Doc Hill

http://animoto.com/play/h73qAsruR9EjuJ0RbVGB9Q
http://animoto.com/play/PIcdc8M2fksffA7vZwg6tQ
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Word Image!

A word image from www.imagechef.com using the words Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance, life, dreams, African American, writer and poet. All these words describe the writer and writing in my fourth quarter book " Dream Keeper". I used the heart shape not only because I thought it was pretty but also because I personally love his poems and the people of his time and even now still think of him as an inspiration

Hughes Animoto

This animoto is about Langston Hughes and his writting in his book of poems.

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Understanding Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1902 in Joplin Missouri and his whole childhood he spent trying to escape the racism found in the United States. His mother was the one to raise him and instill a great passion for racial pride which can be seen greatly in the poems, stories, and plays he has written. In one of the poems in the book The Dream Keeper called When Sue Wears Red was written when he was in his Ohio high school just starting his collection of writings. Through out his life he came very educated and used his everyday life along with the stories his mother and grandmother told him about the times of harsh slavery to help him create his beautifully illustrated poems. He is know as one of the founders of the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance and was an inspiration to many black writer then by the 1980s he was being reappraised and was newly appreciated as a significant voice of African-Americans. He died May 22, 1967 after cancer complications and his ashes lay in under the middle of the foyer in the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

Last Round!

Just like the previous three quarters of this year we are starting this one just the same way, blogging, with a new book. I'm so glad that this is our last quarter and then I'll finally be done with this blogging stuff. I’ve never blogged before this class and though I can now say I have my feelings about it are pretty much the same as the start. It’s better than writing papers or daily journals but very easy to forget about and end up doing all the night before because it is all on computers.

            Any who, like I said, new quarter means new book and I decided to choose a short and easy book. Well, it’s more of just a book of scattered poems called The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. They were all written by Langston Hughes. I love readying poetry so I had hoped to love this book and maybe that would make blogging some what more fun or interesting. So far I greatly enjoy the poems he has created. The beautifully descriptive poems help illustrate his life as an African American during the racial times of slaves. I’d have to agree with the quote from The Horn Book when it describes it as “ A splendid combination of timeless works and timely illustrations.”  I also like the little sketches Brian Pinkney the illustrator has added to each poem.

 I know this quarter will go by really fast, it usually always does all though that means summers on its way that also means I’ve go to stay on top of these blogs and keep ready then finish my book, which I don’t think will be a problem, but you never know. Wish me luck…Here we go, last round!

Clarie

Hello, my name is Claire I'm from Connecticut and I’m the cousin Missy has probably talked about. My life is also different from the others. My family was chill and peaceful before this news had come up and made a big scene. I would never regret the choices I’ve made by meeting my other sisters and I always thought Missy more of one than a cousin but I could never say that I was completely on board with Missy plan. When she called me that day and told me her science project I was a little skittish. To know my true feelings alone was hard but to know that they could be true and to think of all the question I had for my parents was too much. Then when Genevieve called Missy and they wanted us all to meet up, that was so over whelming.  Even through that I caught a taxi and we chased that train to the meeting place and I will never forget the first time we all held hand and knew right there we were sisters. We didn’t know how it was possible but we just knew. We never had met before but I loved her just as much as I had always loved Missy. My life has changed so much but I can definitely say it’s been for the better.

Genevieve Candler

Hey, I'm Genevieve Candler and my story has the same ending as my newly found sisters but the start is much different. Growing up I was alone much of the time. My mom and dad had jobs they loved and always were coming home late for. On the weekends they loved to visit party’s and goes dancing. I kept to myself and didn't mind too much because I still loved my parents. Independence is fun. After school I would go see my grandma and teach the swimming class at her old folk home. I love my grandma very much, that’s why when I saw the YouTube video my friend sent me and wondered about not being related to my parents I became worried that she wouldn't love me the same way. That's was not the case. Seeing that video I knew I had to meet those two girls. I friended them on Facebook and Missy was the one to call me and speak about this new information about our lives. The other girl Claire was worried that this would ruin her family and she was scared, I understood but wanted nothing more than to meet her. So Missy and I arranged plans to meet so we could know for sure if we were sisters. I was so excited and nervous I could barely stand it. I wondered how this would affect my life. A part of me was filled with shame because I was almost glad not to be related to my parent’s because we were so different and have sisters, someone to talk to and hang out with. Now in the end I still love my parents and am glad I have them along with my new for real sister. Life is just getting brighter and brighter.

Letter to the Author

Dear Caroline B. Cooney,

            My name is Emalee Meyerhoff and I’m a junior at a high school in Southern Illinois. I have just finished your book called Three Black Swans for English class and have been doing frequent blog post about your book. I have never read anything like your book and that is one of the reasons I decided to indulge my self in your writing. I liked the way you showed multiple views of what was happening and I got to be inside everyone’s head almost the exact same time. I could never be a writer because I would want to do like you and have everyone’s thoughts in it and I would get so confused or ever forget who was saying what.

