ALWTW Vlog

Summary of my Blogging Experience

     When our English teacher, Mrs. Hayes, came into class and told us that we were going to be blogging for a major writing grade every quarter, I wasn't sure what to think. It was a new thing for me and I will admit I was kind of nervous thinking that I wasn't going to be to good at it or I wasn't going to finish all of them but sure enough I was mistaken. Blogging has turned out to be a really fun experience this past year and I am actually really happy we did them because it exposed me to a new type of writing and a hobby that I can take with me throughout college and the rest of my life. I already know a few people that blog all the time for college and others who do it just for the fun of it. Also, blogging let us connect to a completely different school and we were able to go to their own website and see the blogs that they had been posting. Another really cool thing that we got to do was have whole room to room Skype chats with the other school. But the difference between our blogs though are, they just have one big blog every month for the book that they read that month. We have six blogs about the same book that are due at the end of each quarter. Their blogs are also about random books that they have just found an interest in where ours are off of the Illinois Read for a Life Time List. But with the end of Junior year, comes the end of blogging for the school year, which is kind of sad to think a year just flew by but at the same time it is a relief to know that we are almost to summer!
     Everyone's blogs from CCHS come from The Read for a Life Time list unless you were special and already read four books from the list before the fourth quarter and you got to make posts about the book you chose as long as you got it okayed by the teacher. This is a really good list if you want to read a good book but  you are just not sure which books are the good ones. My Freshman year the hit book and now hit movie The Hunger Games, was on that list and now look how popular it is... I'm not saying it is popular because of the list but just that it contains good books! The four books I read this year were, Around the World in 80 Days, Ship Breaker, From Baghdad With Love, and A long Walk to Water. They were are really good books that caught my interest in some way and I don't regret choosing any of them. This is actually my first time participating in the Read for a Life Time program and that is because it was actually required. But without it I wouldn't have gotten more reading and writing experience, a certificate with my name on it, and a good college application booster. I consider this past year to be a very successful one when it comes to my blogs at least and definitely wouldn't mind doing it again in the future!

Video of the Author and Main Character

                                                                While I was searching the web for ideas about the possible blogs I was lucky enough to come across an interview with the author and one of the main characters, Salva. This is a very good video that shows how Salva is doing now and how this book actually originated, which I found very interesting. It also goes into detail about how Salva is now helping his home country of Sudan, Africa by setting up fresh water lines in the towns where there has never been fresh water before. In my opinion I think that that is really cool and nice of Salva to do that for his old roots especially since he knew himself what it was like not to have fresh water. If you have read the book then i highly suggest watching this video because it gives you a nice amount of background information to the book. If you haven't read the book yet, you can still watch it to get an understanding of it!

Music Blog 4th Quarter

                                                               The song that I think of when I read this book is Wavin Flag by Knaan. This song became very popular during the 2010 World Cup which was held in Africa and was basically its theme song. It is very inspirational if you have never heard it before which would be kind of hard to believe if you say you haven't. It can be interpreted as a pump up song or just a song you listen to for the joy of it, my soccer team actually listens to it before everyone of our home games to pump us up.
   I think that this song relates to the book because no matter what Salva or Nya are going through they continue to find the inspiration to push through it. In Nya's case she has to walk for miles until she gets to the nearest water source and after the rebels attack Salva's camp he has to walk for days upon days until he and his group can get to a safer place. Just like the song says "When I get older, I will be stronger" Salva  is now living in New York and is very healthy and much stronger then he was while he lived in Africa just as a boy. The way i see it is, both Nya and Salva found the drive to keep moving forward in their lives just like how I think this song makes a lot of people feel.

