motivates him to practice more. So next season he comes out with more effort than ever and the coaches are impressed and he finally gets what he deserves. My next novel was probably my favorite because it really opened my eyes to see what more worse things people have seen in the world, its title is, Jackie & Me, By Dan Gutman. In this novel Jackie Robinson is the main character and its a little boy (The Narrator) this little boy is like some kid from the future to see what Jackie had to go through and that's why I liked it so much because it Paint a picture in my mind and I literally saw what was happening and realized that whatever I go through in life will never be as bad as Jackie and that's basically the rap up of my semester one reading.

      When Mrs. Bross introduced Blogging to us I was honestly scared because i thought i would be so bad at this. At first i had no idea what i was doing i was basically just doing summaries of what we read in class and that was the wrong thing to do. i soon learned to add voice into each post. and even my own personality so that when you read my blog posts you KNOW It's me. And I think I'm doing a way better job in adding voice and personality into each one of my blog posts. I feel my posts at the start of the semester were very flat. but as time progressed i began to evolve my blog posts into something fun and interesting to read and maybe inspire people to read what I talked about, and I hope to do the same next semester.

      Goals I will be setting for next semester are obviously reading more. (Duh..) but not only that. My first goal is that  I will be putting way more effort into my blog posts, and I want more people to read them because I feel that they will be enjoyable to read now that I'm putting my voice and personality into them. Next i would like to read more "Higher Level" books. I have taken the easy way out of things a lot by reading easy books just to get something read. I now know that I need to read something for enjoyment and not just to get it read. So that will be a big goal this up coming semester as well. My third and final goal is to comment on way more peoples blog posts! I mean who doesn't love feedback? (exactly) I absolutely love it when i see someone has read my posts and has left a comment whether they told me they loved or they hated it, because if they loved it I can keep doing what I'm doing, and if they hated it, I know that I need to do something different. And I'll be willing to do anything so I can get better. Those are three goals I have set for the next semester and I cant wait to work to achieve them!

Argument Paragraph from class: Are Romeo and Juliet really in love?

Are Romeo and Juliet Actually in Love?

Are Romeo and Juliet in Love? Well in theory it is kind of impossible to love someone after talking to them for 2 minutes. So they aren't in love. They are both just caught up in attraction. It takes a lot to love someone. Not just a kiss and a hand touch. Romeo just before this was so dramatic about how Rosaline was the only one he will ever love and how his heart will be forever broken because she is becoming a nun. So Romeo is obviously dramatic dude. I mean I think he is overreacting a little bit by saying that he loves Juliet. When an hour before the party he was in love with a nun. Now with Juliet, she was expecting Paris to "woo" her, because Paris wants to marry her and Juliet's dad likes him, but that obviously didn’t happen. As you can tell Romeo aka "Mr. Steal Your Girl" Swoops in and immediately starts sweet talking Juliet. She is all for this because just 10 seconds later, it turns into a make out session and they both claim they are "In Love." As you read earlier I stated I do not believe Romeo and Juliet are in love because theoretically, you have to know someone for more than two minutes to love them and that isn't the case between Romeo And Juliet. They are just crushing on each other. They're not in love.

                                                                 

Romeo And Juliet

We recently read scene 4 of act 1 and its about this fairy of good and bad dreams. Mercutio speaks a HUGE monologue about Mab, this fairy that controls dreams or something. she is described as really tiny, and people in my class described her as overwight...? yeah I don't know what they were thinking. Anyways she controls dreams and can make them good or bad. She makes Romeo see a vision of death, and he begins to worry and you know how dramatic Romeo gets when he speaks. Speaking of dramatic, Romeo attends the Capulet's party and oddly, Capulet doesn't get angry because he hears Romeo is a good kid. but he spots Juliet and once again. he falls in love at first sight..... At first Juliet doesn't buy it. but as soon as Romeo slides in for that first kiss. All Juliet can think about is Romeo. they end up having a make out session for about 5 minutes and then Romeo Capulet tells everyone to leave. Romeo soon finds out Juliet is a Capulet. this doesn't really bother him to me... Oh Romeo....