 Through out the whole book I have wondered on why and how you decided to write about this choice of topic and if you are pleased with the out come of you success with it? Do you ever wonder if this could turn into a movie or if one of your readers has had a type of experience like this? Have you been asked these questions before? Do you have a new book coming out soon or are you working on a new book? I’m excited for a new book to read from you. I wish you luck on your on going career.

Sincerely,

Emalee Meyerhoff

Visual for "Three Black Swans"

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This animoto is to give just a little of what the book "Three Black Swans" is about and whats in store if you read it. I wish the animoto was longer so I could tell more but I guess if you really want to find out, you'll have to read this book yourself.

Missy Vianello

Hello, my name is Missy Vianello.  I'm a junior at my local high school and in my science class we were learning about hoaxes. We had an assignment to create our own one and I had the perfect idea. My best friend and closest cousin looked exactly alike. My parents just said that it was a strong family resemblance. So for my project me and my cousin would show up at my school and  during the morning announcements I would come out with the great news that I had found my long lost twin. I had everything planed out; it was going to be great. My cousin on the other hand was a little nervous and didn't know what to think about it. We went through with it anyways. What I didn't know was how much more this project would affect me and my cousin than just a funny prank and a good grade. The video went viral and was posted all over YouTube and soon some girl added me on Facebook saying it was a manner of "life and birth". Who says that? Come to find out she look just like me and my cousin. We met and turns out we all are sisters in a weird and crazy story. My life has been a crazy ride but at least now I've found my two sisters that will help me through whatever happens.

Beginning of Third Quarter

With a New Year and new quarter brings once again a new book to read and to blog about. This time I am reading the book “Three Black Swans” by Caroline B. Cooney. I really didn’t put much thought in choosing this book so I hope it keeps my attention and that I enjoy it. I’ve heard many different things from lots of different people about this book, things like the beginning is really slow and very predictable, for this blogs sake I hope these are not true for me. Have you or do you know of someone who has read this book? If so what did you think about it? Maybe at the after I read the book our opinions might relate or they might even be completely opposite. Either way this quarter our blogs and the way they are set up is almost completely up to us. I say almost completely because we are still graded on these and our teacher has given us a checklist to sort of go by. I am in a way happy about this fact and in another not so much. I like having the freedom of doing what we want just because I hate being told what to do and this also gives us a way to let our creative side to come out and be useful. Then again you have to have a creative side and sometimes its easier just to have it all laid out for us and just follow directions but I’m sure this new way will be great so I’m hoping that my blog will become more creative and more pleasing to the eye! Any suggestions about being more creative are always welcome. Wish me luck!

A Letter to Lucy Grealy

Emalee Meyerhoff

Ms. Hayes

English III

December 11, 2011

Dear Miss Lucy Grealy,

                  I recently read your book “Autobiography of a Face” and started off with the notion of this book being another “candy coated” everything’s going to be alright, “give it time” sad story. I also had every intention on not liking the book because I was assigned to read it in my English class. But you most definitely proved me wrong on how the book was going to be laid out and I quite enjoyed your writing. I am sorry you had to live your life the way you did but as you said you don’t want anyone’s sympathy but I’m glad you had the courage and the backbone to write about your life. I am also very pleased on how blunt and real you were with the events in your life and how you told of your true feelings. As the reader I got to see the various “ups” and “downs” of your life instead of just focusing on the good or bad as others might do.  You made me feel as though I was sitting right there by you in every setting of the book, seeing everything you were seeing and you tried to help the reader feel what you were feeling but not wanting to ever put that sadness on someone else you said you left some details out and that just shows the type of person you are. Your book really made me think of how you and everyone lives there life during this century. Even though I respect you as a writer and I can never judge you for your actions because it’s not my place you showed everyone how as fallen weak humans we can never be happy and we always want more or something different. Even after all your surgeries and facial reconstructions your high hopes always failed you. You never stopped wanting more, to be better looking even after you called yourself beautiful, changing you appearance to fit in with the crowd or try making friends, using multiple men to make yourself feel wanted along with desired and even after the writing of your book you over dose on heroin. Nothing made you happy enough and you kept looking for something more. Most people who would read this would call me inconsiderate, unworthy of judgment or even just completely stupid but that’s what I’m trying to sound like. I’m saying if you really look at the human kind, after you get what you really think you want you still won’t be as happy as you wished. There always comes another thing and another or you hope get so high you become disappointed with what life so graciously gives you and we never really sit and think how much worse it could be or that we could be dead with no life and no hope at all. I wish this could be different and I wish you life didn’t end the way it did and that you could read this letter but your book made me really think and I thank you for that  and I’m very pleased that I read it.

