letters about literature.

Dear A.S. King,

In my junior English class, we are participating in Read for A Lifetime. Your book Please Ignore Vera Dietz was the book that I chose to read. We read one book a semester and make blogs posts each week about the book. Our last blog post for this semester is to enter in the Letters about Literature contest and post it to our blog. This is the reason I am writing this letter to you.

Your book was probably one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. Since it was a book about a teenagers life and the struggles she went through, it was easy to connect. Although I’ve never been in the same situation as Vera, I can picture myself in her situation. Every teenager in high school can connect to Vera in some way, how she had a best friend and they drifted apart. Also there are always people who don’t like you in high school. Unlike Vera, a close friend of mine has never died. Reading the book, I imagined that I had lost one. When someone just thinks about that sort of thing it makes them upset, as it did me. I noticed in the book that Vera never really opened up to anyone and talked about her feelings for Charlie. She mostly keeps to herself, and bottles up her feelings until she’s alone. I can understand that because sometimes I am like that as well. Vera’s confidence in the book inspired me. She never let the words and actions of the “detention heads” get to her. Which made me realize you shouldn’t really care what other people think of you as long as you like who you are. Your book also showed me that you shouldn’t take anything for granted. Grudges shouldn’t be held against the people that you care about. It kind of opened my eyes because I am the kind of stubborn person who will hold a grudge against someone for as long as I can. I realize after reading your book that that is a terrible thing to do. You should always resolve things with people because an argument that you’re having could be the last time you speak or even see the person, because they could be gone in a second. The thing that surprised me the most about myself while reading this book would have to be that I actually thought about it and tried to connect it to my own life. I put myself in the story with the people in my life as the characters and thought about what I would do if this actually happened to me. I could actually feel emotion while reading this book as well. Usually I don’t care much about books and I can never really connect to them as I did to your book. It may seem weird but your book actually taught me something about myself that I should change the way I act sometimes. Thank you for writing this amazing book.
            An inspired reader,
                        Abbie Weil

vlogging it up bro

I apologize for my awkwardness on camera.. (:

let's link! (:

http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/05/19/learning-to-cope-a-teens-story-of-losing-a-best-friend-teen-article/

This is a link to a page about how to help teenagers cope with the death of a friend. In my book, Vera loses her best friend Charlie. Vera's dad has to try to help her move on from Charlie's death, this link would show Vera's dad how to do so.

http://www.thetreehouseguide.com/

This is a link to a page that shows you how to build a tree house. In the book, it talks about when Vera and Charlie were little and they built a tree house. This link can show you how to build one and you can see what it was like for Vera and Charlie.

http://helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

This is a link to a page about the signs of domestic abuse. In the book Charlie's dad beat his mom. This link will help you understand what kind of things his mom was going through.


http://www.as-king.com/index.php

This is a link to the author of the book A.S. King's website. It gives reviews of the book and shows the other books she's written. Seeing the reviews and the other books and the whole website I think would help people better understand the book.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda

This is a link to a page about pagodas. The pagoda was a place that is talked about constantly in the book. Vera always talks about how her and Charlie used to go to the pagoda. Reading about pagodas and seeing pictures of them would help you understand the setting of the book when they are there.


http://thebooksmugglers.com/2010/11/book-review-please-ignore-vera-dietz-by-a-s-king.html

This is a link to a page that has a review of the book. It also has some quotes from the book. Seeing the review of the book can help you understand it more and see if you are interested in reading the book or not.


http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/01/opinion/l-children-without-mothers-are-at-special-risk-954179.html

This is a link to an article in the New York Times about children without their mothers. In the book Vera's mom left her and her dad when she was 12. Vera has to grow up without her. This site could help the reader better understand the kind of things Vera is going through without her mother.



http://tipthepizzaguy.com/stories/

This is a link to a website that has all sorts of crazy stories about pizza delivery workers. In the story Vera worked at a pizza place and delivered all over her town, she had some instances where the deliveries were very awkward. This website can help you understand what her job was like.

