Dreams

Author's Note: " I wrote this piece to demonstrate and  prove my knowledge of being able to identify figurative language in a poem. I would like this piece to get scored on the reading rubric for Word Choice and Context Analysis. This piece is written about Langston Hughes poem "Dreams."

Dreams

By Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Figurative language is used very frequently in poetry and literature.  The use of similes, metaphors, personification and all other types of figurative language give the reader a better understanding of characters and settings described by the author. Also, the very detailed, creative, and vivid language add more depth and makes the piece sounds more sophisticated than regular writing. Langston Hughes does a really great job of using figurative language and adding emotion in his pieces and because of this his poetry and short stories are very impressive. In Langston Hughes poem "Dreams" he uses two different types of figurative language and even though the poem is only two stanzas in length it has an extremely large amount of depth.

In the two short stanzas of Langston Hughes poem "Dreams" he uses two different types of figurative language. The first type of figurative language that he uses in this poem is personification. For example in the first line Langston wrote, "Hold fast to dreams," which is personification because you cannot actually hold dreams. Another piece of figurative language Langston Hughes uses are two metaphors in this short but lovely poem.  The first metaphor he uses is, "For if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly," and the second metaphor that he uses in this poem is, "For when dreams go life is a barren field frozen with snow." Langston Hughes uses two different types of metaphors in his poem "Dreams."

Although the figurative language in this poem help make it sound very mature and sophisticated another thing that makes this poem so good is the depth that Langston Hughes uses in the poem. I feel like what he is trying to say in this piece is that dreams give you innocence and imagination and challenge you to think outside the box and that once you loose that innocence you loose your dreams. Also I think that he is trying to hint on that you should never stop chasing your dreams because once you give up on your dreams you will realize how bare your life is, sort of like the barren field of snow described in the poem. Lastly I think one of the messages in this poem is that you should never stop dreaming because if you stop dreaming you will have nothing to live for. I think that in the poem "Dreams" by Langston Hughes the author uses a lot of depth and overall has many morals and messages behind it.

Even though the depth of the poem was very powerful another aspect of this poem that was affected by figurative language was the tone of the piece. The tone in “Dreams” makes readers feel sad and a little depressed because of the way he uses his two metaphors in this piece. The metaphors add a very sad tone because of how he compares life without dreams to a broken-winged bird or a barren field frozen with snow. By saying that he is trying to have you recognize how useless life would be without goals and dreams. I believe Langston Hughes compared life without dreams to those two things because he wants people to know how sad and useless life would be without goals or dreams. I believe that the tone in "Dreams" by Langston Hughes is changed and affected by the figurative language used within the poem. 

In the poem "Dreams" which was written by Langston Hughes the author uses depth and figurative language to make to poem sound more mature. There are many life lessons and advice that are expressed throughout this piece. Everyone should read this poem and stop and think for a second about the messages behind it because you can really learn a lot of good advice from this poem.

Thunderstruck

Author's Note: " Speak is a very good book, it won some awards back when it was brand new. I think this is a book that all teens can relate to and I highly recommend it to all middle school students."

Do you know what its like to feel alone, to feel helpless, to feel like you don’t even have a choice? Melinda Sordino, the main character in Speak, knows exactly how that feels.  She has felt alone ever since her friends ditched her because she busted them for drinking at a party. Now no one talks to her, looks at her, or even takes the time to listen to her side of the story. Some people might call her an outcast, but I look at her as a hero. The book Speak will teach you that its easy to go down the wrong path and make erratic choices, but if you stand up for what you believe in and guide others in the right direction then there is nothing that can stop you.

Melinda in not your average girl: she doesn’t like anything girly, she hates attention, and she doesn’t get the best grades in school, but she is smart enough to make to know right from wrong. It’s simple choices that we make everyday that determine our entire future. For example, if you’re the quarterback on your high school football team and you get caught drinking, your entire sports career will come crashing down: no scholarship, no adoring fans, no nothing. With every year that we mature we get a little more freedom, but its what we do with that freedom that matters most. I just hope that if I’m ever put in the same position as Melinda that I will be able to make the same decisions that she did. It’s not exactly an easy thing to rat your friends out to the cops, it takes a lot of courage and they aren’t very forgiving: but if that’s what it takes to show them that what they’re doing is not right, then so be it.

I think all teens should read this book, it captivates you from the moment you pick it up to it’s very last word. It’s so touching, it’s what all teenagers think but are too afraid to say. Speak describes real world situations that can happen at any given time. It prepares readers for the future. This book is not a good book for upper elementary school students like 5th and 6th graders, it talks about some pretty serious subjects, and its not something to joke around about. In books like this you really notice how the character grows as a person from beginning to end, you watch her learn new things, and discover who she really is as a person. By the end of this novel readers will feel like they know Melinda, like somehow she is apart of them. Speak is definitely one of those books that you will become attached to, it’s hard to get out of your head once you’ve read it.

