War Poem

War
Sitting in the trench
Lonley, just you and your bayonet.
Watching, waiting
Staring out into no man's land.

Reading Response

Today I read Peak. Peak was on his way to Base Camp out Mt. Everest. To get ready for the climb, he was told he had to walk behind the truck with all his gear. Every night they stopped he would go climb a rock face that was near by to just stay in shape. As soon as he got to Base Camp he saw his father getting into a fistfight. All his father did was dodge a punch and then punched the guy in the chest and knocked him down into the snow. After that was over Captain Shek drove up in a Jeep and asked for everyone’s papers. He as checking to make sure everyone had a climbing permit and was allowed to be at the camp.

Of Mice and Men Ending

1. Lennie didnt mean to kill Curley's wife. He was scared that George was going to get mad at him so he was telling her to be quiet and holding her mouth.
2. Curley get really mad, which doesnt suprise me.
3. George tells Lennie that they are going to have a house and everythig is going to be good to them, and that Lennie can have rabbits.
4. George shot Lennie because he was being bad and causing trouble.
5. No, George wasnt right to do what he did. He isnt justified at all because I think he could have taken care of Lennie in a different and less harsh way than to just kill him.
6. I dont really know what Steinbeck is saying but i think he is trying to make a strong statment about the whole situation,

Free Will

I think it isn’t always 100% your choice. You can’t just go out and do whatever you want. Working as hard as you can is probably the best thing you can do to achieve what you want to do. If you wanted to be a singer, there are millions of people in the world that want to be a singer. And you can’t just say i am better than all them, you have to show it. If you work hard, you will become better and then people will notice you. And if you wanted to be a senator you cant just become a senator, you have to show that you would be a good choice for that position. To show that you’re the right person you have to work hard. So nothing is 100% your choice. There is always someone out that that can say no or be better than you, but you have more of a chance to do what you want if you work hard.

tomorrow will be a better day

Tomorrow Will Be a Better Day
1. How does Rittenberg hook the reader? What’s happening? He started off at a point where I thought that something was going to go wrong, or he would end-up upset. His father is talking to him mom about Rittenberg’s future, and how he thinks that the future is not going to be good.
2. What specifics does Rittenberg use to emphasize how older generations saw horrible things in their lifetimes? He uses the examples of his grandparents, and how they lived through wars, depressions, flu’s, and other things, yet they kept going. His father would also tell him “Tomorrow will be a better day.”
3. How does Rittenberg use specifics to demonstrate his hopefulness? 
He remembered how his father used to tell him that “Tomorrow will be a better day.” And if Rittenberg asked how do you know, his father would say, “I just do.”
4. How does Rittenberg use the title to make his point? The point of his story was that; no matter how bad your day may have been, keep looking forward, because tomorrow will be better. Things will get better, and improve

ashley responce

Ashley Response

1) How does the writer use the hook (“three blonde heads”) to grab the reader and set the tone for the essay? 
It was a “showing” sentence; I imagined how it would look for them to turn around.
2) Re-read the paragraph starting “The first time I actually became aware…”
Specific detail:
“ One kid thought it was so funny his chubby face started turning red and I could see a tear gradually making its way down his face.” showing not telling.
“ Like a volatile vial of glycerin, into peals of laughter.”
3) Why does the writer use the example of the pencils? What is she trying to show? 
She’s explaining to us how her name was never on one of the pencils, and that made her feel left out, and not like her name.
4) How does the writer turn it around? What anecdotes and information does she give to show that she has regained her pride for her name?
 The writer turns it around by telling us that when she went back to her home country, her cousin told her what her name really meant. Her name stood for “to rule without force.” She took pride in the fact that her name meant something meaningful.
5) What advice would you give the writer to make the essay even better? 
I think that it would have been better is she “showed” us a little more about how she felt when her name embarrassed her.

