Reading Response: A tree Grows In Brooklyn

For my second reading response for this unit, I picked the book "A tree Grows In Brooklyn".  Since I have only read the first two hundred pages of this book (half of it), I will do my reading response on those first two hundred pages.  "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" is a book about of a poor family living in Williamsburg Brooklyn in teh early 1900s.  They are a family of four.  Francie, the main character, is the daughter and the older sibling of Neeley her younger brother.  Francie is a self determined girl who is very smart but keeps to herself often.  Neeley is just your average boy growing up, hanging out with friends cursing and being stupid at times.  Jack Nolan is the father of the family.  His parents immigrated from Ireland because of the patatoe famine.  He works as a singing waiter and is known as being a drunk.  Katie is the mother and the unofficial head of the family.  She takes care of everyone and makes sure everyone in her family is alright. 

The character of Francie Nolan is a very interesting character to me.  She is a very nice girl and a very smart girl, it doesn't seem like anything is really wrong with her.  You would think she would have a lot friends, but she spends most of her time by herself.  This adds a whole nother factor into her coming of age and growing up.  Not only is she a kid who has to fend for herself most of the time when it comes to money and food and has to spend long whiles in the house preparing meals, but she spends a lot of time by herself and without friends.  This to me can really shape who you become as an adult.  The experiences you have as a kid really does change and mold the kind and type of adult you become.

"A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" is a very interesting book.  A book that I feel really relates to the subject of coming of age and becoming an adult.  It shows you the story of a young girl growing up and having to become very self reliant at a very young age.  It also shows two adults (Francie's parents) coming age.  Maybe it's not the first adult becoming experience they've had, but it was a big step for them.  Becoming parents I feel is a huge coming of age experience, no matter how old you are.  I've really enjoyed reading this book and hope to continue it and finish it.

Writing Prompt #5

What are some important realizations and/or epiphanies that you have had about yourself, friends, family, and the world overall? How did you arrive at these realizations?

As kids, we take being a kid for granted.  We take childhood and little responsibilities and the carefreeness of being a child for granted.  I for one, have done this and do this.  I think that I can be a kid forever, and I can play outside with my friends without worry about paying the bills, maintaining or finding a job, taking care of family, and other things that go along with be an adult.  These leads to an epiphany I've had recently.

The epiphany that I've had is how much I'm going to miss being a kid when I'm all grown up and an adult.  How much I'll miss the carefree feeling of being a child without a real worry in my life.  I feel like this is an important realization to have at a young age.  Because I have realized this at a young age, I know to take advantage of every moment and every little part of my childhood.

Now that I have made this realization I hope that it will change the way I treat and use my childhood.  I hope that this epiphany will help me cherish every moment I have until I come of age and become an adult.  Because when I'm an adult I won't be able to enjoy the things I can now and i know that when I'm an adult I'll wish I was still a kid, so I don't want to live out my childhood with regrets.


Note: Please please please excuse this lateness.  When I first wrote this, I thought I published it but I realized I had just saved it in my drafts. My apologies. 

Response to the Wave: Coming of age

During the past two weeks, I have read and finished the book, "The Wave" by Todd Strasser.  The Wave is about a high school history class, and an experiment the teacher set up so his students could better understand the Nazis.  How the Nazis were made and why nobody opposed them in Germany.  Before the experiment, the class was very judgemental about it.  They couldn't understand how the people of Germany just sat around and let them do the things they did.  After they did the experiment, they now understood.  This is why I think you can't judge or understand something before you actually experience it yourself.  If you put yourself in the actual situation your views may change.  You may see the pressure somebody had on them or the pressure they didn't have on them.

Ben Ross, also known as Mr. Ross, is the history teacher in this book that organized the experiment for the students.  At the beginning of the book, it starts out with him showing his class a film about the holocaust and the things that happened in them.  After seeing the film, his class gets very upset.  They get upset because of how horrible the the things they just saw are, and because they don't understand how the people of Germany could just sit around and pretend they didn't know anything and just let that happen.  This is the reason Mr. Ross created the experiment.  The experiment that he created was to form a group in his history class called, "The Wave".  The Wave was supposed to be a group were everybody is equal and is based around discipline, community, and action.  Their slogan and motto was; "Strength Through Discipline, Strength Through Community, Strength Through Action".  What he didn't expect was the group to get out of control.  It spread through the entire school, recruiting every single person they could fine, and threaten or bully any kid that didn't want to join.  Much like the Nazis.  He wanted them to understand that the idea of the Nazis wasn't so ridiculous and could happen very easily, as they had just demonstrated.