21st century english classroom... #real talk

My feelings toward the activities we do in a 21st century English classroom? I actually like what we do in class. Blogging, facebooking, and fremdenging. I'm not a tweeter... can't figure that thing out ): But anyway, the activities we do are easier for us. It's not like a blow off thing because we still have to do the work which we do in the blogs, but then we get extra credit for just posting our blogs to facebook and twitter. Easiest extra credit ever? I think so. Writing 5 paragraph analysis papers over books is old news now.. Everyone hates that. So I like that we do something different than the normal English classroom. I think interacting with another school across the state is something new and interesting. The text of the books are so much easier to understand this way because you can do different things with the blogs like the picture blog, link up, vlog and so on. So not everyone has to think the same exact way. I would hate having to read the book aloud in class. That would mean that everyone would have to read the same book, everyone has different taste so that usually doesn't work out. Also I enjoy my new book it's one of those books that you don't want to put down. So i can keep my own pace with my reading and don't have to worry about being ahead of anyone in class like I would if we were reading it aloud in class. Blogging= good (:

(insert creative title about sparknotes here)

So, I just read the sparknotes article thing whatever it's called of my new book Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Needless to say... these sparknotes are not a substitute for reading the text whatsoever! I am outraged by the absence of.. the stuff I read in the book.. That was my dramatic talk for the night. (: Anyway, I think that reading an online summary of a book keeps people from actually connecting to the book itself. I'll admit, yes I do use sparknotes on occasion when I don't have time to read a book I'm supposed to, when i absolutely hate the book, or when it's written in all smart language and I'm too slow to understand it and I need sparknotes to dumb it down for me. This book though, I actually like so I won't be using sparknotes on this one. When you use sparknotes and websites like it you don't get the true understanding of the text and you don't see the author's point of view. You also miss out on the emotion portrayed in the book. Some books if you give them a chance you can get into it and it'll be one of those book where you just want to know what happens next and you don't want to put it down. This is what my book is like for me. Others, however, not so much. Either way people should always give books a try, and if you're slowly dying because the book is so boring and you're halfway through and nothing interesting is happening, I would sparknote it. But! you should still skim through the book and pick up the parts that sparknotes leaves out (:

Creeping & commenting on my classmates.

To Zach Tripp:
Zachary! I got a better grade than you on the first quarter blog (: Are you jealous? You know you are. I liked your blog for first quarter though. You should put more personality into your blog for this quarter though. Since I'm sitting like one person away from you right now, and I've known you since like 2nd grade I know you're funnier than what you make your blog seem to be. Adding humor to the blog will make it easier to read. Just a little constructive critisism there...so don't be butthurt. (: I see you're reading that book about a monkey, monkeys are cool. So that means you better have some cool blog prompts this quarter. I'll be creeping on your blog every once in a while to see if they're legit. So...do it big bro. Nice blog. :D

To Michael Wilkison:
Wilky... reading "Goodman Richard lord praisin Ketter" 's comment, and your blog... makes me realize i associate myself with weird people... haha. Well, since you "me gusta" blogging, I'm assuming you got a good grade? You told me your score but I forgot... whoops. Your blogs entertain me, especially the titles. You just told me I better be constructive. So... um... work harder, make your blog even funnier... you're slacking. By the way... "fish-craving rednecks?" I resent that. I don't like fish. It's icky. K bye.

To Stevie Dailey:
Dear Steven, I applaud your acceptance of your first quarter blog grade. I am oh so proud of you. You are correct it is all a learning experience! & we both know how long it takes both of us to learn... hahaha especially new cheers. Oops! off subject. My apologies. Is this comment weird? Are you still going to be my friend? You have to. But here's some constructive criticism, you haven't finished all your sentences.. might want to get on that man.. If it helps, I liked your blog from last quarter. (: But guess who got a 98%? ME :D Better step it up this quarter! I'll cheer you on. GO STEVEN! yes that is your name. (: bye.

Look in the mirror... what do you see? A reflection silly (:

