Final

The two books that should be definite keepers are The Power of One and Haroun. Both of these stories are really easy reading and most importantly enjoyable to read. The Power of One might be a really long book but it really good and tells you a lot about South Africa during the apartheid years, and Haroun is a little bit of a different type of book, but I think that it shows the difference between American writings and foreign writings really well. I have never read a book like Haroun and was a bit skeptical at first, but it the end I really liked it.

The thing that we should get rid of was all the short stories in the Australia unit. I never really got into any of them and thought most of them were boring. The only one that i think you could keep out of that group of stories is Bush Rangers because it was somewhat interesting. I just didn't enjoy reading stories that are to short that you can't get into. To me it was just really hard to try forcing myself to read them.

I think that the blogs are a really good and innovative idea for journals. For me it was really nice since I am always on the computer and i don't have to leave what I am doing to go write my English assignments. The only bad thing about the online blogs is that some students may not have Internet access at home or a computer and this might cause problems for them or they might be able to complete their assignments. So if you try this blog thing again I think that you should make sure all your students have a computer and Internet or have access to a computer.

last JLC entry

In the last story of the Joy Luck Club, June is traveling to China to find her two half-sisters. She travels there on behalf of her mother's friends and when she finds her sisters she is suppose to tell them their mother's life story. June feels as though she has no connections with her mother and won't be able to tell her life story. Although she is nervous about it she sums up her courage and does it. She will also develop a better connection with her mother through her travels through China. So in this essay I will explain how June has strengthened her relationship with her mother.

The first example is when June first arrives in China. June only thought of herself as Chinese on the inside, but never on the outside. When she arrives in China she feels for the first time in her life like an actual Chinese girl. I think that this feeling gives June a better understanding of her mother and how her mother views life. While in America June never understood why her mother did certain things, but her trip to China opened up her mind up to see the world in her mother's eyes.

The second example is when June gets off her plane and her half-sisters immediately recognize

her. I think that shows that the connection between June and her mother is getting stronger because even though at first she doesn't see the resemblance of her mom in her sister she realizes that her mom is a combination of all three of them. This made a strong connection between the three siblings and i think the strong bond between the three of them helped build a stronger connection with their mother.

I think that this was a satisfying ending because it tied up loose ends and reunited June's family. I don't think that June's sisters needed to know her mother to love her because i believe that their mom's story is valid and had a good reason for leaving them. She did try to find them, but unfortunately she couldn't make it long enough to meet them.

"Four Directions"

In the Story Four Directions from the section American Translation in the book, The Joy Luck Club, Waverly Jong is a young lady who tries to tell her mother that she is getting remarried. Her mother realizes how serious their relationship when Waverly invites her to her apartment and see her boyfriend's(Rich) stuff everywhere, but she ignores it, Waverly blames her mom for the failure of her first marriage because she always criticized her ex. I think this story shows the value of honor. Her Mother, Lindo, wanted to have a honorable family and since Waverly's previous husband didn't make the cut lindo had to step in and try to ruin the marriage by constantly criticizing him until he got sick of it and left.
Waverly didn't take this very well because she was scared that her Mother would not like Rich and would ruin her marriage again. So when she took him to dinner at Lindo's house, Rich made many etiquette mistakes and Waverly thought her marriage would never happen. She planned on telling Lindo that they planned on getting married, but after Rich's mistakes she didn't. The next day Waverly went to Lindo's and was determined to tell her what was happening. When she told Lindo everything, Lindo said she already knew and that she actually liked Rich and that Waverly misunderstands her mother on many things. In the end it all worked out and they ended up postponing their marriage because Lindo says that china is nicest in October and that is where they are honeymooning.

Childhood conflict

I remember taking the blame for a lot things when i was younger for things my little brother did. No matter what happened if my little brother said i did he was right. This led to many conflicts between me and my step-mom. My dad on the other was a little more resonible and tried to listen to both sides. I remember this one time i walked out of my room and my little brother, Gio, threw a lightsaber at me and missed. It went pass me and hit one of my mom's collectible things and broke. My brother ran to my mom and told her that I stole his lightsaber and hit the collectible thing and broke it. So my mom calls me over and start yelling at me for no reason. I try telling her that Gio threw it at me and i moved out of the way and then she started saying i should have just let it hit me so nothing broke. I said that her logic was dumb and started to walk away. Then she got even more mad and started yelling at me for giving her attitude, but i just gave up this pointless argument and went to my room. I was used to this so it didn't really affect me to much, it just made me a little angry.
I think the real reason she was yelling at me and putting all the blame on me was that she just needed someone to blame and she wasn't going to blame her precious little baby so i was always first on the chopping block. This was usually the main reason we ever fought, only when something was broken or not done correctly was when i was getting yelled at. Unfortunatley for me there was usually something broken or not done correctly on a day to day basis.

