The Wave: OP #1

This story took place in 1969 in Palo Alto California at Gordon High School. It mainly takes place in the History class at that school, where I think they will conduct an experiment.

I think it took place at an earlier time because everyone, almost, smokes because they weren't aware of the serious health damage that could be done by smoking. Another hint was that in the very beggining of chapter five it said there was a black board and now we use mostly white boards. The language that is used in thew book is also a little bit differant like corridors and also one of the guys that came into the room that Amy and Laurie were in with the door locked was istening to a tape recorder which we hardly ever use anymore now that there are ipods.

A scentence that really stood out to me was in chapter two on page ten:They were herded into camps all over Eastern Europe, and once there they were worked, starved and tortured, and when they couldn't work anymore they were , they were exterminated in gas chambers. I chose this scentence becauseit's so sad that people would do that to other people no matter what the reason. Also, I chose it because I didn't know that they killed them in gas chambers after being tortured and put in so much pain!

My question: Do you think Robert Billings will become friends with Laurie and Amy by the end of the book? Why or why not?

Betty Ann

To me, the saddest part in this story is the part where the girl is at Betty Ann's house and the phone rings, she then answers it and then at the end of the phone call Betty's mom asks "Why don't you girls like Betty Ann? She likes you . . ." I think this is the saddest part because if you were Betty, you would feel very un-loved too, which is never a good feeling.
I would have also felt as bad as the girl in the story did after she was being mean to Betty Ann, but I probably wouldn't be as mean to her as she was. I would apologize, too, if I was mean to her.
I think the moral lesson in this story is to treat others the way you want to be treated. Someday you might, and probably will have to confront that person about the things that you said/did like she should have done in the doctors office in the end.

Seventh Grade

In class we just read a short story called Seventh Grade. My favorite scentence in this story was: "He had read a GQ magazine that his older brother borrowed from the Book Mobil and noticed that the male models all had the same look on their faces." I really like this scentence because I think it's really funny. They're so dumb because they think that scowling makes them attract girls better, which is what makes it so funny. It's also really descriptive which makes me feel like I can see the magazine pictures in my head.
I connect with Victor because I also have really cool teachers. They understand me, like when Victor's teacher didn't tell Teresa that he didn't know french. All of my teachers have been really good this year and even though my first day of seventh grade wasn't the best I like it a lot better now.

Test

This is the one scentence that really stood out to me in this unusual, strange, and interesting story: "At the last moment Robert Procter sat motionless staring into the face of the onrushing, sleeping girl, his mothers cry still sounding in his ears." This scentence really stood out to me because I could actually get a picture in my mind of what was happening. I especially like the part "his mother's cry was still sounding in his ears" because in he next few scentences of the story it connects to it by saying "Just before he lost consciousness he heard the scream stop, and he knew then that he had been hearing a single, short lived scream that had only seemed to drag on and on." I also liked that the author wrote the part where it says that "Robert Proctor sat motionless staring into the face of the onrushing, sleeping girl," because I could also picture that part in my head and feel how he felt; I think he must have felt pain because he was about to kill a pretty girl that's sleeping calmly, and completely helpless with no way to stop.
I don't think the hypnisis test is a good way of seeing if a young driver is ready because if they don't want to drive ever again because of the test than they would give them their liscense but they would be too scared to drive, so either way they wouldnt drive. It is also a bad way to see if they're ready because it has nothing to do with their actual driving it only has to do with their feelings. If they did this in the real world that wouldn't be very good because it would mess with peoples minds too much and either they wouldn't want to drive anymore or they would drive with the haunting of it actually happening(depending on the person).
I think the ending could be that he's been hypnotised before too and can't even tell what's real anymore. It could also leave a message byt the author that in our world anything can happen so always be on the watch for things. I think it's one of those open ended quesions at the end of a stroy for people to think about. It could probably mean, too, that they're robots and they are programed to say that whenever someone asks that question(but I highly doubt it) :).

A Few Things About the Planet Earth Video

Plains

This section was my least favorite out of the two that we watched but only because so many cute little fuzzy animals got eaten. A few things I learned about the plains are:

• about a fourth of the land on earth is covered with grass


• grass can grow in the Arctic


• carribu can travel nearly 30 miles a day


• male Bison weigh about one ton


• donkeys only stay for a few hours in a place where they have water and food and then go back to where they were before(where they didn't have any food or water) for no aparent reason


• elephant grass is the tallest kind of grass in the world

The parts where the little, defenseless baby animals got eaten I don't really want to write a lot about because it makes me sad. But I will say that foxes prety much eat anything they can catch :).

Jungle

I really liked this part of the movie because it had so many interesting things, like when they would show a plant and put the video footage in really fast motion so you could see the growth of the plant over a long time, in a really short time. I also like the part where the birds danced a round for a female to come and notice it. A few things I learned in this section of the movie are:

• in jungles only about 2% of the sunlight hits the jungle floor


• most trees grow food at different times of the year which make food more widely spread and harder to find


• one of the only trees that grow food all year long is the fig tree


• tree frogs use their large webbed feet as parachutes when they leap

The movie was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot, however I didn't really enjoy the parts where the cute little animals got killed and when their legs twitched outside of all the animals mouths while they were killing them :(.

My Favorite Book From the Sixth Grade (last year)

My favorite book from the sixth grade would probably be Small Steps by Louis Sachar. I liked this book a lot because it's so exciting and you can't wait to read what happens next. The book is about this guy, nick-named Armpit, and his freind. To make money, they sell tickets for a concert ilegally, though they don't know it, Armit falls in love with a famous singer, and he helps out a little girl with celebral palsy. I can't really reflect with this book but I liked it a lot. I would totally suggest that you read this book because if I liked it a lot you probably will too.