Short Story Response

I felt that the most helpful thing we have done in reading these short stories is just talking about them in class. Sometimes (actually most of the time) I find myself skipping over a lot of important details or points when reading and attempting to annotate these short stories. So when we go over them in class other people’s perspective help me see those things that my fast paced brain tends to skip over. This applies to stories like “Dry September” because I don’t find them particularly interesting and they aren’t very straight forward. Annotating in general helps me with focusing on a story’s details.

There are a few things that I didn’t find extremely helpful and things that could help make the readings more enjoyable. The word thing we did on the board with sending in words describing A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings in the end was pretty beneficial but I felt like there could be a more efficient way of doing it. A bunch of people were complaining a little about how the stories were so weird and they didn’t really understand what was going on. I don’t agree with that because I’m more interested in odd stories like Harrison Bergeron or A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Even though I might not have an easy time understanding everything that is going on, I find stories like those a much faster read.

 Reading Log

Siddhartha all of part 1

9/29/13

2 hours

 

Short Story Plot

My story started out as something that seemed easy and I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted to do but as time went by I realized my idea was just a big blurry mess of a story line. So the plot of my story is still not completely decided and anything I say is open to suggestions to change things because I am not completely satisfied with where I’m going with my story.

Exposition:

-          Mainly set in a small apartment complex where the two main characters, Brayden and Katya live. Brayden is mentally unstable because of his parents abandoning him as a child causing him to form a habit and a severe fear of losing things. Katya is Brayden’s neighbor who he has fallen head over heals in love with and seeks to claim her affection to fill the void of loneliness left by his parents.

Rising Actions:

-          Braden repeatedly attempts to catch Katya’s attention  

Climax:

-          On his last attempt, he sends a love letter, but receives a letter back gently rejecting him. He flips out and tries to find a way to escape the situation without losing anything

Resolution:

-          He gets himself out of his predicament

 

Reading Response: That Big Red Book in the Library

            Friday after school, I was sitting in the library waiting for my mother to pick me up and I noticed an enormous red book on one of the tables. I got up and went over to see what it was about. The title of that book is The First Folio of Shakespeare, so basically it is an anthology of Shakespeare plays. This summer I performed in a ballet based off of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which made me interested in reading it. As I was skimming over these plays (skimming because they can get too hard to understand when actually reading) I paid attention to how unique Shakespeare’s writing is and that it’s a rare occasion when you come across someone who still writes in that style. Shakespeare made up many of the words he used in his plays, which is something that I don’t see very often.

                Pretty much every school assigns one of Shakespeare’s master pieces to be read at some point. They do this because all of his writing is beautifully written in a way that almost every line has meaning and importance. And usually if there wasn’t a real meaning to a phrase it usually had a pun or witty statement. His imagery was incredible and the order in which he wrote his phrases was unique. Not to mention, all the while he kept some sort of rhythm or tone. Shakespeare is probably one of my all-time favorite writers, because they are fabulous to read and several of them have been made into ballets.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

1 hour 30 mins

9/16-18/13

A&P- 30 mins

To Da-duh, in Memoium-30 mins

 

I've lost It...

            I’m going to have to take care of that in the morning… Another pair of shoes? How could I have possibly lost another pair of shoes? That is now..what..the fourth pair of shoes this month? I made a wreck out of my apartment looking for them. I won’t have time to take care of all of this in the morning! I’ll be late! I won’t see her. She will head off to work the day away wondering why I have abandoned her. She will think I don’t care! Wait a second…. Didn’t I buy three extra pairs of shoes on the way home from work today? Yes! Now I will not be late to start her day with a ‘good morning’. If only I could remember where I put them. If only I hadn’t made a mess of my house tonight looking for them. I’m going to lose so much time that I won’t be at the courtyard gate as the sun is rising. I will have to find them quickly, before it’s too late. Before I miss her. Before I lose the one thing I dread losing the most. Before I lose the love of my life. Before I lose Katya Day.

Ok so this was the second version I wrote. The first one, I wrote before I realized it had to be of the character before they fall asleep. I want to put the first version also because I liked it better but they are both pretty much the same thing..........so read it if you would like to.

Original:    Where is it? I could have sworn it was just in that drawer! How is it possible to lose four pairs of shoes in a month? I’m going to be late. I’m going to miss her! She is going to walk straight into her apartment without my greeting. Is it possible to live not seeing my love for even a day? I’ve got 15 minutes, and it may be enough time to go buy another pair of shoes. No, wait! I bought 3 extra pairs on the way home from work in case this were to happen again. Now where did I put them….. Ah! Here they are. Oh I’m losing too much time! Already 10 minutes have passed. I must move swiftly now! Before it’s too late. Before I miss her. Before I lose the one thing I dread losing the most. Before I lose the love of my life. Before I lose Katya Day.

EBook

              Literary narratives are at their best when they are jam packed with imagery. So wouldn’t a literacy narrative with an actual image to back up the imagery. In my narrative I don’t really go into detail about how Twilight Twins looked physically, so I think it would be amusing to see my amazing illustrations. I have nothing against MLA headings but I much prefer just something simple. Underline and bold titles are what I always use and I like how magazines have pictures in the middle of articles. Hopefully this eBook won’t look like an explosion of colors, because I’ll find it distracting me from the actual narrative.

                I don’t have a problem with anything in my narrative ‘going public’ and I’m sure anybody I mentioned won’t either, so I’m probably not going to change any of the writing. But I might want to proofread one more time because I added a few things before I turned it in. I’m excited about this and even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be adding, I’ll figure it out as I go.

