Reader's Journal-       

Fiction

#14                                                     Reader’s Journal                                           11/28/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

I have recently started reading the book The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. The genre of this book can be both realistic fiction and romance; this is because it is a fictional story that could've taken place within the last 50 years and it is a love story.

A passage I chose out of the many was located in the beginning of the book (kindle)

“For an instant, Ronnie felt crushed of memories overwhelm her: the fire and subsequent rebuilding of the church, the stained-glass window, the song she’d finally finished. She thought about Blaze and Scott and Marcus. She thought about Will. She was eighteen years old and remembering the summer she’d been betrayed, the summer she’d been arrested, the summer she’d fallen in love.”

I chose this quote because it really reminded me of how good the movie was when I saw it. Ronnie tells her mother about the summer she has spent (which is what the movie focuses on). This passage is significant to the book because with this small paragraph, any reader could tell that the pattern of organization was flash back.

I used various strategies before, during, and after reading this book. Before reading, I read others reviews about this book to have a greater interest and understanding of what the book is about and if it is worth reading. Also, I skim and scanned the book to identify if it was “just right” for me. While reading, I tried to point out the literary elements to write on a sticky note so that it would be easier to write my readers journal. All the literary elements turned out to stay the same. Also, I created mental images throughout events in the book so that I had a great visualization of what I was reading. Clearly, since the author was so vivid and explanatory, my metal images were made quick and clear. After reading, I wrote my readers journal on all the information I kept track of. Also, I compare and contrasted this book to the movie it was based on and they seemed pretty similar so far!

While reading, there were many characters I was introduced to, although I don’t know much about any of them to identify their characterizations or personalities... the protagonists are Ronnie Miller, Steve Miller, Jonah Miller, and Will Blakelee. They are all round and dynamic. There is no antagonist. Some foil characters are Blaze, Marcus, and Jonah and Ronnie’s mother. Hopefully when I read later on in the book I can tell you more about each of these characters! So far, the setting is in New York City. The time is modern day, in the year of 2010. The weather conditions vary; they are either sunny or cold outside. The social conditions are that Ronnie’s parents are divorced and that she and her brother are being “forced” to visit their father in North Carolina. Her father, Steve, gets diagnosed with cancer.

Since I’ve only started reading this book, I have only read up to the rising action. The exposition is when Ronnie introduces a flashback she had from the amazing summer she has had with her Dad, Brother, Will and many others. The rising action is when Ronnie and her brother come to their dad’s house to visit. There are also no conflicts yet. I really hope to uncover the rest of the books plot structure and conflicts.

The point of view is mainly written in third person limited, but it all depends on the chapter you read. This is because the name of each character is the name of the chapter. This means, that if the chapter had a name on it, that chapter would focus on that person. The pattern of organization is flashback, clearly because of the quote I wrote and chose. The author’s perspective is unbiased and subjective. The author’s purpose is to entertain the reader with a fictional love story. The tone was to love and amuse and the mood was feeling interest, amusement, and sadness at times. I was not yet able to identify any theme, motif, moral, or any figurative language.

All in all, this book is really good so far! I really recommend it to anyone but mostly teens, just because it is a love story and it has some trick words. I rate it a ten out of ten so far and I really hope for the rest of the book to be as good as it is so far!

Love,

 Joelle Ben-Nissan

Reader's Journal-       

Non-Fiction

#13                                                     Reader’s Journal                                           11/21/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

 I have just finished reading the book: Why Me? By Sarah Burleton. The genre of this book is memoir. Memoir is a subgenre of fiction that is written about a true story and a specific memory or event in that person’s life. In this case, Sarah Burleton wrote about the horrific memories of her childhood, when her mother abused her.

