TWIST

-Tone/Mood
-Word Choice ((metaphors, similes, connotation, personification))
-Imagery ((senses, especially sound))
-Style ((punctuation, syntax, etc))
-Theme

"There was the experience of feeling death without dying that came from watching a chicken leap about blindly after its neck had been snapped by a quick twist of my father's wrist"

T- monotonous, but the mood is dark from the subject matter
W- He seems to define Death and Dying really differently, instead of a verb form of a noun and the noun itself like its commonly seen
I- "quick twist of my fathers wrist" and "leap about blindly" are strong action based phrases to put the images of a chicken's wrung head and the following hysteria
S- One sentence, sort of long, with no breaks or commas
T- Dying causes immense pain, but also death seems to be numbed
((Richard's mother is Dying but not dead and is hurting but not numb, the chicken was not dying until it was Dead))

Black Boy Themes

Education amidst ignorance can push youth away from their religious families because as they come of age they realize it might not be as clear cut as their families believe

Authority figures' "justice" being too intense against children wont be fought until a child is educated and begins to question it

topics that stood out, class wise: authority figures, education, youth, isolation, ignorance, hunger

my most vivid childhood memories

when i was in the second grade i remember i told some girl who we played with on the playground that I needed to talk to my friend eliana (i believe we had a falling out we needed to go over or something, i was really dramatic and i really dont remember the circumstances) and that the two of us wouldnt be able to play that day. She got really upset about it and told the teachers that i had "made a schedule of when she could play with her friends". I got pulled out of prayer (which means you REALLY messed up, they never pull you out of prayer) and they sat me down on these couches in an L shape, and i sat on the inner part of one. Two teachers sat on either side, and they asked me if I knew what I had done to get there, and I said no because 1. i didnt realize that specific thing was wrong, especially since i didnt do it and 2. i did a lot of things wrong as a kid, so i wouldnt have been sure which they had been ready to yell at me about. They started yelling at me back and forth and all I remember was just crying and they yelled at me for crying (which is kind of counterproductive).

A- allusion (reference to other piece of media), Alliteration (use of same beginning letters), analogy (relationship), antithesis,
B-
C- Connotation (societal meaning of a word)
D- Denotation (Literal meaning of a word)
E-
F- Flashback (Someone seeing into their own past), foreshadowing (something early in the text alluding to the end of the text)
G-
H- haiku
I- imagery (describing something well enough to invoke a mental image), irony,
J-
K-
L-
M- Metaphor (comparison not using like or as), motif (repeating idea), mood
N-
O- Onomatapeia (sounds being written), Oxymoron (contradiction)
P- Personification (giving an object humanlike qualities), paradox
Q-
R- Repetition (repeating a single phrase throughout or theme), rhyme, rhyme scheme
S- Simile (comparison using like or as), stanza (paragraph poem), satire, sarcasm, symbol, suspense, syntax (sentence construction), static character (vs dynamic character)
T- tone
U-
V-
W-
X-
Y-
Z-

Blog 102214

My goal for the next 30 minutes is to find two new passion project sources with good statistics i can use

Specific: passion project sources

measureable: two sources

action-oriented: find

realistic: 2 is enough but not too many

tangible: two sources



my goal for the end of this week is to finish the outline first draft. I am maybe 70% of the way to that, and i just need to set aside some time outside class to finish that off.

Blog 101514

the boy in the striped pajamas and night are similar thematically in that they both seem to be about innocence (and indirectly, hope), thematically. in both situations, their innocence is taken nearly instantly by a single event. In night, this is his father being slapped. In striped pajamas, this is his getting into the camp and seeing the conditions. their hope is different but related. Bruno seems to keep his hope all the way through the movie, saying "we'll stay here until the rain stops" and such, and his hope is cut off not by himself but by his untimely end. In night, the hope seems to last longer, though small and dwindling, it lasts long after the loss of his innocence, ending when his father passed. His hope was rekindled after the war, but after the end of the book as well. Being an advocate for many causes as he is means that you can see a bright future for those you stand for, but at the end of the book, seeing himself as a corpse likely meant that he had still not gained back his spark.

Blog 100614

The main similarities i noticed between these two stories were that people who were normal could be pushed to the edge of sanity, whether from mental illness or something else, and there was a lot of substance abuse in both of these. This may reflect how much help we're giving those who need it, because Rachel may have needed more than she got from everyone in regards to her mother, and Charlie definitely needed to have some more understanding friends (I know his friends were portrayed as the only good thing in that movie, but they didn't seem to grasp that he needed help and patience). Our society kind of pushes people to the edge as is, from school or work, or capitalism in general, but when you put mental illness or substance abuse or both in the mix, things can go very wrong.

I am glad I have not yet gotten into substance abuse. It is a very real possibility for every teen and it is very dangerous. I have experienced a fair share of mental illness, though not to the extent of either of these stories. They haven't made me "come of age", or if they have I won't be able to see it until it's behind me, I guess.