Sincerely,

Emalee Meyerhoff

Another Animoto

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More and More Links

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Dared - Over all summery on the book
www.teenreads.com/reviews/the-boy-who-dared- Teen help for the book
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hitler_youth.htm -- Historic accounts durring Hitler's Youth
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Plotzensee.html - More Littiture during this time
-www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=56291 - British records of WWII
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plötzensee_Prison- Summery of the prison he was in
www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-gestapo.htm - Information about the Gestapo
www.worldwar-2.net - Over all information on WWII
www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ww2era.htm- Academic research
www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/- History on the BBC during the war

Helmuth Hubener's Photo Life

The Twenty-First Century English Classroom

So I've just been asked how I feel about having to be taught  and learn in a English classroom during this twenty-first century. Personally I have a whole lot of mixed feelings. In this age the classroom is filled with computers, flash drives, smart boards, and everywhere you are in the building you can get an Internet connection. As much of a convenience it might be I think it is a total cop out to our education. If you need to write a paper, you have Word Document which all you have to do is type what you need and it will spell check, double space, give you page numbers, give you synonyms and even different fonts and sizes to help make you work longer than what it really is. Using the Document with spell check means you don't even need to know how to spell anymore or even have legible handwriting the computer does it for you. The use of knowing how to spell, or use the Thesaurus to look up synonyms is irrelevant now. Not only the Word Document but also the whole Internet site including Google, Bing, Yahoo Search and Wikapedia is just a cop out. You barley have to do anything to find out information about anything in the world. What happened to reading and using the library to actually find research and new information on a subject? It was called using your brain and the resources you had. I believe because of these easy, new and "improved" sources we are becoming lazier and more stupid. Don't get me wrong I do have a facebook, e-mail, and obviously a blog site but that's because the age I was born into has corrupted me and sucked me into the its technological ways that make us all lazy and use the easy  way out and also, to get a grade in my English class I have to use these sources so the wrap up is that I think that an English class in the twenty-first century is lazy and its ways have become useless and I feel as though I don't learn what I truly need and in a way I wish we would go back to some of the old ways and use our brain more and explore more text during the class.

Second Semester Comments

Hey Arielle!
Me and you are pretty much in the same boat. Floating down this crazy and rapid filled "6th hour English River"! I was too nervous about the blog grades but I guess it went well for the both of us. I saw that you had a problem with spelling and you of all people should know how bad I am at spelling but what I did before I turned in my paper was to highlight the whole paper and spellcheck every blog entry! I saw a lot of things I spelled wrong I would have never would have changed on my own. So just some helpful advice for you :) I wish you luck for this quater blogging!

Blog Reflection

Seeing my first quarter grades today I'm quite pleased. I guess there is always room for improvement in everything though. I guess I would try and get everything and every blog in on time and do them when they are assigned instead of waiting till the last minute. What I did right was probably very little but enough to get by. My goals this quarter is to work harder and to care more about my grade on this blog. I will keep up on my reading so I don't have to rush at the end. Those are my goals and what I did right and wrong.

My attitude toward the blogs have change very little. I still dislike having to read two books right now, The Scarlet Letter along with my chosen book The Boy Who Dared. Having to do both is challenging and obnoxious. Even in saying that, blogging is better than writting paper after paper on these books and having a shorter due date for them. With bloging you have new and different topics each week and different choices. One thing I do hate about blogging is that it is all on the computer. I hate dealing with electronics all the time. They are very unrealiable and sometimes complicated to use also to do these assignment you have to have computer along with internet. Some days the internet can be slow or even not work because of natural things or technical problems.

My new book for the second quater is The Boy Who Dared. I know many who have read it and I've gotten some good reviews so I am hopeful. Another reason I chose this book is because its based in the time of World War II which is a time I enjoy reading along with other times in history. This quater I hope to have more creative blogs with more pictures/ visual refferences. I think just reading a blog is boring and I think it makes my blog look boring and bland. I hope to also have my blogs up more contenuiously rather than last quater when they were all put up at the end. That is my new book and what you might see on my blog. Still can't believe its still going on, Oh fun....

Vlog

My very first vlog o.O!

Commenting

Simone's Vlog-Hey Simone! Loved your blog. How strange this will be my first time Vloging too! I liked the details you gave about the book, not too much just right. I'm actually thinking about reading that book for our next set of blogs. Thanks for the all the information!

Melinda's 20 Pictures- Hey. I love your twenty pictures that represent your book. Its like you don't even need the captions because the pictures explain them selves. These pictures really makes me interested and I want to read the book. I also love the picture choices for the two guys. If that's how they are described in the book then I'm defiantly going to real it! Good job and thanks for the pictures.

Hannah's 20 Ppictures- Hey Hannah. The pictures you choose to use are very cool. I love how they all catch your attention and you used colorful and very animated pictures. I've never heard of this book before but now seeing the picture you picked and reading the captions help me see what the book has in store. Hope you enjoyed your book!
~Emalee