Laurie Sanders, is another main character in the story.  She is a senior girl in highschool and in Mr. Ross' history class.  She is one of the people at the beginning who don't understand how Germany just let the Nazis run wild and reek havoc and injustice into the world.  After the film she said; "How could Germany sit back while the Nazis slaughtered people all around them and say they didn't know about it?  How could they do that?  How could they even say that?".  Laurie soon found out the answer to her questions, via the wave.  She saw first hand how the wave swept over and completely conquered the school in days.  She saw how powerful it became and how people were too scared to oppose it for fear of what they would do in return.  She judged something before she herself had been in that exact situation.  She judged it, but didn't really understand the issue since she had never lived through it.

I think this book showed a lot about coming of age.  The novel shows how a group of highschoolers were swept into something and had their ignorance and innocence wiped away.  It showed them coming to a realization and coming to true terms with the world and with society.  This is what I feel like coming of age is all about: coming to terms with things and realizing the truth.  This is why I feel this book is a perfect example of a coming of age novel.

The wave is a story that shows us about coming of age, and revealing the truth behind the world.  It shows us that we shouldn't judge or try to understand things before we are put into the situation ourselves because we may not have the correct view.  We may not know what it was like, what it wasn't like, and so forth.  I personally really enjoyed reading this book.  This book did only help the characters understand the world and society, but it also taught me these things as well.  Never would I have learned this from any other way. 

Response to Prompt #14

Becoming an adult is a very hard, exciting, and a confusing thing to a 14 year old kid.  To a kid, becoming an adult is ages away, a time that will never come.  A time of responsibilities, hardships, and having no fun.  Adults are the people that make the rules, that make you come home for dinner when you really just want to stay out with your friends.  They are the people that watch over you and the people that are always looking down on you.  A 14 year old kid never wants grow old and have to have responsibilities and obey they rules, but they know they eventually have to be.  And because kids know they eventually have to grow up, they have many questions and concerns about growing up.  I myself, are included in this catagory.

One question that I have about being an adult and growing up is, why?  Why do you have to grow up?  Why can't we all just stay as kids and play out in the park till we get to tired to move?  Some people will say because "you have to grow up eventually, you can't stay young and immature forever, so grow up" others will say "you can't expect your parents to take care of you your entire life so you have to grow up".  The first one I really don't understand, why can't a be an immature 40 year old man, huh?  Why is it that growing up is always related to becoming less immature and less innocent and becoming more responsible.   The second reason I see the reasoning in, I understand the fact that we can't have our parents always there looking out for us.  I understand the fact that you can't live with your parents until you grow old and dies.  But even if you do move out, even if you move on into the "real world" and start a career for yourself, you're expected to act as an adult and not as a child.  I don't understand why a grown man can't act as if he would if he were still in middle school.

This is why I am concerned about growing up, because I don't really know what that means.  What growing up means I can do and what it means I can't do.  I hate the fact that people expect me to grow up and stop acting childish and immature.  I want to stay this way and fun for the rest of my life!  This is just how i feel now, though.  Maybe in a few years or when I'm all grown up I'll think of it differently, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy being a kid.

FInal Drafft: Response to starry night

When reading and listening to this poem, I felt and thought a couple of different things.  At first, from just reading it once and skimming it over, I didn't think much of it.  I just saw it as this lady trying to make a poem deeper that it need being.  I just looked at it appeared to look like, and not what was underneath.  I had no real interest into seeking the meaning into this poem, because on the first look around it didn't seem too great. After we discussed this poem in class for a while I saw that there was more to it.  A lot more.  I found out that she had committed suicide.  That made my view on this poem change completely.  I began to think of this poem as more than just a poem, but as a suicide note.  This was her suicide note, her message to the world.

And that got me to thinking all about suicide and her suicide.  Maybe this poem is about her trying to tell people how she was feeling, desperately reaching out for someone to understand her and help.  She was talking about How she wanted to die, but she writes it like this: "This is how
         I want to die"
She makes I want to die it's own separate line.  Maybe this is me trying to make everything fit together, but it seemed like she wanted people to know she felt like dying.  It makes you wonder though, if she talked to anyone about it, or if she just hoped eventually someone would realize this, if it is actually about this.  It’s a really interesting poem after I started thinking about this, still not sure if I like it yet though.