A passage I chose out of the many was located in the middle of the book (kindle) “I tried to count how many BBs Indy had been shot with, but there were too many to count. Blood was pouring out of what seemed like every part of his body. Indy looked up at me as if to say, “I’m sorry!” I held his head gingerly and sobbed. I don’t know how long I sat there holding Indy in my arms, but when my tears finally stopped for a second and I could see clearly, Indy had died in my arms. I felt a rage like I had never felt before in my life. Sure, I had gotten angry over the years after a night of beatings, but this was different. And mom, standing in the kitchen humming like she’d just had the best day ever, was too much to bear. 

I chose this quote because it really broke my heart. I never thought how someone like the mom could be so careless about something. Sarah finally had a best friend (being the goat), and the mom had to kill and torture it, just because it was the only thing that brought Sarah joy. Also, this happened right after she moved houses, and changed schools. This incident was probably what made Sarah feel as if she had nothing left. This passage is significant to the book because it is the start of the books climax, now that Sarah has nothing, and lives in the middle of nowhere, where no one could hear her if she screamed, and she didn’t have a friend, even if it was an animal to talk to and be with when she was lonely.

I used various strategies before, during, and after reading this book. Before reading, I read my past readers journal, to see where I left off and what literary element I still need to find. Also, I skim and scanned the book for how much I had left to read. While reading, I tried to point out the literary elements that have changed, since I have last wrote my readers journal. All the literary elements turned out to stay the same. Also, I created mental images throughout events in the book so that I had a great visualization of what I was reading. Clearly, since the author was so vivid and explanatory, my metal images were made quick and clear. After reading, I wrote my readers journal on all the information I kept track of. Also, I compare and contrasted this book to other books I read that was about child abuse.

Since all the literary elements stayed the same since I last read, the topic is child abuse and the main idea is childhood abuse that is done both mentally and physically. The main idea is implied because it is not clearly stated in the book. If I had to give this book another title it would be: “My Tragic Memory of Being Child Abused” I would chose this title because it clearly states the topic and main idea. Also, I really think it would bring many readers attention! Three supporting details I found, that are factual and supports the main idea was mainly found in the passage I chose. For example, "Abuse for me was something that happened on a daily basis.” " I’ve been beaten with brooms, whips, extension cords, belts—basically, if it was in arms reach, I was getting hit with it.” And finally, " I known there are abused kids out there, kids who are on the outside may just seem weird or who maybe don't have the best haircut or the best clothes, who are facing the same teasing at school and torture at home that I faced.” The essential message of this story is child abuse can affect a child's life and it should never be done to any person no matter who they are or what problems they have. One cause and effect the book has was on Sarah and her mom. Since Sarah's mother called her names because she had some problems, it would affect Sarah to feel bad about herself and have no self-confidence. I can compare and contrast Sarah's abusive childhood with other books I read called “A Child Called It” and “The Lost Boy”. All these books are similar to each other because they are all focused on child abuse, they are both memoirs and all victims are abused by their mother, at a young age.

The pattern of organization of this book was chronological order because the author told her experiences and incidents in the order that they occurred. The author’s purpose is to share and to inform. This is because she talks about her personal experiences when she was a child, being abused and tortured, while also, informing the reader throughout the book about why abuse is not acceptable and shouldn’t be done. The author's perspective is subjective and biased against her mother and child abuse because she states her own opinions about how wrong it is to abuse and how awful her mom was, only defending her side of the story. The point of view is written in first person, by Sarah’s perspective because she uses the words “I, me, we, and us” in her writing.

There weren’t so many text features in this book, but I was able to identify headings, subheadings, the title, the picture on the front cover, and quotation marks. The headings and subheadings before every chapter make it easier to understand what each chapter was about. The title gave me an understanding of what the book was going to be about. The picture on the front cover was an image of a little girl and it gave me an expectation that the book will be about a child. Finally, the quotation marks gave me a chance to hear what other people said, by their own perspective.

Sadly, I was unable to find any figurative language because the author just wrote her experiences factually and didn’t exaggerate or use any personification or any other figurative language… my tone during the book was inspired and shocked and my mood was to be scared, have hate and to be attached. Finally, the only way I checked the validity and accuracy of the book was by using my background knowledge on childhood abuse events and other books; there wasn’t another strategy I could use to check it with.