Dang... it's already the second quarter. Already time for me to do my second blog. My first one, personally I didn't think was that great. I don't find myself very creative at all, so basically for my first one I just took it as kind of a joke, typed something or added a picture that made me laugh. Apparently it worked, because I received a 98%. Oh yeah (: Obviously I am overly happy about my grade since i expected to receive a C or below. I guess making the blog seem like a joke and funny made it easier to read and reflected my personality. My blog was well organized according to my rubric, OCD helps there... just kidding... I'm only OCD about little things (: Also my rubric said my pictures and personal reflections explained my book well, yay! gold star for me (: Same for the classical music, I wasn't really sure how to explain my book through music, especially classical which is the only music I hate with a burning passion... my apologies to the composers. I just listened to random pieces which made my head hurt... then one sounded somewhat cool so i choose it and connected it to my book the best I could. The vlog... oh boy, that was awkward... I had to redo that so many times. I actually liked doing the vlog though, it was one of my favorite prompts. When we did the comments on our classmates blogs, i thought was particularly easy, because we could just comment on our friends blog and joke with them and tell them what was good and bad about their blogs. If we have to do that with people we don't know... I'll feel all bad about critiquing theirs and then they might get mad at me... ): ha ha. So to wrap up this long paragraph... sorry if I am boring you by the way. The last comments I got on my rubric were about grammatical errors. (sad face) If it was because of the I's not being capitalized... no offense to the makers of blogspot... but in Microsoft Word they automatically capitalize them for you... this site doesn't... not cool. It's all okay though.. like I said I got a 98% (: So I guess one of my goals for this second quarter blog is to capitalize my I's. Am I doing good so far? (:

I apologize for that really long paragraph... I was feeling really talkative (: After the first quarter blog, I think I'm getting quite used to doing this whole blogging deal. I know that some people complained about blogging and there were time where I got annoyed with some of the prompts. Honestly, I think this is WAY better than writing boring analysis papers. It changes things up a little bit, and it makes English class more interesting. So I don't know why people complain so much because they hate writing long 5 paragraph essays. I'm glad that this quarter we have more freedom to what our prompts will be. That way I can attempt to be creative since I'm lacking in that category... But again, I actually do like blogging, I don't have a problem with it, because it's nothing that's impossible to do, I finished all my prompts from last quarter no matter what they were, so I know that I can do it.

The book I'm reading for my second quarter blog is called Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. It's about this girl named.. well Vera. Her best friend had just died but it hasn't flat out said how yet. It hints some reasons that led up to it. It switches points of view a lot so it's kind of confusing but so far I really like it. We have way more freedom this quarter with our blog like I had already said. I'm not really sure what to tell you to expect because I myself am not sure yet even though I'm the one who has to create my prompt. I can assure you there will be no classical music, animotos, or 189795904363653975 links. I hated those prompts with a strong passion. ha ha. There could be a vlog maybe most of them will be vlogs. There might also be a musical connection, but it will be to the kind of music I actually like to listen to and I won't slowly die trying to pick a song...But other than that, I guess you will just have to wait and see what my next blog has in store so....enjoy (:.... and if you don't enjoy... then... get off my blog.. jerk..

Three Black Swans

Three Black Swans

whaddup animoto?

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la.. la.. la.. links! i know... i'm cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut

In my book one of the main characters is Missy. Missy is from Connecticut. This URL is to a page all about Connecticut with pictures also so you can see the setting when the book talks about Missy.

http://www.iloveny.com/

This URL is a link to a website all about New York. It shows pictures and talks about what there is to do in New York. Claire and Genevieve the other two main characters both live in different parts of New York in the book, so you can see what their life is kind of like.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Westchester_County%2c_New_York

This link is to a page that has information all about Westchester County, New York. This is the town that Claire is from. So you can see even more what the setting is when it talks about Claire.

http://www.longislandexchange.com/longisland.html

This link is to a page about Long Island, New York. In the book, this is where Genevieve and the 3 girls birth parents live. All the characters in the book go there at the end, so you can see the pictures on the page and get a better feel of the setting.


http://www.carolinebcooneybooks.com/

This link is to the author of my book, Caroline B. Cooney's website. It talks about her life and all the different kinds of books she's written. Once you read about the author of a book I think it makes it easier to understand the book from their point of view.


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hoax

This link is to the definition of the word hoax. The whole story of my book is started because of a hoax. If you don't know what that is, you would probably be lost the entire book, so it's a good definition to know (:

http://survivingtriplets.blogspot.com/

This link is to a blog posted by a woman who has her own set of triplets. Since the book is about triplet girls I think having this woman's point of view would help to better understand the book. This woman actually kept hers though instead of the family in the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption

This link is about adoption. In the book the girls all wondered whether they were adopted. In the end only 2 of them were, understanding the process of adoption would help to understand the book.


http://family-law.freeadvice.com/family-law/adoption_law/independent_adoption.htm

This link talks about private adoptions. The adoption in the book was considered a private one. The legal one was at least, as the other was an illegal adoption.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Black_swan_theory

This link is about the black swan theory. This theory is talked about multiple times throughout the book. Understanding the theory helped me understand the book a lot better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_birth

This link is to a page about multiple births. This whole story is based off of a multiple birth. So this link is just a little background information on how 3 identical babies can be born at once.