Please Don't Take My Air Jordans

I really liked this poem.  I felt like I could relate to it a lot, although i would never kill anyone over a pair of shoes... I can see where he is coming from.  In the world, although most people won't admit it, you're judged mainly on how you look.  How fly you're looking, or fresh your kicks are looking in this poem's case.  When you walk down the street people don't look at you and think, "I bet that guy has a great personality", they think, "wow that guy looks terrible in that poke-a-dot super skinny jeans", or, "wow that guy's pretty hot", and even sometimes, "that guy needs to pick up his pants".  We all feel pressured into looking good because we all want to impress the people around us.  We all want that new cool thing, those new Air Jordans.  We like it when people say that they think that our necklace is pretty, or that our shirt is pretty awesome.  The author felt so pressured by all of this, that he took a man's life in order to look good.

Nobody wants to be that guy that has all the old clothes that nobody thinks is cool anymore.  You can learn that from just glancing at this poem.  He would've lost all of his credit and respect if he didn't get new shoes.  He couldn't live with that, so he found a way to get his new shoes without spending a lot of money.  Although I do not agree AT ALL with what this person did, I can relate.  I can relate to the feeling of trying to look good in order to be accepted.  We can all relate to it, and that's why I like this poem.




(I had this saved in my draft folder, I forgot to publish it)

Revised Response to Starry Night

When reading and listening to this poem, I felt and thought a couple of different things.  At first, from just reading it once and skimming it over, I didn't think much of it.  I just saw it as this lady trying to make a poem deeper that it need being.  I just looked at it appeared to look like, and not what was underneath.  I had no real interest into seeking the meaning into this poem, because on the first look around it didn't seem too great.  You know how, when you see someone walking down the street and you kind of size them up and try to tell if they're cool or see if they're wearing some nice shoes?  I did that with this poem.  I was just sizing it up, and seeing whether it had anything cool going on it.  When you see someone walking down the street, you don't know what's underneath though.  And the same goes for poems.  You have to actually think about it, and go under.

So I decided to read it a second time and see if I could find out more and see if I could find some connection or find some theme.  That's when I realized that there was more to this poem than what just meets the eye.  I saw a connection between her and Van Gough when he drew the painting and what she thought he was thinking.  She created her own version and her own story behind what Van Gough was thinking when he was drawing the painting.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, she tried to sum up those words and make a poem out of it.

Then, after we discussed the poem in class and went even further than we had before, I found it even more.  This poem to me, was wrapped in layers, and I had to slowly unwrap each one.  I found out she committed suicide.  This made my head go spinning.  Suicide?  And that got me to thinking that maybe this poem was about her suicide.  Maybe this poem is about her trying to tell people how she was feeling, desperately reaching out for someone to understand her and help.  She was talking about How she wanted to die, but she writes it like this: "This is how
         I want to die"
She makes I want to die it's own separate line.  Maybe this is me trying to make everything fit together, but it seemed like she wanted people to know she felt like dying.

Reading Respone to "Youth in Revolt"

Youth and Revolt is a book by the author C.D Payne about an adolescent boy getting through his adolescent and doing adolescent things...kind of.  He isn't what you would call a "normal" kid.  He does and thinks about things a little differently then other adolescent boys, or at least just me.  As of right now I'm in about the middle beginning of the book.  In this part of the book the character, named Ned, has his first girlfriend whom he met on a vacation with his family.  He had the most amazing time while he was there but now that he has left, he has to try to work through a long distance relationship.  He has to take care of the dog she hates, go to a bad public school, try to get his girlfriend to satisfy his needs, fake his friends suicide, and keep his life together all in one.  You can say Ned has his plateful dealing with everything.

Although this book might seem a bit weird and a bit unorthordox to most, I really really like it.  I can really connect to it.  Although i don't think like Ned, it's all very similar.  Its just a book about a teenage boy doing teenage boy stuff.  Thinking about girls, doing things for girls (in Ned's case taking care of a dumb dog), doing stupid things, getting angry at your parents and your sister, and eating doughnuts.  Lots of doughnuts.

One thing I really like about this book is that it's real.  It doesn't try to get soft around the edges, it doesn't try to make Ned's mind less perverted, and doesn't try to make Ned's mom seem less stupid.  It's real with you.  It gives you things straight with you and that's something hard to come by these days.  People a lot of the time aren't real with you, I know I'm not real all the time.  It's something I feel like should be really appreciated.

All in all I really like this book and can't wait to finish it and find out all that is going to happen.