         

Since this book was considered to be “just right” for me, I only found a few new vocabulary words. I used context clues like inferring (context clue #5 for all of them, but 1) to try and find their meanings. One word I learned was “bristle” which means to react angrily. I found this meaning by simply reading the sentence; (“The comment mom had made about my father made me bristle.”) Also, “stark” means to be complete. This is because when the book described her mother’s room, I noticed it was very complete.  “Inevitable” on the other hand, was taught to me by using context clue #1, which means the text gave me the definition. The definition it provided was that it means you couldn’t live without something. Also, the word: “inquisitively”, meaning to be curious. Finally, “Tirade” means a long talk of criticism.

In addition, I was able to make the same connections as I did before! A text-to-self connection I was made with the book was the similarities I had with Sarah and my personality. Even though I did not go through child abuse like Sarah did, our personalities can relate because we would both sacrifice things to help others like Sarah did when she wrote this book! A text-to-text connection I made was relating this book to the book A Child Called and The Lost Boy. This is because all of these books focus on child abuse as a topic. Also, their mother abused the authors in all books and all of these books were classified as a memoir. The last connection I made was to the world. I can relate this book to the world because many other children and people might also be set in Sarah’s position in child abuse. Clearly, Sarah wrote this book to inform others that abuse should never be done.

All in all, this book was absolutely incredible! I really recommend it to anyone because it was honestly a fast and easy read, just because you can never detach from this book. I definitely rate it a ten out of ten! People who have are being child abused or people who have abused a child should really read this book because it would surely teach them a lesson!

Love,

 Joelle Ben-Nissan

Reader's Journal-       

Non-Fiction

#12                                                     Reader’s Journal                                           11/14/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

 This week, I am currently in the middle of reading the book: Why Me? By Sarah Burleton. The genre of this book is memoir. Memoir is a subgenre of fiction that is written about a true story and a specific memory or event in that person’s life. In this case, Sarah Burleton wrote about the horrific memories of her childhood, when her mother abused her.

A passage I chose out of the many was located in the beginning of the book on the kindle. “Abuse for me was something that happened on a daily basis. It might have been hair-pulling, a punch to the kidneys, a kick down the stairs, or mom’s other favorite activity: name-calling. Over the years I have been called Thunder Thighs, Nigger Lips, Kidney Kate (because I had kidney problems when I was younger), and Anorexic Annie, just to name a few. I’ve been beaten with brooms, whips, extension cords, belts—basically, if it was in arms reach, I was getting hit with it.

I chose this quote because it really opened my heart and made me think of how serious abuse can be. Also, it made me really realize how lucky I was to be part of a family that cares and loves me. Clearly, I really can’t imagine being in her position and I really wouldn’t want to be! This passage is significant to the book because it really shows how actions done to a child can end up changing their life and possibly even ruin it. Sarah wrote this book to share her experiences so that other kids who are abused can relate to her and that’s what this passage shows.

I used various strategies before, during, and after reading this book. Before reading, I thought about all the background knowledge I had on child abuse by other books I’ve read. Also, I skim and scanned for what the book is about, what the genre of the book is, and if the book was “just right” for me. I have decided that this book was “just right” for me. While reading, I wrote and kept track of important information on a sticky note, in order to do my readers journal. Also, I created mental images in my head during some parts of the book so that I had a great visualization of what I was reading. Clearly, since the author was so descriptive the mood I had towards her situation was not pleasant. After reading, I compare and contrasted this book to other books about child abuse. Also, I maintained all the information I read so that I can write my readers journal and read the book again the next day.