4th Quarter Animoto

Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Third Quarter Reflection and Fourth Quarter Book

   Last quarter was a pretty successful one in terms of my blogging. I was able to finish all the blogs that were due at the end of the quarter and get all of my ning posts done. It seemed a little more enjoyable to blog last quarter because we didn't have to do certain type of blogs but we got to be creative with them and do the type of blogs we wanted. The nice thing about that is you can show the reader of your blog how you see the book and really what you thought of it. Another good thing is that we get to do the same thing again this quarter and then we will be done with our read for a life time assignment and get a cool certificate! A pretty awesome thing about doing the Read for a Life time book list was that we got to miss school and go see the Hunger Games the day it came out and everything just because we had technically completed the list. To top it all off I did end up getting an A without rewriting them and all and was really happy.
   For the 4th quarter blog assignment I decided to go with a book that looked interesting but looked like an easy read and short at the same time because it's the last quarter and I didn't want to have to try that hard to understand or finish my book. Anyway, I chose to read A long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park. The book is about a girl named Nya, based about 4 years ago, and a little boy named Salva, based about 27 years ago, living in a place called Sudan, Africa. I know this sounds weird but it is like two different stories going on at once. Park is able to pull this off by giving you a brief taste of what is going on in Nya's life at the beginning of every new chapter and then continues on with what Salva is doing. She is able to keep a constant story with both and if you can keep up, which you should be able to, it is actually very interesting. Like I said earlier about picking a shorter book for my fourth quarter, this book was only about 120 pages so it seems like it was over maybe a little to fast. All in all it was a very good book in my opinion especially since it was based off real life events! I suggest reading this book and also hope to keep my followers interested with my blogs seeing as how this is my last quarter blogging as a Junior and I want to show off my experience and go out with a bang!

   This is my vlog about my book, From Baghdad, With Love. Here I give just a very basic summary of the book and what I  liked about it or what I found interesting. I am still not very good at these so I apologize if I paused or stumbled once or twice. Oh well, I hope you enjoy! 

Conclussion/ Summary Post

   For my last post I would like to write about the things I like and disliked about this quarter of blogging which deals with everything and not just my book. First, although I was not one of the ones in the front row Skyping with the other school I still found it very interesting that we as a class were able to talk to a completely different class that was no where near us. Although this was really cool to me I was disappointed when Mrs. Hayes told us that we were only going to be able to do maybe a total of two or three times with that class because of a certain schedule that they have. Second... I really have to learn to not procrastinate. Although I might have been out of class one or two blog days, what I had to put my self through the past day or two was ridiculous. These blogs are a very big deal in Mrs. Hayes class because they count as a whole quarter writing assignment so they are worth a lot of points that would probably not be good to lose. So basically I have to start spending the time that I am given throughout the quarter in class on my blogs instead of messing around, for this last quarter.
   All in all my book, From Baghdad, With Love,  was a very enjoyable book. It was questionable at first whether i was going to like it or not but that changed quickly. Since I am a dog person and I actually have a soul my heart was warmed by the little puppy that was described in the book so I kept wanting to turn the page to find out was was going to happen to him next. Also I did enjoy the ending which I keep wanting to tell you about. But that wouldn't be any fun for you now would it? Anyway another thing that caught my interest in the book was all the fighting that would take place. I mean what guy does not like big guns and explosions? But there was one thing that I didn't necessarily like and that was that the book was kind of written like a journal. Now it might only seem that way because he was narrating in first person so there might not have been anything he could do about it. Anyway this was a very good read, I don't regret picking it up at the start of the quarter and choosing it, and recommend this book to anyone who likes war and puppies... but especially puppies...

Music link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2JSUXaY-tw&ob=av3n

   The piece of music that I picked to go along with my book was "You're My Best Friend" by Queen. It seemed like a good song to relate to the book because of how Lava becomes Jay's best friend. I wasn't sure if I was going to use this song or not because it is about a guy being in love with a girl and how they are so in love that she is his best friend. But this song is also almost perfect in describing the Marine and his dog's relationship. In the book, From Baghdad, With Love, Lt. Jay Kopelman falls in love with this dog named Lava and wants to do what ever is necessary to get him back to the U.S.
   A line in the song that I thought related to the book was actually the first line of the song "Ooh you make me live, whatever this world can give to me" It is Lava that gives the Lt. more hope to go on while fighting in the war and Lava gives all those soldiers something to look forward to doing and taking care of when they get back to there housing complex. Also it relates to "whatever this world can give to me" because when you are out in war you don't have much of anything so in this case you can say that the world gave the Lt. the dog. Another line that I thought could relate was "You're the first one,when things turn out bad, you know I'll never be lonely, you're my only one, and I love the things, I really love the things that you do, you're my best friend." This section of the song can relate to the relationship between the man and dog because when things get bad out at war the Lt. comes back and has Lava who is basically is best friend, and since he and the other troops have Lava they will never be lonely. In the song when it says I love the things you do, that can relate to the Marines loving the little cute things Lava did while he was still a pup.