This book has a lot of very serious topics in it, such as peer pressure. If you ever feel like your being forced into something, you’re not, you always have a choice in what you do. No one can make you do anything that you don’t feel comfortable doing. Real friends don’t make you change, they like you just the way you are. Now I understand that sometimes you’re with the wrong people at the wrong time, but don’t give into their demands, they can’t force you to do anything. Don’t make decisions that you’ll regret tomorrow, it’s not worth it to put your and possibly someone else’s lives in danger. You always have an option. Never forget that you have a choice, don’t let other people influence you to change.

Helping others is always a nice thing to do but sometimes you have to put yourself first: don’t let yourself slip away and make choices that you will regret in the morning. Life is full of hardships, but when you figure out right from wrong it makes your life a whole lot easier. Hold onto yourself. Whenever you make a mistake just get back up and try again, because isn’t that what life is all about, taking risks and making mistakes?

The Things We Will Never Get Back

Author's Note: " I took time out of my day to read the book Ana's Story.  It changed my perspective on life: it made me realize how lucky I really am. Seriously though, it's a great book: yes, it's a little sad at times but it's worth your time."

 “Why don’t you just go and kill yourself Sandy, no one cares about you!” Kelly said. Sandy did just that. She ran into the bathroom, sobbing; she grabbed the first thing she saw, a bottle of pills by the third sink from the left. Sandy twisted the cap off vigorously and gobbled down every single pill until she was lying on the ground with everything around her blacking out; just like flipping the switch on a lamp she was out. Kelly ran in the bathroom apologetically, but it was too late: Sandy was already gone. While reading the book, Ana’s Story by Sara Bush, you will learn about the harsh life of a girl named Ana: a life filled with the pain of being bullied, being abused; you will even learn that in life sometimes there are no happy endings.

Bulling is not okay; its a sad excuse for making someone else feel worse about themselves just to build up you own self esteem. Whether its online or in person it still has the same affects on the people.  What bullies need to accept is that just because someone is different from them doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. If you were called a bad name or were gossiped about you wouldn’t feel to good about yourself, would you? Its time for a change, so for all you bullies out there next time you want to make fun of someone, stop, take deep breaths and ask yourself: is it really worth it? Take the time to get to know people before you judge them.

According to ChaCha, 30% of the United State’s youth is involved in a type of bullying everyday: bullying can drive people the extremes, such as suicide. How would you ever be able to live with the guilt of knowing that you had bothered someone so much that they thought their only way out was to end their life? Did you know that over 1 million kids and adults all over the world commit suicide everyday? That could be your child: sometimes they swallow a bottle of pills because of online harassment; sometimes its a accident, but by the time you realize somethings wrong, it’s too late.

While reading the novel, Ana’s Story, you will realize and understand that this isn’t just a scary story, it’s real and happens to innocent people everyday. Yes, it’s sad, but it’s the truth; it’s also reality: there are people in the world who can’t support their families and put food on the table, there are people who live on the streets because they can’t afford shelter, there are people who bite off more than they can chew, and there are people who die everyday in hospitals because they can’t pay the towering fees. After reading this life changing book you will realize how lucky you really are.

    Learning about abuse, bullying, and tragic endings is never easy, but grasping those topics is easy while taking a glimpse into the world of our 43rd president’s daughter’s eyes. The author works for UNICEF, an organization devoted to giving kids in other countries a better life, a second chance. When you think about it, saving lives seems like a pretty good alternative compared to sabotaging them. If you’re one of those kids who is hurting because of what someone did to you just recognize that you’re not alone: there are other people in this world that feel the same; and there are people who can help you.

Text Analysis: How the Setting Affects the Plot

Author's Note: "I really enjoyed writing this piece and I think it deserves a 10 for text analysis. I believe that I proved my point and backed it up with important information."

Every book, passage, or short story has a setting.  A setting is a place where a book or story is taking place. Settings are extremely important and help readers tremendously by helping then create an image in their head of where the story takes place. Normally the plot of a book depends on the setting, therefore  if you change the setting then you change the plot. For example, the Uglies series written by Scott Westerfeld and The Giver written by Lois Lowry both  take place in a futuristic universe; if the settings changed in either of these books it would dramatically effect the plot in the books as well.