         

The topic of this article is child abuse and the main idea is childhood abuse that is done both mentally and physically. The main idea is implied because it is not clearly stated in the book. If I had to give this book another title it would be: “My Tragic Memory of Being Child Abused” I would chose this title because it clearly states the topic and main idea. Also, I really think it would bring many readers attention! Three supporting details I found, that are factual and supports the main idea was mainly found in the passage I chose. For example, "Abuse for me was something that happened on a daily basis.” " I’ve been beaten with brooms, whips, extension cords, belts—basically, if it was in arms reach, I was getting hit with it.” And finally, " I known there are abused kids out there, kids who are on the outside may just seem weird or who maybe don't have the best haircut or the best clothes, who are facing the same teasing at school and torture at home that I faced.” The essential message of this story is child abuse can affect a child's life and it should never be done to any person no matter who they are or what problems they have.

 A cause and effect I found is that since Sarah's mother called her names just because she was fat, or had kidney problems would effect Sarah to feel bad about herself and have no self confidence. I can compare and contrast Sarah's abusive childhood with other books I read about the same topic like “A Child Called It” and “The Lost Boy”. All these books are similar because they are all focused on child abuse, they are both memoirs and all victims are abused by their mother.

Even though there weren't so many text features in this book, I was able to identify headings, subheadings, the title, the picture on the front cover, and quotation marks. The headings and subheadings before every chapter make it easier to understand what each chapter was about. The title gave me an understanding of what the book was going to be about. The picture on the front cover was an image of a little girl and it gave me an expectation that the book will be about a child. Finally, the quotation marks gave me a chance to hear what other people said, by their own perspective.

The pattern of organization of this book was chronological order because the author told her experiences and incidents in the order that they occurred. The author’s purpose is to share and to inform. This is because she talks about her personal experiences when she was a child, being abused and tortured, while also, informing the reader throughout the book about why abuse is not acceptable and shouldn’t be done. The author's perspective is subjective and biased against her mother and child abuse because she states her own opinions about how wrong it is to abuse and how awful her mom was, only defending her side of the story. The point of view is written in first person, by Sarah’s perspective because she uses the words “I, me, we, and us” in her writing.

Sadly, I was unable to find any figurative language because the author just wrote her experiences factually and didn’t exaggerate or use any personification and any other figurative language… the only way I checked the validity and accuracy was by using my background knowledge on childhood abuse events and other books; I didn’t know what else I could check it with.

         

While reading, I found only a few new vocabulary words just because the book was “just right” for me. I used context clues like inferring (context clue #5 for all of them) to try and find their meanings. One word I learned was “perm” which means to settle your hair in a way of treating it with chemicals. Also, “ammunition” means considerations that can be used to support someone’s argument.  “Cascade”, meaning something that falls in plentiful quantities. “Excruciating” means to have an extreme pain. And finally the word “glisten” meaning a sparkling light reflected from something wet.

Furthermore, I was able to make many connections while reading! A text-to-self connection I was made with the book was the similarities I had with Sarah and my personality. Even though I did not go through child abuse like Sarah did, our personalities can relate because we would both sacrifice things to help others like Sarah did when she wrote this book! A text-to-text connection I made was relating this book to the book A Child Called and The Lost Boy. This is because all of these books focus on child abuse as a topic. Also, their mother abused the authors in all books and all of these books were classified as a memoir. The last connection I made was to the world. I can relate this book to the world because many other children and people might also be set in Sarah’s position in child abuse. Clearly, Sarah wrote this book to inform others that abuse should never be done.

All in all, even though I didn’t finish reading this book yet, it is really good so far and I am looking forward into finishing it! I honestly loved every page and paragraph of this book and I was able to identify all the literary elements only after reading half of the book. I definitely rate it a ten out of ten and recommend it to everyone who has sympathy and inspiration for other people’s stories! Also, people who have or are being child abused and people who have abused a child should read this book.

Love,

Joelle Ben-Nissan

Current Events #2

  Date: 11/12/11

Name: Joelle Ben-Nissan

Title: A legacy of service: Three generations of Pines family have served in military

Author: Perry Stein

Source:  The Miami Herald Newspaper- http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/10/v-print/2496819/a-legacy-of-service-three-generations.html

·      The topic of the article is on the military.