Animotoooo

http://animoto.com/play/A7Pm98Qp6NoqLvvCZF8lgg

This is a vlog i made with the pictures i already had or just took recently. It summarizes the book a little bit and tells what might have to happen but there is only so much you can do with 30 seconds while trying to make a trailer for a movie that seemed like a journal. But I had fun making it and there were some misspellings but that was because you can only use a limited amount of characters on Animoto so I had to put a couple words together, but oh well I hope you enjoy it!

Video of Author and Lava

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLIzyAM5qrQ

    This is a very good video if you want to find out about what the author and the dog are doing post-war. I will warn you it spoils the book, just encase you were wanting to read it. But I feel like it is possible to understand the author's point of view better now and I also really enjoyed finding out about what they were doing post war. It's not a very recent video because it was posted in 2006 and the book takes place during 2004 and 2005 so I am not very sure what this dynamic duo are up to now but I'm sure Lava is happy! But if you haven't read the book already and you don't care about finding out what happens to Lava and Jay through the book then this is an excellent video to watch!

From Baghdad, With Love

   This quarter my Read for a Life Time book of choice was From Baghdad with Love  by Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman with Melinda Roth. I wasn't so sure about getting this book at first because I could see how it might be boring or not as cool as some of the other books. But I have enjoyed it a lot since I have started reading it because I myself am a dog person. I have both a dog and a cat at home and I like both of them but I really couldn't see there being a book about a cat in the military... anyway. I highly suggest reading this book because it has been very intriguing and actually kind of funny what the dog does. There are some sad parts in this book of course but it does have a happy ending.
   This book is about a dog named Lava and a Lieutenant named Jay Kopelman and his military team. As they walk down a hall way in a housing facilities where the U.S. Marines are staying they hear an unusual noise, when they go and check it out they are still a little wired from there day of fighting and patrolling and all of the sudden they see this little ball of fur that is a little puppy. They name the puppy Lava off of the military group in Hawaii named the Lava Dogs. As time goes on and they continue to break the rules of having a pet in the facility, Jay and everyone else becomes really attached to Lava and wants to make sure he gets back to the U.S. This mission is a very hard one because it is a dog they have found in Iraq that they are not even supposed to have in the first place. Does Lava get to return home with Jay or will they be forced to part when Jay goes home? You will just have to read the book and find out!

Letters About Literature

Jack Bryant

1301 E Walnut St.

Carbondale, Illinois 62901

Dear Jules Verne,

            Hello I am currently a student at Carbondale Community High School. This year in English class my teacher our teacher has assigned us the task of having a blog and keeping up with it weekly.  This is what brings me to be writing you a letter at this time. As a little added extra to the blogging assignment our teacher told us we were to write a letter to the author of one of the books we read this quarter and I enjoyed your book more out of the two. The book made me catch myself thinking that I would enjoy doing something similar to Phileas Fogg. When I read this book I think of Phileas just having the life, being an inventor who is very wealthy and can just do what he wants when he wants. The reason this sounds interesting to me is because I myself would like to become so sort of engineer or inventor. Through my childhood I have always taken much joy into putting things together and building things whether if it was from my imagination or from the set of instruction that came with the appliance that I was allowed to put together. But this is what probably makes me so interested in the book itself. 

   Something the book showed me about the world today that I have never taken much thought into was how many advancements in technology we have had. Before reading this book I’m sure any kid would think, “Wow, 80 days? That is forever! I could get around the world in 24 hours in an air plane.” But they forget to think about how fast 80 days really is for that time period.  In your book you speak of how Phileas travels around the world by all different types of transportation, including the train, steamer, carriage, and even hot air balloon when really all of those things today have a bigger better form of that transportation or just have major improvements. The train has gotten much faster and it can travel much farther than what it used to be able to. The steamer has been replaced by the luxury cruise liner. The carriage has of course been replaced by the car and the blimp by the air plane. So the world of transportation has changed dramatically which I don’t usually think about. 

