Summer bookshelf

Classics/dramas:
Macbeth-- William Shakespeare
The great gatsby-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Brave new world-- Aldous Huxley

Young adult literature:
The scorch trials-- James dashner
I'll give you the sun-- Jandy Nelson
Looking for Alaska-- John green
Paper towns-- John green
The perks of being a wallflower-- Stephan Chobsky


Whatever's on the Bard Highschool Early College summer reading list.

A last goodbye

dear classmates/ms. Galang,
So here we are, one day of school left. It's hard to believe that we won't be together next year, sure there are new people to meet and new stuff to learn, but I feel like I could be happy if I just kept reliving this year. I learned so much from not only teachers like Ms. Galang, but the people I was in class with for the past 284 days. I've always loved reading, but I developed my conversational skills this year. I am wholeheartedly positive that I wouldn't be where I am without this experience.

I learned how to talk about books, how to read them and really absorb their messages. I learned how to read characters. With three years of fantastic teachers and fantastic peers, I am terrified of not having that environment to coach me through every class. But I know that in these years I was taught how to speak for myself, come up with my own ideas and how to express them. And I can't wait to represent M.S. 51 and its teachers.

Reading response to the power of six

Reading Response To The Power Of Six
By Pittacus Lore

Have you ever seen someone make a big decision that seems totally random? In the book The Power Of Six  by Pittacus Lore, the author switches perspectives. But that still leaves the reader with a lot of big plot holes. The guardian of one of the two main characters makes a drastic change over the course of the book. Which of course leaves the reader wondering why. This just goes to show that a missing perspective often leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader.

When an important character like Adelina gives up on causes they once would have died for, the reader is often left to question their logic without closure from the book. When Adelina, the guardian of one of the two main characters, forbids Marina from opening the chest that contains the objects that will allow her to help save her home planet, Lorien. They get in a huge fight and Marina says "I was never going to be ready in your eyes because you stopped believing." The reader is left to wonder what made Adelina give up her faith in Lorien and the nine children, including Marina, meant to save it.

When any character whose perspective is not shared with the reader makes a big decision, the reader is left to imagine what triggered it. When Adelina says at the end "I can't make up for lost time, or for the wrongs that I've done... But I'm certainly going to try." You see that she started believing in Lorien again, and in Marina. She does the right thing in the end, but the reader still doesn't know why. The reader is left in the dark about Adelina's decision due to her missing perspective.

When the reader is unable to see the thought process behind characters' decisions, they are left to wonder why. The missing perspective leaves the reader to question the character's decision in the dark. Especially in books where the perspective switches, the missing perspectives are particularly pronounced. A character's experiences are what make them who they are. So when we can't see from their point of view, we miss these vital experiences.

Poetry picture book: words only

Cara and I
Met in the 1st grade
I had moved here
From Japan
And my dad
Made me wear my old uniform
The one from Japan
No one wanted to talk to me
Except Cara


We were best friends from the moment we met
We sat together
Under the bleachers
At the football field
With bags of m&ms
And talked
For hours
We did our homework
Pressed against each other's backs
I did the math
And Cara did the writing

On Saturday nights
I'd put my head in her lap
And read out loud
In the morning
We'd eat waffles
**************************************************************************

In the beginning
Of the 5th grade
Cara's mom
Put her on a diet
Cara hated it
So I snuck her candy
I had never thought about it before
But Cara wasn't skinny like I was
I had lots of other friends
And Cara
Had me

At home Cara was fed grapefruit
And cottage cheese
At my house she got cake
And mini-muffins

Zack from school noticed
And he told her tart only pigs
Ate so much candy
She put down the m&ms
The next day
She gave me her lunch
"Maemie?"
"Mhmm?"
"Am I fat?"
"No, eat your desert,
I ate everything else."
She took her pudding cup
And Zack said she was a fatty

No one ate lunch near us
Anymore
And  I didn't say
Anything

Zack would pinch her during class
And I didn't say
Anything

Cara stopped eating lunch
And I didn't say
Anything

Cara wanted to come over after school
And I didn't say
Anything

I didn't want to loose my friends
'Cause I was spending time with Cara
So
I didn't spend time
With Cara
I didn't eat lunch with Cara
I didn't say
Sorry
I didn't say
Anything

Zack said that now
Cara was a fatty
With no friends

Dean said
That she was so ugly
Even I
Didn't want to
Look at her
Cara didn't eat lunch
And when I asked her why
She said
She wasn't hungry
She hated food
She hated being fat
And I didn't say
Anything

We didn't spend any time together
Anymore
And I was glad
Because I wasn't friends with
"The Fat Girl"

No one else
Wanted to be friends with her
Why should I?
But I still felt
Bad

Cara wasn't in school
For 5 days
Then she came back
And I dint say
Anything

At lunch
Cara sat
Alone
And cried
And I didn't say
Anything

Carter said
"Zack was right."
And that Cara shouldn't have come back
Everyone
Hated her

That night
I asked my dad
If a girl at school
was being teased
By some boys
And I was sort of friends with her
But I was scared no one wold be friends with me
If I was
What should I do?