·      The main idea of the article is (implied/stated): The main idea is stated because it is clearly states it in the title of the article. It is: “A legacy of service: Three generations of Pines family have served in military.”

·      The author’s purpose for writing this article is to inform the reader about a 92-year-old soldiers incredible experience in being in the military, and the involvement with it on his family.

·      The author’s perspective in this article is objective because the author doesn’t have any opinions or is in support of anyone in the article.

·      The pattern of organization of the article is flashback.

·      The reason the author chose to write in a form of flashback in the article is to describe the moment and position Bolivar Perez-Rios was in at the time. Also, it helped me have a greater understanding on his experience.

·       The text features included in the article are a picture, a caption, and quotations marks.

-The picture helps because it shows the reader a visual of Bolivar Perez-Rios with the generation of people he inspired from the military to demonstrate what he looks like and what he does.

-The caption helps by showing exactly what is happening in the picture; it gave me a better understanding on whom Bolivar Perez-Rios was, where he was, and what he did.

-The quotation marks help by showing valid conversation and action that Bolivar Perez-Rios said and was going through while the author “flashed back” at his experience.

·       This article is about a brave, 92 year old, named Bolivar Perez-Rios, who gets his experiences described while he was in the military. Also, Bolivar Perez-Rios inspires his grandson to fight for our country.

·       The significance of this article is that the reader can now recognize how devoted this old man was to inspire his own family and to fight and protect us at the military.

·      What I learned from this article is that there was an explosion on Christmas Eve in 1944.

·       What I liked about this article is that the author wrote about the flashback Bolivar Perez-Rios had. It really made me understand his experience in detail.

·       What I did not like about the article is that the author didn’t really describe, in detail on what happened after and on what experiences his grandson later got while he was in the war.

·      I think anyone should read this article but especially the people who don’t realize how much the people in the military do to protect our country. I think it would give them a better understanding about the subject and defiantly make them more thankful.

·       A text-to-self connection I made is that I can relate to the fact that my family, who lived in Israel had to be in the military as well to fight and to protect it.

·      A text-to-text connection I made was to other articles on the newspaper of online about different stories involving Veterans Day and the military.

 ·      A text-to-world connection I made after reading this article was that there are many wars occurring in this world and many people join the military to fight against it.

New vocabulary I learned:

Word	Context Clues	Meaning
1. Shrapnel	Context clue #5 (inferred)	Fragments of an object thrown out by an explosion.
2. Indoctrinated	Context clue #5 (inferred)	To teach to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
3. Platoon	Context clue #5 (inferred)	A subdivision of a company of soldiers.

 Reader's Journal-Fiction

#11                                                     Reader’s Journal                                            11/8/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

            I have just read the book Tortured Spirit: A Short Story by Joshua Scribner. The genre of this book is in the category of fiction, and is a short story. A short story is a book that is shorter than a regular book. You can read it in one sitting and it mostly focuses on one plot and on one main character. In this book, the main character is Kellan. Also, the book has many characteristics that really made me think it was part fantasy. This is because it is highly imaginative, in which it is where the book uses strange or unusual characters, setting, and plot and would never happen in real life. Even though it didn’t take long to read, it wasn’t one of my favorite books…

            There were many strategies I used before, during, and after reading this book. Before reading, I analyzed the ratings other people gave this book so that I can see several opinions people had on the book before I read it. Also, I checked if the author was known and if I was familiar with another book he wrote. While reading, I kept track of the short literary elements that the author squashed in the text on a sticky note. This would be so that it would be easier to write my readers journal when I was done reading. Also, I reread parts that seemed confusing to me. This book was very hard to understand because of the author’s choice in characters and plot line. After reading, I made inferences and drew conclusions about the information I read. Also, I critiqued and discussed the book with myself so that I can reflect on the book and write my readers journal.

            Honestly, there weren’t so many quotes from the book that sparked my interest. Although, the one that really took my attention was located in the middle of the book (kindle).