Response to responses

1st response

I felt like Sarah's response to "My Papa's Waltz" was a very well thought out response which talked about many different issues and, at least in my opinion, responded and discussed each issue thoroughly and deeply.  She really went into each individual topic and talked about all the different sides of the issue talking about why each issue is relevant and gave examples supporting each idea.  For the most part also she did a good job of being as little bias as possible

2nd response

Another blog post i really liked, and that i thought was very interesting, was Tomin's response to "Please don't take my air jordans".  What i liked about it so much was that it displayed his opinions and thoughts on the poem.  Usually, when people talk about pieces of literature (including myself) just kind of brief over about what they thought on it and get into some big ideas about it.  Tomin on the other hand laid it all out to, he told you exactly what he thought of it and backed it with examples from the poem and other ideas.

3rd response

The third poem I really liked and I thought was very well written was Julia's response to "Please don't take my air jordans".  The reason why I liked Julia's response so much was because you could tell she really put a lot of time and effort into making.  And I really appreciate that sort of thing.  Lots of people, including myself again, just try to do the bare minimum and leave it at that.  Julia went above and beyond what she was supposed to do.  She talked about and discussed each little thing and each idea in the poem and I liked it a lot

Response to My Papa's Waltz

My Papas waltz is a poem made in the 1940s about a son and his father "waltzing".  I myself, really liked this poem.  It's one of those poems I feel like is just fun to read.  It all fits nicely together and is very smooth.  Underneath all of that, the poem is more complex with many different layers.  At first you don't really think much of it, you just see it as a kid and his father dancing.  Then you see it as maybe the father is abusing the son.  Then after you've noticed that you start debating with yourself whether or not he's abusing his son and you try to look for little things in the text to lead one way or the other.

All in all, I thought this was a great piece of literature

Yeah

So I'm on the train
Yeah
And I'm not feeling any pain
Yeah

And like there's this guy
Yeah
And he keeps screaming why
Yeah

Why is life
Yeah
Why do people give strife
Yeah

And this guy is homeless
Yeah
And he kinda smells like piss
Yeah

But he's saying something real
Yeah
Something meaningful on one meal
Yeah

The guys saying what's on his mind
Yeah
He's asking himself why should i be kind
Yeah

This guy, he's like saying what's up
Yeah
Saying how he feels, and his job is holding a cup
Yeah

And i got off, cause it's court street
Yeah
And I start walking to a new beat

Yeah.

Poem on important incident

Why,
What a fine sunny day
That I have seen today

So I,
Took a walk down the street
Say hi to everyone I meet

And,
I'm very very happy
And I'm feeling awfully awfully sappy

When I,
Look down to see the poo
See the poo on my brand new shoe.

Poem off work of art

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/americanscene/images/GrantWood-American-Gothic-1930.jpg

He is an old man
She is an old woman
Together
They are an old married couple

They fight in the day
As they do their chores
They fight at night
And hit the sack at 8

The man likes his pitchfork
It is his oldest companion
The woman complains
Says he likes the pitchfork more than her

It is sunny outside
The horses paw at the ground
The old man looks up
And begins to frown

Response to "Starry Night"

When reading and listening to this poem, I felt and thought a couple of different things.  At first, from just reading it once and skimming it over, I didn't think much of it.  I just saw it as this lady trying to make a poem deeper that it need being.  I just looked at it appeared to look like, and not what was underneath.  I judged it before i really thought it through.

Reading it a second time and really thinking it through, I realized that there was more to it.  I saw a connection between her and Van Gough when he drew the painting and what she thought he was thinking.  She created her own version and her own story behind what Van Gough was thinking when he was drawing the painting.

Then, after we discussed the poem in class and i found out she committed suicide, it made me reread the poem and see that it was suicidal.  She's talking about How she wants to die, but she writes it like this: "This is how
         I want to die"
She makes I want to die it's own separate line. 

Observations on Visual Art

http://home.sprynet.com/~bdsalern/american.jpg

Observations: Big white building in the background, every window has curtains, two people (woman and man probably husband and wife), the man is wearing a white shirt covered in a black jacket, the man is holding a pitchfork, the man is balding and seems elderly, he is wearing glasses, the woman is completely covered in 3 different visible layers, her hair is up, the man is looking at you but the woman is looking away, there is a red barn-like house in the background, behind the houses are a lot of trees, the woman is slightly standing behind the man.

Inferences: I think that the setting is on a farm, I think their religious because of the way they are dressed and because they look like they're from the 19th century a time period where religion was very important, i think they are married because there is one house in the background and by the way they are both in the same portrait.

Interpretations:  I think the artist was, had a connection to, or had an interest in farmers in the nineteenth century, I think the artist was trying to say something by making the woman be slightly behind the man and having the woman being looking away.