And my dad said
To stand up for her
So I said I would

The next day at lunch
I sat with Cara
And when Zack
And Dean
and Carter
Said
I should stay away from Cara
I said I'd rather die

They said Cara was fat
And if I was friends with her
No one would be friends with me
And I said to leave Cara alone

They said I
Was just as stupid and ugly
As Cara
And I said
That 100 of them would never be as good
As one Cara
*******************************************************************************

We sat together
Under the bleachers
At the football field
With bags of m&ms
And talked
For hours
We did our homework
Pressed against each other's backs
I did the math
And Cara did the writing

On Saturday nights
I'd put my head in her lap
And read out loud
In the morning
We'd eat waffles

The End

Sorry I screwed up the last post

i am sorry that I missed the memo on the last one. So here's my author's note.

In modern day life, body image is set by the media. Magazines, TV, and even comercials tell us the way we are "supposed" to look. But no one really looks like that. Photoshop slims models, stretches them out and whitens their teeth. Everyday people like you and I come in hundreds of beautiful shapes and sizes. But sometimes bullys decide to single people out because they look different. They're thinner than most people, or heavier than most people. Because of bullies someone might develop low self esteem or a negative body image. But these can easily morph into something much worse. Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia claim the live of hundreds of people every year.

In the 5th grade, my personal bullying experience began. Kids called me fat or ugly. They threw things at me or screamed at me. One time they threw rocks at me to make me scream and posted a video of it without the rocks on YouTube. When the summer came, I thought that at long last it was over.

But new bullies arose in middle school. They called me names and cursed at me and told others to do the same. They hated me so much that I began to hate myself too. Every time I looked in the mirror, the things I hated about myself grew until they obscured my vision of the things I did like. I became depressed and didn't want to eat anything, I was terrified of getting fat. The bullies slowly faded away, but it was too late, by then I was unable to differentiate between their voices and the ones in my head. I was living on sometimes 200 calories a day I thought that I was a waste of space and time. Eventually, it ended, but it was an experience I wouldn't wish upon anybody. So I'm writing this so that maybe it won't have to happen to you.

Love,
Sofi

Nonfiction post of the month

This post is on my main source of research for our picture books: When The Mirror Lies bt tamara b. Orr.

The book When The Mirror Lies by Tamara Orr is a nonfiction book on eating disorders such as binge eating disorder (otherwise known as compulsive eating), anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa. It takes the reader through 10 first hand accounts of recovering anorexics, bulimics, and binge eating disorder sufferers. It goes into facts and statistics about weight and eating disorder occurrences, it also shares short factoids such as Latin roots. But it isn't just about eating disorders, it includes weight charts, questionnaires, and information about negative body image and self harm. While my project is not about a character with an eating disorder, this book has been like gold in my writing process.

The book includes 10 first hand accounts of living with these dangerous eating disorders. The book starts off with a bang by depicting the everyday life of an anorexic. But the first hand accounts are much more valuable than that. They delve into the phsycological portion of an eating disorder as well as the symptoms. For example in "Catherine's story" she says that "'my mother made a lot of comments about my thinness,'" which she later explains played a big roll in her anorexia. The book goes into the phsycological factors and triggers for anorexia.

To both entertain the reader, and give them a better perspective of the issue, the book goes into factoids and statistics about eating disorders. The book says that "the word anorexia means 'without appetite.'" And that "the word nervosa means 'condition of the mind.'" The book goes into greater detail with these facts explaining that anorexia is not a lack of appetite and that not eating is merely a symptom, and not the disease. The book also includes a weight chart and other symptoms of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. The statistics in this book were easily the most helpful in the writing of my story.

The extras in this book, while meant to entertain readers, also have a profound phsycological value. The book contains questionnaires, charts and a section called "weighty words" introducing the media as one of the factors in many eating disorders. One of the questionnaires really helped me in creating one of my main characters. It listed some of the symptoms of various eating disorders including "counts calories in all foods eaten" and "feels guilty after eating." These statistics and facts allowed me to design a character who has disordered behavior, but not a full blown eating disorder.