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

This link is to a YouTube video about triplets. These three adult triplet girls are all pregnant and around the same time. This is just an example on how alike identical siblings can be.

http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2008/06/triplet-telepathy.html

This is a link to a page about triplet telepathy. In the book there were times the girls wondered if they were thinking the same thing, then they realized they were. This article talks about real tests given on triplets that prove that there are phsycological connections between identical triplets.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-egypt-adoption-idUSTRE58G2M720090917

This link is to an actual article about an illegal adoption. In the book you find out that Missy's adoption was not legal. It wasn't like the one in the article but it shows you how difficult the process of adoption can be.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7295079-three-black-swans

This link is to a short and sweet summary of the book. It's just one of those things you can read to get the feel of the book and see if you will like it or not before you actually read it. You can also buy the book from this website, so if it looks interesting to you...why not? (:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1567542/Identical-twins-reunited-after-35-years.html

This link is to an article about two real life identical twins who were separated at birth. At the beginning of the book, Missy and Claire thought they were twins and they had no idea about Genevieve. This article is a lot different from the book because it has to do with the twins being separated for an experiment that they didn't find about about until they were adults.

http://lornareiko.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/identical-twins-who-were-separated-at-birth-what-are-they-like/

This link is to another page about identical siblings separated at birth. The first set of guys were separated named the same name, married, divorced, and re-married women with the same name, had a dog with the same name, and named their sons the same names. This shows how alike identicals are even if they don't know each other.

http://multiples.about.com/od/funfacts/Fun_Facts_Statistics_and_Trivia_About_Twins_and_Multiples.htm



http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20077622,00.html

This link is about 3 college boys who find out they are triplets. This article is very similar to what happened in the book. When I read this article it seemed like it could almost be a sequel to Three Black Swans. This just comes to show you that the dramatic things that happen in books can actually happen.

http://www.lhj.com/relationships/family/raising-kids/real-adoption-stories-baby-of-their-dreams/

This link is to a page about an adoption that seems to be becoming more common these days. One couple "adopted" the other couples child as it was a frozen embryo. This page just shows how many different forms of adoption there is.

hey! it's me... hi! (:

I apologize for saying "like" so much.... it's a habit... don't laugh at me! haha

my interesting, inquisitive, & insightful comments to my classmates (;

Comment to Stevie Dailey:
Stevie, you're blog is really interesting. Your pictures post make me better understand the book. Your book also looks like something that i would maybe like to read. How interesting is it to you? Do you think I would like it? I was actually thinking about reading that book next. Can't wait to see the rest of your blog so I can read more about the book! I also like the way your blog is decorated (: looks like mine! Oh! one last thing... you were supposed to actually post your comment on my blog... not just on yours.. haha Mrs. Hayes told me to tell you that (:

Comment to Hannah Gray:
Hannah! I think you did an awesome job relating this song to the book. Since we are both reading the same book I like how I can see your point of view on it. I think we both see it differently in some ways and the same in others. Your pictures explain the book perfectly! I'm looking forward to seeing your blog when it's all done so we can see how alike and different ours are! keep up the good work (; haha OH! and by the way... we're like the coolest people ever because we're reading this book... so uh yeah... bye (:


Comment to Michael Wilkison:
Well Wilky, your blog looks pretty spiffy. Even with your small amount of pictures i can totally get the feel of your book. I also think that you explained the piece of classical music nicely. Can't wait to see your blog when it is finished! Your blog titles make me laugh.. haha I love the sausage link title. Incorporating (that was a big word... (: ) humor with your blog makes it that much better to read. One last thing... your snack pack background is LEGIT. I want you to help me get an apple juice background por favor! thanks (:

classic..

http://www.classicalconnect.com/music/5072


P Kellach Waddle

De Salones Espanoles: From Spanish Halls -- Caprice for solo Contrabass in G Minor