   What really surprised me about myself while I was reading this book was about how interested I was in a book written over 100 years ago. I am not a big fan of books as it is so I wasn’t sure how I was going to like a book. So I was unsure about how I was going to like a book that did not speak modern day slang but it was quite the opposite. This different form of English actually kept me more interested in the book because in a way it was more entertaining to me. Sometimes around the house, my brother sister and I go around saying “Indubitably” to everything and so it was funny when I actually read words like that in the book. So thank you Mr. Verne, for writing such a good book that kept me entertained and interested.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                            Your reader

My Feelings of the 21st Century Classroom

Over the years there has definitely been some changes. Most of these changes were of course for the best but they effect more than just what people think. With the inventions of blogging, tweeting, facebooking, and skyping, the modern English class itself has changed. I'm sure ten years ago there were not many classes (if any) that were assigned to just go blog about a book that they got to pick out themselves and read it when they wanted to read it. But with this assignment, my teacher gave us the option to post our blogs on Facebook or even tweet about them to get extra credit for our blogs. I really enjoy this activity of blogging because mostly every week we get to get out of the classroom just to go blog, which I am getting more and more comfortable with. I have never enjoyed just sitting down and reading because I was forced to do it all through grade school which was not very fun. But now I can choose a book from the Read For a Lifetime list and read when I have the time to.

The activity of blogging overall is great. Every week in the first quarter we were given a different blog to do that required us to go more in depth with our blog and we had to truly know what we were talking about. This quarter was not that much more different except that after the first two blogs we got to choose what we wanted to do for our blogs which I enjoyed because it made me feel like I had more freedom then just following this weekly assignment for my blog. This assignment is also different then if we would've been just doing something boring like sitting in the class room and reading aloud because then you are forced to read something you might not want to read. Also, this quarter we had the ability to Skype a completely different school across the state. Unfortunately we never did this activity which is alright but it would've been something different. As time goes on I'm sure the English classroom will continue to change just hopefully for the better with different activities like blogging.

Round Two! Vlog!

Enlightening Music

http://youtu.be/6q2mFiN7GIc

The song that I chose to embed into my blog was one i actually just discovered or at least haven't heard in a while called "Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. At first I was just looking to find a song that could fit well enough with my book so I could use it, but then after I got lucky enough to find this song I found that it fit perfectly with situations Nailer was in. Along with matching well with Nailer I also just really enjoy the song. I myself learned from it and sense I also enjoy playing poker, I got what he was trying to say. In the song it says "you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run." I feel that Nailer does a good job of this in the novel because he understands the difference in situations between fate/luck and when he actually needs to strategize.

The situation that I mostly imagine Nailer in when i hear this song is when he is in the air ducts collecting wire. This of course is Nailer's job in the book which puts him in hazardous situations most of the time. In these old air ducts he is confronted with these situations where he has to decide whether to keep going, give up, or just simply decide what he has is enough and turn around and head back. Also in the song it is said "You never count your money when you're sitting at the table. They'll be time enough for countin when the dealins done". This can also be used to connect to Nailer in the air ducts because there is no time to see how much wire you actually have because those ducts could break any second so there is plenty of time for you to do it when you get out. In the beginning of the book, the ducts do just that and break and Nailer falls into an oil pit where he is forced to the decision of risking his life and sinking under the oil to find a way out. That was just one of those times where he chose fate/luck over anything else.

Ship Breaker in Pictures

I read the book Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi for the Second Quarter

The book takes place on the coast.

The old coasts are now flooded.

Copper wire is the wanted item is the wrecked ships.

In the book they have to crawl through air ducts to get the copper wire.

All workers are indentured servants.

The crews always have to work together.

This is how I imagine Nailer

Nailer's dad

Nailer's mom who dies when Nailer is young.

There is barely any known oil in the time of the book.