How I Learned To Pitch

Taylor Ramsden
English p. 1
10-17-07

1. Bryan Price got the author to stop over thinking by telling him to have a quiet mind
2. Bryan wanted to teach the author a change up first because it was the first step that separated the regular throwers from the pitchers.
3. To throw a change up you but your fingers in an “OK” sign around then ball. Then when you throw the ball, you throw it just as hard as you would throw a fastball.
4. Because of the finger placement on the ball it makes the ball come out of you’re had slower then it would for a fastball. That small speed difference makes the batter think the ball is coming in faster than it really is, making him swing to early.
5. A good pitching coach is someone that can look at a pitcher and see the small little mistakes and tweaks that the pitcher could change and also make the pitcher his own self- coach by making him know what he needs to do to be constant.

Thoughtful Questions

1. I think what you can learn in school from how Bryan Price taught pitching is that you should be able to teach your self in a way that if you get something wrong or didn’t study for a test enough, you should know that you have to go back and read over the topic or section that you got wrong or need to know more about. Therefore making yourself kind of like a self-coach,
2. A change up is equal to whatever each one person thinks. Maybe for someone it would be a poem. After writing a bunch of big essays and papers, you right a poem or something you enjoy to get your mind off big assignments; so then you can focus on the next one.
3. What I think the author means by that is if a pitcher is really focused and doing really good, he needs to keep a “quiet mind” so he doesn’t break down and start making mistakes.

Is dance more important than math?

Is dance more important than math?


I think that dance in some cases is more important than math. It all depends on the person. Like in the movie some people had to move around to think and couldn’t sit still, for that person dance would be more important than math and it would more enjoying for them because they aren’t forced to move around. But on the other hand if someone didn’t have to move around to think and enjoyed sitting down and learning math for them math would be more important than dance. So I think that people should take not just dance but some subject that is creative and allows them to think creatively, unlike math that you have to think how everyone else thinks in order to get the right answer.

50 years from now

The U.S. in 50 years is going to be very different. It is going to be completely different than it is now. If you look back on how much the U.S. has changed in the past 50 years, computers have been invented and made to do many tasks. Just think of what they are going to be able to do in 50 years, they could do anything. Another example is cars. Cars have come a long way from when they first were invented with an engine in them. Now there are cars that are going 200 mph and cost thousands and thousands of dollars. In 50 years the cars could be going 500 mph and you can fly in them and hold 100 people in comfort. If we ran out of oil, we would probably by then found something that could replace oil.

Anthem & Farenheit 451 essay quiz

In Fahrenheit 451 and Anthem there are some similarities and differences. The plot of both stories are based in the future, but Ray Bradbury’s and Ayn Rand’s idea of the future in their books are very different. In Fahrenheit 451, all the people are a lot less social, and in Anthem the people are social and interact like normal people do today. In Fahrenheit 451 people have “real names” and are themselves. In Anthem the people have weird names with numbers and everyone doesn’t call themselves “I,” they say always say “we.” Both books have a government that doesn’t want the people to think for themselves so they take away the things that would let everyone to think freely.

I think the endings of Fahrenheit 451 and Anthem are have some similarities. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag overcomes the restrictions of the government and was running away from the government because he killed Beatty. In Anthem, Equality is running from The Council of World Scholars because he escaped from jail. So he goes out to the Uncharted Forest where no one really goes. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag meets a group of old men and he stayed with them. Equality did a similar thing; he met the Golden One in the forest. After Montag meets up with the group he realizes all the things he has been doing and changes his ways. Equality does the same and he starts to say “I” instead of just “we.”

Faber

In that passage, Faber is telling Montag about how he isn’t a religious man anymore. He is saying how religion has changed so much and that it is hard to recognize what it originally was. How people that believe in Christianity have changed things around to how they think it is and not the original way. Faber is explaining that not only has the religion changed but also how people have dressed God up or down. Faber tells how he loves the smell of books. And he was explaining how books used to be so special. Then he got rid of his books and now he doesn’t have them and he feels guilty about it. And if people wouldn’t have gotten rid of the books everything would be different now. He said that he should have spoken up about the burning of the books and maybe he could have stopped them and kept books around. As he finished talking to Montag, he closes the Bible. I think that the Bible was his most important book he had and that’s why he kept it.