Monday, May 19, 2008

service learning

Last week's service learning went okay. We counted up our 9th and tenth grade votes for tutoring and now we know our school weaknesses. Which is mainly math and science. Then after that we decided to raise money for supplies by selling pretzels and we even made slogans to go with the sales. Pretzel sticks for math tips. We came up with a goal for the amount we are trying to raise and we even got started selling this monday and sales went great.

Monday, May 12, 2008

MiCe Of mEn

 Mice of men. What does that mean? Mice of men is a book that is filled with characters that have motifs, themes and symbols of life in California on Tyler farm. So what does that have to do with these three topics. I'll tell you what it has to do with these three topics EVERYTHING. 
 Mice of men is a symbol in itself. Mice of men comes from an old poem written by Robert Burns where in this poem he say's "The best laid plans of mice and men often go a rye". Meaning everything carefully planned often goes wrong. Other symbols in the book are like signs. At one point in the book a character named Candy let Carlson shoot his dog in  the back of the head killing it for the dog wasn't any good for anyone. Candy had regrets for he feels he should have been the one to kill his own dog. This was a symbol of the main character Lennie for he was shot in the head by his "owner" George. Lennie killed innocents but not purposely. With him being so large and strong with the mind of a toddler his disability  got the best of him. Because of the murders he committed the farms people and his arch enemy Curley were going to kill him in replacement for the death of Curley's wife. George was responsible for Lennie so he wasn't going to let just any old person kill his Lennie so he had to do it himself.
 Mice of men also is a motif in itself. The mice stand for the weak in the book. The weak as in Lennie , Crooks, and Candy. The three characters in this book with horrible disabilities. Lennie who is mentally challenged, Crooks who's name explains itself, and Candy with one hand. And the other's are the men, the strong. The strong as in Slim, George, and Curley. Slim with the respect of the people, George with control of Lennie, and Curley with the power over the farm for he is the owners son.
 Mice of men is a hand full of themes from brotherhood to dreams, to dislikes. Brotherhood because they stuck together when working, playing, and even when they went on a search to kill Lennie. Dreams because George , Lennie and Candy had dreams to get off the farm and get their own land small but just big enough to live on. Curley's wife had dreams of leaving and becoming an actress and get away from the farm also. Dislikes because Curley dislikes big people for he is a little guy. Crooks dislikes white people for they exclude him in everything they do. Curley's wife dislikes Curley for she thinks he is not a nice guy and is to controlling. 
  As you can see the book Mice Of Men is filled with motifs, themes and Symbols. From the characters handicaps to their brotherhood to their dislikes.I personally think this book is great and before you can even think about saying "so what" I'll tell you what. What you should do is  get this book and read it yourself. For you can see for yourself.
 

Thursday, May 8, 2008

mice of men

   It's not fair! If you were born with a disability and can only remember what one person tells you. It's not fair! If you love animals and petting something soft but can't because of your disability. It's not fair that you should die because of your disability. You are not the problem, having a disability is. So what happens if half the people on the planet have a disability. Do we kill half our population? Lennie the main character in the book mice of men had this disability, and he did not deserve to die.

   This animal loving, emotional, and friendly BIG guy had a disability that controlled his life. His disability also led to his death. Starting his life living with his aunt carol on a farm this big guy loved animals. though he killed a few mice by petting them to hard.  After he killed some mice this pattern of death continued. He later killed a small pup upset with himself for he said to the girl he killed later "if george finds out about this i won't get to tend dem wabbits." No this big guy did not mean any harm but his excitement got the best of him. If the animal or person he loved to rub so much did so much as panic under his grip his mind would pause with confusion where he would hold it tightly without knowing what else to do. One more movement under his grip will give you a broken neck and another dead innocent killed by an incident. 

   The only death that was shocking by the end of this book was his own. Killed by his right hand travel buddy of whom he loved so dearly shot him the back of the head. For Lennie was a monster and could do no good for himself  let alone some one else. Though he was great at working  no one wants to risk another dead body. His closest friend was george, the only person who understands lennie and was his protector. In the beggining of the book one of the characters let a stranger shoot his own dog in the back of the head. George was not going to let that happen with lennie. He was responsible for lennie so he was the one to kill him.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

service learning

This service learning thing is going alright. I already did some hours with Ms.Close drawling  Barack Obama and entering it in the art show. I also am in the microwave committee and earn hors for that. Also i participated in peer mediation training where i earn hours for that. And last i earn hours for working with the teens with power group getting 50,000 signatures to help them petition to our government about gun violence. So i am very dedicated to getting my hours completed.

service learning

the next week in service learning all we had to do was create jobs for each person to do. We had the scheduler, researcher, recorder reporter, and the cap-i-tano. I am the recorder reporter(OH YEAH!) where i just basically have to make record of each meeting and events and dates and so forth. I love my job and look forward to helping in my service learning project with out having to deal with a  bunch of hormonal teenage idiots. No offense to those who really fit the description.  

service learning

Service learning is a bust for me. Its very confusing right now only because i am so unorganized. I am in the tutoring group this year and our first week we had to come to some sort of conclusion on what we want to do or how we want to run and schedule our service learning project.
 What we actually came up with was that we wanted to teach tutoring to our school students this year instead of leaving school to teach younger children.

Friday, April 18, 2008

IDIOMS(of mice and men)

1.flapper- mouth
2.poking your big ears into our business-listening into our conversation.
3.picking scraps- provoking fights, starting arguements
4.poison- what we would today call a bad girl. like the song "poison"(that girl is poison)
5.rattrap- when your in a bad situation.
6.shove off- to leave
7.take the rap-taking the blame
8.get the can- t get fired
9.drink hearty- to drink well.
10.scrappy- aggressively


Monday, March 24, 2008

Thursday, January 3, 2008

NHD PROJECT SUMMARY!!!

My National History day project is on the 1963 church bombing in birmingham Alabama and lynching. One early Sunday morning at 10.22 a bomb went off on 16th street killing four girls inside of a church. A witness identified a man named Robert Chambliss, a member of the klu klux klan putting a box under the church steps that very morning. So my topic is the study of this event and the overall study of lynching. Explaining how lynching relates. I have 5 people in my group and each person has different tasks. I ope this will be a great learning experiece and a successful project.