childhood impact story

The episode in my childhood that had the biggest impact on my life is when I got a new mommy. It was when i was living in Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was about five years old and my parents split up, but I think i was a little to young to grasp the concept of what really happened. I didn't really know what the word divorce meant I just thought my mom was at work all week and that is why i only saw her on the weekends. Eventually I figured out that something was different especially when my dad’s new friend moved into our house with her daughter. Her name was Annette and her daughter was named Rouaine and i have met them before at birthday parties and stuff. At that time i just thought we were giving them a place to stay while they were getting a new house or something. Then all of a sudden something horrible happened, my playroom was changed into Rouaine's new bedroom. I was like WHOA! what is going on, where I'm i supposed to play and then i realized that they were going to stay a little longer than i anticipated.


At that time i didn't really know how i felt about the new people living in the house, I kind of just tried to keep everything the same, but it was a little hard because i went from living in a house with just my dad and my older brother, Kris, to living with two new girls. I couldn't use the bathroom with the door anymore and it seemed like i started to get in trouble a lot more. We started eating a different type of food some of which i like and some of which i hated. So i didn't really like this new change and i wanted them to leave because i thought that they were stealing my dad away from me and my brother. So i didn't think to highly of them. In the end She ended up marrying my dad and i got a step-mom and step-sister.

I learned a lot of things with this experience, like that when you get new family members you lose some living space in your home and that things can get a little more crazy. I also learned that boys and girls are different inside and out. I had to learn to put the toilet seat down. I also learned that sharing is a good qaulity and you can't treat girls like boys.

China Reading response

In ancient times the Chinese called their country the "Middle Kingdom" because they believed that China was the center of the civilized world. They thought that the father away you went form China the less civilized and more barbaric you became. The emperor of China was more than royalty he was the "Son of Heaven" and ruled "everything under heaven." So in the end the Chinese thought they created civilization and that they are more superior to anyone else in the world.
The Chinese hold the record for the longest unbroken line of one continuous civilization in the same place, dating from the Bronze Age to the Space Age. The Chinese developed a very complex system of writing and it is still used today. It became the vehicle for a literary tradition of prose, poetry, drama, history, and philosophy. It was so rich and prolific that half of the books written before 1750 were written in Chinese. The Chinese invented paper, brush , ink, and ink stones, and they called them their "four treasures." Another invention by the Chinese is silk, it was one of their most valuable treasures. They used silk for trading with the western European countries and to the Europeans silk was just as valuable as gold. The Chinese guarded the secret of making silk very closely anyone who tried smuggling silk worms out of the country was punished by death. Silk was so big that they they named the trading route between East Asia and The Mediterranean world the Silk Road.
China invented many valuable things like paper, the magnetic compass, gunpowder and printing and these are called the "four inventions." They also invented watertight ship compartments, canal locks, suspension bridges and crossbows.
In China the Father in the family had complete authority. He could divorce his wife at anytime but the wife was not allowed to leave him. The daughters were treated like garbage and the boys were not. During times of Famine the family would starve the daughters to feed the sons.

china freewrite

China is a really big country that holds a lot of of people. it is the most populated country in the world. It is home to the great wall of china that stretches 4500 miles and was used to block out the invading Huns. Silk was invented in china and was a closely guarded secret, anyone who tries to tell someone the secret was killed.Each year in china is represented by an animal. i was born in the year of the horse. ice was also invented in china by put soft milk and rice into snow. chopsticks were made in china and are still used by almost everyone in china. Mandarin Chinese is the world’s most spoken language with over 870 million speakers. They have a terracotta army which was buried with some emperor to protect him in the afterlife. each statue is supposably based on real chinese soldiers. In china tree hugging is forbidden. The most famous animal in china is most likely the panda bear. They also have tigers and chinese dragons. They are a big distributor of jade models and sculptures. The flag is red with gold stars and red is considered a lucky color in china. they have the oldest calendar system dating back to 2600 b.c.

the panda bear is probably my most favorite animal and even though dragons are not considered real i watched a pretty convincing show on discovery channel and now i think they are real and so they are pretty sweet too along with the tiger. In china they eat alot of rice and have big rice patties which are fields they grow rice on. I like rice too. So it tthink i might like to go visit china and hug a panda bear and chase dragons.