Guess Who?

             They’re Made of Meat is a short story by Terry Bisson that I had read back in the 6^th grade. I’ve recently read it again. Since I really don’t real want to blog about the book I’m reading again, I’m going to blog about this short story. I strongly recommend reading this if you like new perspectives on things. Also it is completely dialogue, so if you’re having trouble figuring that out, this might help.

                They’re Made of Meat is a dialogue between two characters in outer space who were sent to research some alien species to see if they could communicate and make relationships with. But they are appalled and disgusted when they find that the species is completely made of meat; no carbon-based body parts, no electron plasma brains, they are simply made of meat. Meat that thinks, dreams, makes machines, and even communicates by flapping their meat together to make sound. They are so abhorred by this species that they pretended they never discovered them and left them to be lonely in the universe.

WARNING YOU MAY WANT TO READ THE ACTUAL STORY BEFORE READNG THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. IT WILL RUIN THE MAGIC. So here's the link.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml

Guess what the intelligent species they found was? Us. The whole time I was reading it for the first time, I believed it was two humans talking. Turns out it was two aliens talking about humans. And all the things they described us as, is actually true. Our vocal chords are just meat flapping together and we are completely made out of meat. Those things may seem very odd for aliens who are made of rock or who knows what (I’m not saying I believe in aliens but if there were….). I found They’re Made of Meat intriguing and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes short stories.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

2 hours 30-42%

9/15/13

Diolougue: Q&A

                “How old are you?” asks the stern looking middle aged man. This startles the younger guy who stands outside the door on the brick front porch. “Fifteen,” he replies.

“What classes are you taking?” grumbles the man.

“Pre-calculus, chemistry, AP US History, English 2, and Spanish 3,” stutters the boy.

“You make good grades?”

“Yes, Mr. Smith,” says the boy in a slightly higher pitch than before, while nodding his head.

“You don’t play football, right?”

“No, sir. I play golf,”

Mr. Smith grunts with approval and asks, “Got a job?”

“Yes sir. I cut lawns in my neighborhood and I dj parties.”

This time Mr. Smith grunts disapprovingly. He looks up in contemplation and looks back down at the boy with a despising glare. “Have you ever been arrested?” he says in a low growl.

“No sir! I’m not like that!” He exclaims, adding ‘sir’ a second later.

“Good,” utters Mr. Smith, then asks “Do you really want to date Sarah?”

“I’m not so sure now, sir,” stammers the boy.

“Alright, be back by nine,” murmurs Mr. Smith as he lets Sarah pass and closes the door.

Twilight Twins Update

           The subject of my literacy narrative is a story I wrote in the third grade called Twilight Twins. I’m pumped about how I managed to transition between parts of the narrative. I’m quite fond of how I shifted into a summary of our brief story. I used my trip to the library to show off the story to the librarian as a transition into describing the faults and strong points of Twilight Twins. Also I am very proud of some of the descriptive parts within the essay. I worked especially at recollecting the settings of the moments I mentioned in my narrative.

             I believe I might have to go back through and correct some of my sentence structures and switch out some words for more accurately descriptive choices. I’m not particularly confident about how I concluded the narrative. I typed it on the remaining five minutes of a plane ride that I was allowed to use electronics and ended up slightly rushing the ending. I also might need to go back through and add some more sensory to some parts of it. Other than those few instances, I think I typed up a reputable rough draft.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

9/5/13

120 minutes 14%-30%

Not So Great of an Example

          The literary narrative Proficiency by Shannon Nichols was about a girl who failed her writing section of her proficiency test. Even after retaking the test she failed it, only to succeed on her third attempt. This article is not an adequate example of a literary narrative because of several negative characteristics. I was not all that impressed by this paper's word choice. The organization and sentence fluency were not outstanding either. But most importantly there was no real purpose to the narrative.
           After reading Proficiency I was left confused because I had not gained anything from it, I was bored and it was not clear what the purpose of the story had been. The article just goes on about how she failed the writing portion of the test twice and then passed it the third time. The style of writing made me disdain the narrator because of the sense of self-absorption I received. Also after watching The Case Against "good" and "bad"  video in the Vocabulary topic on the English class page, I realized how dull the articles vocabulary is. I now understand why Proficiency had not been one of the ones assigned.

Reading Response: Prodigy

            The second book of Marie Lu's Legend series, the book I posted on last week, is Prodigy. As I said last reading response post, Legend is brain candy so that its hard to stop reading once you've started. I finished it on sunday night, then promptly bought the second book, Prodigy.This made me wonder why books now are made into a series. Not long ago, people really only wrote novels and left it at that. Authors put everything they wanted to happen into one book, instead of just drawing out the story over the course of three or more books. Is it because it all didn't fit into one book? Or just because people want to make more money?
            Prodigy is a continuation of June and Day's escape from the Republic. Someone complained about The Knife of Never Letting Go that the whole plot was about the two characters just running and running. Prodigy is starting to feel like that to me, but with more variation. One negative characteristic I find in sequels that I am noticing in Prodigy is that the power of the characters is weakening. Their secrets are revealed, leaving no mystery about them. The reader knows their weaknesses, and there is less of a superior-being quality to them. I believe the Legend series so far has a captivating plot, but I wish it could just be all in one book.

 Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

8/28/13

0%-14% 120 mins