“Two woman has died, and she thought no one cared. The other two didn’t care because they were callous. She didn’t care because she couldn’t right now. Right now, she had to survive whatever this was, and then she could care. What was this? Was it a dream? It had to be. She wanted it to be a dream, and she never wanted to have this dream again. Kellan opened the next door. Another door stood in the distance, but before that was something that took away her bravery. “Look at them,” Black said. “They’re beautiful.” They weren’t beautiful. They were, in fact, the ugliest things shed every seen.”

I chose this quote because it was a time where there was a little bit of a mystery and an action scene. It clearly made me what to read further into the book to find out what Kellan was looking at and what position she was in. This quote has significance to the book because this page is the starting of the climax in the plot structure!

           

            The characters identified in this book were extremely bizarre. For example, the characters were referred to by their hair color! This made the book hard to understand because it seemed hard to remember what character was which. The main character is Kellan. Kellan is a round, protagonist because she is described in detail throughout the book. Also, her characterization differed from the beginning to the end of the book. In the beginning, she was very confused and afraid of many things. This all changed when she met other characters, which had the same problem as her; they influenced her to be braver and more willing towards the situation they were in. The other main characters had no characterization. I wouldn’t say the other characters were round, but they defiantly weren’t flat or foil characters. This is because the book didn’t thoroughly describe them but it did mention them multiple times in the book. The red haired girl and the old lady (who gave them hints on how they could escape but then tricked them) were the only antagonists of the book. The Blond and Black haired were protagonists. There were no foil characters mentioned throughout the story.

            The settings varied throughout the book. Kellan woke up in strange places every morning, but usually she would end up in a cafeteria, where she was for most of the book. There was no time or any weather conditions mentioned. The social conditions were to find the person who can open the doors that randomly appeared. These doors acted as a challenge to get out of the cafeteria, in which they were trapped. The tone was to feel curious and the mood I felt while I read was defiantly confused and curious with the chose in setting and who the characters were. Sadly, there was no theme, motif, and moral in this book because there was no series behind it and the rest was not mentioned. The point of view was written in third person limited. This means that the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of only one character (Kellan). The author’s purpose was to entertain the reader with a fictional story and the authors perspective was objective, and unbiased because the author has no opinions. The pattern of organization was chronological order because the events in the book occurred in order of time.

The plot structure of this book was very short and hard to configure! The exposition occurred at the beginning of the book, where Kellan wakes up in a cafeteria and discovers that there are other people like her, who appear in different places when they wake up. The rising action started when all the main characters found out that they were trapped in the cafeteria and they couldn’t find a way out of it. Also, they met this old lady, who sat in one of the tables and she told them that there were going to be doors that would pop up or disappear suddenly. She told them that only one girl from all of them would be able to open it. The climax was when Kellan opened the door and strange creatures popped out from it, until they realized the doors were no help. The falling action in the book was when Kellan and the other girls became “zombies” because of a pill they had to take. This caused them to have extreme pail skin and no pain with an existence of a new source that didn’t require air. Finally, the resolution concludes the book with the whole thing being like an act! The whole situation that they experienced throughout the whole book seemed worse then it really was. They were basically all spirits, being tortured. I think that the conflict was character. vs. self, internal because Kellan tries to escape and find the reason to why she woke up in odd places.

            There weren’t many signs of figurative language but I was able to identify a few. “Red sniffed the air, like a hungry dog” is a simile. “She was frozen” is a hyperbole. Unfortunately, that was the only figurative language I was able to identify in my short reading.

All in all, this book was okay… it wasn’t one of favorites but it also wasn’t my worst. I wouldn’t really recommend this book to anyone because the whole plot structure and story line was just odd and it was really hard to understand who the characters were and what was happening throughout the entire book! I rate the book a 4-10 because I was interested at very few times but bored and confused most of the time… even though I didn’t really like this book, don’t be afraid to give it a chance!

Love,

Joelle Ben-Nissan