Intro to Shakespear

         This week we are starting our Shakespear unit and we are reading/watching/performing one of his most famous plays, Romeo And Juliet it took a few class days to get the hang of Elizabeathen Language, but I think im getting the hang of it pretty well.

 

         On Act 1 Scene 1, I played Benvolio , Romeos Cousin, this scene was basically the fight between the Capulets, and the Montegues. we also watched to versions of this scene. One was the 1968 version that really portrayed the events to the actual events really well. it was what me and a lot of students imaged in our head as we read it for the first time. However the one with Dicaprio, in my opinion. was awful because it was in modern times, they had guns, cars, AND EVEN HELECOPTERS, and still used old English! Like Cmon, what were they thinking!? All in all I came into this unit thinking it would be bring, but im actually quite enjoying myself. I like acting it out because it makes it more enjoyable because everyone gets a laugh.

Bryce Conner, Spencer Hathaway

A Long Way Gone

For my second memoir, I read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. The central idea in this text is the impact of war on both the soldiers and the general population.    A Long Way Gone focuses on the war in Sierra Leone;  the war in Afghanistan exhibits several parallels to the African conflict.

Child warriors have been pulled into both conflicts with long term ramifications.  Unicef reports that children are recruited or forced into service because they are easier to manipulate.  This robs them of their childhood and creates an ongoing crisis after the conflict ends.  The child soldier may see violence as the sole method to achieve their objectives after witnessing repeated brutalities and being subject to physical, emotional and substance abuse themselves.

In 2010, the Society for Research in Child Development studied the re-acclimation process for former child soldiers in Sierra Leone and Uganda.  They found that children that witnessed war were significantly less traumatized than those who actually hurt or killed others.  In addition, a non-violent and supportive living environment was key to the mental health of the former child soldier.

While war is certainly hard on the youngest citizens, soldiering creates a huge burden with long term mental health implications. I see that I am very fortunate compared to other children around the world who have had their freedoms robbed by the time they reach my age

Tavel Team 

I finished my first novel this year and its called Travel Team by Mike Lupica and its about a kid who is really small and he plays basketball for his school travel team and at this time he is going through a rough time because his parents just got divorced and it immediately goes by one year and hes older, still small, but he has tryouts and a few weeks and he practices in his driveway every night and stays up late every night and shoots free throws, but at school, he doesnt have a lot of friends because he is small and people think he is bad at basketball even the coach thinks hes too small to play.

Sorry guys but i will have to leave you hanging here because i dont want to give away too much, but in this novel i made several text-to-self connections because i also play basketball and my parents also got divorced and i didnt really have the height problem like him but it related to me because when i moved to mason people immediately judged me and said i wasnt good , until i made the team, so that was a huge connection i made. and i think the overall theme in this book is , "Don't judge a book by its cover" very very cliche , i know that, but its seriously true!

Books i Prefer to Read

Some of the books I want to read this year would definitely be sports novels , i will still be reading Mike Lupica, Dan Gutman, and Walter Myers, because, like i said i can connect easily with them, and i feel like its one of the only genres i'm enjoying right now and i'm hoping i can explore to more genres in the future because m if you read only one genre, it may get boring or repetitive, also you might not get anything out of it.

Im deciding on reading a sports novel or a something different right now, I might just start with a sports novel so i can get comfortable with this blogging thing. but after that im forcing myself to read something else for the good of me. Ill probably start out with a book by Mike Lupica because im comfortable with his text structure and once again Ill connect to the text very well.

My Summer Reading

Summer Reading: "Something Like Normal" by Trish Doller.

This summer I have read "Something Like Normal" by Trish Doller and the gist of this book is about a marine returning from Afghanistan and he cant find his true place in life because his girlfriend left him for his brother, he suffers from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and he has a drug problem. So to get away from his problems he drinks and over doses on medication. He meets a girl name Harper they develop a huge friendship to where they can basically tell each  other anything, at the end they end up falling in love and Travis ends of having to go back to Afghanistan.

The audience I recommend for this novel is mostly young adults because there is some mature words and inappropriate things in this book, but if your looking for a little bit of everything , I would recommend this book because it has Love, War, Fighting, and mystery, It was something new for me and I enjoyed it but it could have been better in my opinion. I rate this book a 3 out of 5 stars.