In the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld the plot relies on the setting. In the futuristic universe that this book takes place in there are hoverboards, a city surrounded by walls, and perfect weather all the time. All of these aspects involve the plot and the setting. For example, if the city that was described so vividly in the book wasn’t surrounded and bordered by towering walls then there would be no reason that Tally would feel imprisoned and therefore she probably wouldn’t have run away in the first place. To add on to that if they didn’t live in such a futuristic world with technology beyond our time then there would be no such thing as a hoverboard. The entire plot relies on the use of the hoverboard for transportation so if there weren’t hoverboards the plot would be severally  changed and effected. Also the perfect climate that was expressed in the trilogy is very key in Tally’s survival once she makes the decision to leave the city. If the climate was not perfect all the time then Tally could have died after she left the city because of weather conditions like a freezing blizzard or a scorching desert. Therefore the setting in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld plays a big part in the plots of the series.

Although the Uglies series written by Scott Westerfeld is a great example of how a setting affects the plot of a book another fantastic example of that concept is the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry. The Giver takes place in a world where they only see black and white, are assigned careers, and have to live by a running list of rules. One example expressed in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry is that fact that they can only see two colors: black and white. If the citizens in the book could see color then the plot would be dramatically affected because the entire plot of the novel relies strongly on the imperfections of this town such as how they are color blind. In modern day everyone gets to choose their careers based on their interests but in The Giver they get theirs assigned to them.  The plot would change entirely if the citizens were given the opportunity to pick and choose the careers of their choice, after all the whole plot of the book is based off the fact that Jonas is given the job of The Receiver at the Ceremony of Twelve. Therefore if the citizens got to pick their jobs in the book The Giver the plot would completely change. Lastly, one more crucial part of the setting that affects the plot in this book is that the citizens of this establishment are forced to abide by a extremely long list of rules. If they didn’t have rules and were more carefree and easy-going then that also would have changed the plot. Those are three examples of how if the setting of the book The Giver by Lois Lowry changed so would the plot of the book as well.

If the settings in the books The Giver by Lois Lowry and the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld were altered then the plot of the books would be dramatically altered as well. Both books rely very strongly on their settings to help readers visualize what world the characters live in and depend on their plots to tell the story.  The setting and the plot of a book go hand-and-hand and if a book was missing a setting or missing a plot then that book would suffer from being extremely uninteresting. Therefore the setting of a book can change the plot of the book and also the entire story as a whole. 

Help Me.

Author's Note: "I wrote this short creative piece to demonstrate my understanding of point of view. It is the court room scene in My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult where Anna is trying to plead her case, the only difference is that this piece is written from Anna's sister Kate's point of view. "

All my life I have been fighting and struggling to stay alive. A couple months after my birth I was diagnosed with leukemia, a cancer which causes your body to produce abnormal amounts of blood cells and decays your bone marrow over time. When I was little I would need to come into the local clinic 5-6 times a week for a check-up. Once I hit age 4 the cancer started to spread and that's why my parents had Anna. She was a genetically enhanced creation of science made to help and assist me.  Once Anna got of age the doctors would bring us both is and eject blood cells or bone marrow from her body and transplant them into mine. After awhile these procedures started to take place more and more frequently.  Without her I would most likely not even be here today.

Your honor I don't understand why Anna won't do this for me, if I don't get that kidney I will die and if she loved me she would help me.  Anna is being so insensitive about this, my whole life has been a struggle and she doesn't understand how much pain and suffering that my disease has caused me.  I need this more than she will ever know.  This kidney will give  me another chance to live my life and will bring me one step closer to conquering my disease and finally being able to live a healthy normal life. Anna  is being so selfish, if she really loved me she would want to help me and she wouldn't want me to die. All  I want is another chance your honor, and that's why I think I should get this kidney. 

The Patriot vs. My Brother Sam is Dead

Author's Note: " I needed a piece to score on the writing rubric so I choose to put on my compare and contrast essay that I did for social studies."

When Sam returns home after being away at college for a year and announces to his family he is going to enlist in the Rebel Army his parents are horrified and raged, but his younger brother Tim couldn’t be more excited. With Sam’s father on the King’s side and Sam enlisting in the Rebel army Tim doesn’t know just what side to join. Should he honor his father and be loyal to the King and be a Loyalist or should he fight to be free and be a Patriot? Tim, only being a fourteen year old boy, figures out what he wants and what the danger and excitement of war is really like. The movie The Patriot and the book My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Gollier and Christopher Gollier have a lot in common.

In the movie The Patriot and the book My Brother Sam Is Dead are very similar in the sense that in both of them a family is torn apart by the war. For example in the movie The Patriot the Martin family is split up a lot: one of the boys dies early on in the movie and then the Dad(Benjamin) and oldest son Gabriel go to war leaving Benjamin’s other 3 kids at home with their Aunt. In the book My Brother Sam Is Dead a similar situation happens, Sam Meeker(the eldest brother) makes the decision to enlist in the rebel army despite the fact that his father is a loyalist. Sam leaves his family to go fight with the continental army while his younger brother Tim is left at home with his parents wanting to join the war like his brother. These are two examples of how the Meeker family and the Martin family get split up because of the war.