There are a lot of drug problems.

All workers live in poverty.

Nailer gets stuck in a room full of oil and is considered lucky for finding it when he gets out.

The only thing the pit bosses cared about was money.

They have to work fast, because there are storms that wipe out their work place.

This is what the crews work on.

Critiquing My Fellow Class Mates

Alex Kippenbrock-
Kippy, Kippy, Kippy... you are certainly the pot calling the kettle black. Although I am behind on my blogs you are as well, but I see you put in some work and i applaud you for that. I would like to point out that you said you took full responsibility for not having you're vlog uploaded but yet you still blamed me for it... do i sense some jealousy that you don't have an incredible phone like I do? But enough of that onto you're actual blog. I agree with you that it was weird how our Animoto's were graded but i now understand what Mrs. Hayes wants and I hope you do as well. I myself was really excited for the video chatting with the students from other schools but it's a shame we did not get to do that this quarter. I have also looked at your blog in the past to help me understand the book I am now reading sense you read it last quarter and you have been very helpful! I look forward to seeing the rest of your blogs when they are finished!

Jacob Garwin-
Greetings Jacob, I am here to tell you all the things you don't know about your own blog! Alright so where shall we start? Something that Mrs. Hayes told me at the beginning of the second quarter that I did right was my grammar. I capitalized my I's and the letters after the periods. Here it does not look like you did so. In the blog above it where you were commenting on people's blogs it looks as though you did it though which tells me you were just lazy starting off the second quarter which is alright you just need to fix it! Another thing I noticed was that this was only one paragraph long. This is just not acceptable to Mrs. Hayes and Mr. Lukes so you Mr. Garwin need to fix it ASAP. But enough of being a Negative Nancy, I much enjoyed your 1st quarter blogs and am sorry to hear about the grade you received. But like you said, just forget about the grade you got then, and worry about the second quarter grade! I of course will try and do the same.

Macie Wheeler-
Hello Macie! Let me just congratulate you on getting an A on the first quarter blogs! I am really jealous right now seeing as how i did not get such a good grade and that i am not as good as blogger as you are. I am really happy to see that you are able to but your upbeat attitude into your blogs in some way or another especially in your vlog. I also, had the same problem you did which was not having long enough paragraphs. This was very hard for me to do last quarter because I really didn't know what i was doing, but it looks like you got through the blogs just fine anyway! But if you do find yourself getting distracted a lot I would get checked for ADD and I hope you were able to pay attention up till now. Oh well Macie, best of luck to you with the 2nd quarter blogs! Keep up the good work!

Blog Kick Off: 2nd Quarter

So here we go again, second quarter and blogging again. I didn't get such a good grade last time but I'm hoping to do better this time. Although i didn't the grade i would've preferred but i still did somethings right. According to my teacher, I had good writing, compared to some of my class mates. I made sure to type my blogs like i was typing a paper which turned out to be a good choice instead of writing like some people text or talk on Facebook. Somethings I could have definitely done better were things like, having more paragraphs when necessary. Also, my animoto didn't make the viewer really want to watch the movie like it was supposed to. My goals for this quarter are to try to pay more attention to what the blog prompt is actually asking me to do and to enjoy blogging more.
   My feelings about blogging are kind of back and forth. I do enjoy the break from class work it gives us and how it is something completely different from something I've done before since i have never blogged before. I also do enjoy how the blogs are different every week and apparently this quarter is going to be different then the last so that is something to look forward to. There are some things about blogging that i don't enjoy. Like how each blog requires you to have multiple long paragraphs like the ones i am typing right now. Also if you fall behind on your blogging it can be very time consuming but we do get class time to do it, it's just sometimes i don't get it done in class.
   The book I am reading right now is called Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi. It seems like a pretty interesting book so far. My friends who read it last quarter seemed to of really enjoyed it up to the end but i am not that far yet so i wouldn't know. As to what people can expect to see on my blog this quarter is what i basically said in my first paragraph. I plan to go more in depth with what my blog prompt is asking of me and i plan to enjoy blogging more and try to keep up with it better.

Vlog of me, myself, and I