Yep, that's the name of that classical piece of music right there. It pretty much sums up the tone and mood of my book Three Black Swans. It's random, a little creepy, weird, and somewhat sketchy. It was difficult to find a piece to match the tone of this book, because the way people interpret music is always different. I found this piece though, and it seemed to go perfectly with my book. When I first listened to this i got a weird feeling, just like when i read my book, what a coincidence! The dramaticness of the music really captured the essense of this book.
The randomness is showed in my book because a girl just decides to create a hoax that her cousin is her twin when she was supposed to do a hoax with a group. Then it gets creepy because as a reader you wonder if they really are twins and then it gets confusing. Then the book drags on and on then out of nowhere it starts talking about a completely different girl named Genevieve. Complete randomness then turns really weird because then you find out that she is the two girls triplet. Then when the girls parents start to notice something they start acting all weird like they are hiding something... pretty sketchy stuff. Overall i think this piece of classical music right here and my book were made for each other, like a match made in heaven.

el blog post dos.

So, there's this girl named Missy.. (^ that's not her though.. )

and she has a cousin named Claire..(^also not her)

they are both 16

& they are total BFFS

Missy is doing a biology project where she has to create a hoax.

 

She wants Claire to pretend to be her long lost twin.

Missy's school news has a segment on the girls

 

the hoax worked and everyone was like ^

then they we're all like ^ (cheering) "yay you found your long lost twin!"

 

Claire wonders if they could actually be twins

the news spread to Claire's school

 

the video was put on YouTube without the girl's knowledge

a black swan is a symbol in the story



 

then there's this girl named Genevieve



 

her parents don't spend much time with her

so she's really close with her grandma

her friend shows her the YouTube video of Missy and Claire

her face looks like ^ after she sees the video



Missy and Claire looked exactly like Genevieve

Genevieve was completely confused

the 3 girls are the three black swans

my totally uncreative blog title (:

Hi, my name is Abbie. I'm 16 years old. I am a Varsity cheerleader and i also participate in Freshman Mentors and Student Council at my school. I'm a very outgoing and sarcastic person. I LOVE awkward moments. I try to find something fun in every situation I'm in. I apologize in advance for any weird things i may put up here... and.. uhh.. just a heads up.. i try to make myself sound smart by writing big words.. but it usually doesn't work.. so i'm actually not as stupid as i sound.. (: This is my first time ever creating a blog, so I'm figuring out how all of this works. I'm not really a big reader, i don't enjoy reading that much unless it's a book that is really in my interest level. My interest level in books usually involves teenage drama.  Like many other 16 year old girls, I love the Twilight Series. One of my favorite authors is Sarah Dessen, she writes all sorts of books about teenagers and what happens in their lives, I usually get hooked on her books by the second page. My all time favorite book though, would have to be Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen, it is about a girl whose best friend got pregnant by her boyfriend and right after she found out, her boyfriend was killed in a motorcycle incident.

In my English 3 class we are doing an assignment that involves the program called Read for a Lifetime. (Can you feel the excitement?!) This program has a list of 25 books and we choose a book to read and blog about every quarter. At first I wasn't very thrilled about doing this assignment, but after reading the summaries of a couple books I have found some that i wouldn't actually mind reading. The first book i choose is called Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney. This book is about two girls that are best friends and they also happen to be cousins. They live about 20 miles away from each other. When one girl has a biology assignment to create a hoax and convince everyone to believe it, she decides to ask her cousin to pretend to be her twin and they would tell everyone that they just discovered each other. It wouldn't be that hard for people to believe after the dressed up exactly alike and they already resemble each other. What they didn't expect was that they are actually twins that were separated, so the hoax that they created turned out to be true. I chose this book because after reading about it I thought it would be quite interesting to read. It would be dramatic enough to keep my attention, and when I read a book I think about what it would be like if i was the main character in the book, and when i did that I wanted to read this book.

I think that some creative ways to do different blog posts in this class would be more fun to blog about. One of the things i think we should do is wherever everyone stopped in their book, to create the next scene and write about it, so they can gather everything that has happened before this point and make up what will happen next. I think that it will get every ones creative minds thinking and it would be fun to see what different things people can come up with. I also think that we should summarize what we've all read after each week so we can always look back to our blog to refresh our memory because there are always some parts that you forget. My last suggestion would have to be to put ourselves in the main characters shoes and blog about what we would do in that situation, how we would feel, and how we would handle it.