Even though the separation of family was a big similarity between the movie The Patriot and the book My Brother Sam Is Dead another big similarity between the two was all the killings. In example, in the movie The Patriot The middle son Thomas is shot early on in the movie. Closer to the climax of the movie the eldest son Gabriel is stabbed to death. Also in the movie the British soldiers burnt down the continental governments houses and killed their families. On the very last page of the book My Brother Sam Is Dead Sam dies, the British shoot him repeatedly until he is gone. By reading the book and watching the movie you can see that the British Army were ruthless and spared no one, not even children.  The deaths and killings in the book My Brother Sam is Dead and the movie The Patriot are just one similarity between the two.

Another similarity between the book My Brother Sam is Dead and the movie The Patriot is that in both you really can really see and visualize the effects of war. For example in the movie The Patriot you could see all the deaths and feel the pain they felt. Also in the movie they talked about how war was everywhere and how battles were fought in the people’s backyards. In the book you had to visualize these things but a lot of them were the same. For example in the book they talked about the wounded and what they effects of war did the land and the people who were fighting and even the innocent people who did nothing wrong. The effects of war are very apparent in the book My Brother Sam Is Dead and the movie The Patriot.

The Revolutionary War was not an easy one as you can tell be reading the book My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Gollier and Christopher Gollier and watching the movie The Patriot. Some of the similarities between the book and the movie are the visualization of the effects of war, the separation of families, and the death and killings.  While reading the book My Brother Sam Is Dead and watching the movie The Patriot you learn a lot about what war is like and how brutal and ruthless some of the soldiers really are. 

Different Perspectives

Author's Note: " I wrote this piece for point of view for my Language Arts class. Feedback is much appreciated!"

Adele is a rising star in the music industry, her album 21 sold over twenty-seven million copies worldwide. On top of that she has managed to be nominated for 184 awards and has won 99 of them. Besides being a role model for kids who dream to sing, her songs are raw and her voice is mesmerizing. Her newest song Skyfall has topped charts all over the world and is a cult phenomenon. If the song Turning Tables by Adele was told in the point of view of someone else's point of view then the moral and message of the song would change completely.

The song Turning Tables by Adele has a lot of meaning behind it. Personally when she sings the lyric, "Next time I'll be braver, I'll be my own savior," I feel like Adele is talking about someone in her life (a friend, family member, or boyfriend) that was always there for her and how she(Adele) is figuring out that they are no longer there anymore. I think this song is her way of saying that she has finally figured out that the person who was always there for her is no longer there and how she has to move on. When she sings, "So I won't let you close enough to hurt me, No I won't ask you, You to just desert me," I feel that she is talking about how she cannot let that person back into her life because it will just make things more complicated and she will end up getting hurt. I feel that the message Adele is trying to get across in the song Turning Tables is that people change and it's time for her to move on. 

The song Turning Tables by Adele is written from Adele's point of view. Since the song was written from her point of view you will feel sympathetic and sorry for her when you hear the song. Also you will feel betrayed when you listen to this song. You will feel betrayed because someone left you. Another feeling you will experience when you listen to this song is hatred. Hatred for someone who betrayed you, hatred for someone who you thought was your friend, hatred for someone who left you with no one. One last emotion you will feel in this song is abandonment. Adele wrote the song Turning Tables from her point of view.

If this song was told from a different persons point of view I think that it was change the way many people interpret this song. For example if the song was sung from the point of view of the person that she was singing to in the song you would have a different opinion of Adele. I think that if the point of this view were to change that you would see Adele is a different way. Since the song is told from her point of view you will feel sympathetic to her but if the song is told from someone else's point of view I think you would be angry at Adele if you listened to this song. The interpretation of the song would change drastically if the song Turning Tables by Adele was told from a different point of view.

This is my response to Turning Tables by Adele if it was written from a different persons point of view:

You know the old saying, " You don't know what you had until it was gone?" well you knew what you had you just took if for granite. Now I'm gone, I'm done trying to be the person you want me to be. I'm never gonna change, not for you or for anyone else. All you ever do is rant and rave about "things I've done to you," but in reality I'm not the one who keeps hurting you, your the one who keeps hurting me. I'm done with the pain, and that's why I left. It wasn't me it was you. It's over, it's time to move on. We haven't been ourselves lately and it's time to see other people and continue on with our lives. It's time for a new beginning. I think it would be best for both of us if we didn't talk anymore. We need to move on, you need to move on.