Woman Warrior #3

QUOTE:
"Eight year olds were about twenty dollars. Five year olds were ten dollars and up. Two year olds were about five dollars. Babies were free. During the war, though, when you were born, many people gave older girls away for free. And here I was in the United States paying two hundred dollars for you."--page 83, Brave Orchid
SIGNIFICANCE:
This quote has to do with question number 5. What hardships do the characters endure as they make a new life? The author of the book relates a conversation she had with her mother, Brave Orchid, about the way life was back in China. The mother is explaining to the author about how slave trade worked in China and how little value girls had back in her homeland. The reason why this quote relates to the question is that the author feels distant from her mother and has difficulty accepting western way of life while still respecting and understanding her mother's traditions.
PERSONAL CONNECTION:
This quote made me think of how difficult women and children have it in various parts of the world. In United States we take children's and women's rights for granted. I am a strong woman who got to choose her own path. I feel very privileged.
QUESTION:
What kind of emotions does this quote stir in you? Why?
QUOTE:
"My mother has cooked for us: raccoons, skunks, hawks, city pigeons, wild ducks, wild geese, black-skinned bantams, snakes, garden snails..."--page 90, narrator
SIGNIFICANCE:
This quote relates to question number 6. How do the characters maintain their cultural ties to their homeland while living in America? In this passage the mother is shown to cook foods unusual by American standards. In that way she retains cultural ties with her homeland. Although Brave Orchid is far from home, her cooking is a way to remind herself and her children of China.
PERSONAL CONNECTION:
This quote made me think of all the foods my mom cooks that are traditional to my culture. We eat latkas, gefelta fish, etc.
Food is a huge part of my culture, even if it seems strange to those who are not Jewish.
QUESTION:
What are some dishes that are important to your family? Why are they important?

Woman Warrior #2

QUOTE:
"We had lost males before, cousins and uncles would were conscripted into armies or bonded as apprentices, who are almost as lowly as slave girls." - page 33, narrator
SIGNIFICANCE:
This quote shows a hardship that Maxine had to face. Her mother said she would be a wife and slave and she is comparing some of the males with how lowly women were thought of. Apprentices were equivalent to slaves. This always shows how hard it would be to be in Maxine's shoes because of how many people she has lost.
PERSONAL CONNECTION:
I can't connect personally with this quote because I have not been in her position. I can relate by saying that people that I know can be belittled and thought of as lower than they are.
QUESTION:
Do you think Maxine will be able to survive?
QUOTE:
"I am useless, one more girl who couldn’t be sold. When I visit the family now, I wrap my American successes around me like a private shawl."-- page 42, narrator
SIGNIFICANCE:
This shows that she protects herself with her success. She very insecure. She thinks she's useless so she uses America as a cover.
PERSONAL CONNECTION:
I can connect to this because I can be very insecure at times too. Sometimes I try to find things that I can shield myself with.
QUESTION:
How do you mask you insecurities?

The Woman Warrior #1

QUOTE:
"On the fourth and fifth days, my eyesight sharp with hunger, I saw deer and used their trails when our ways coincided. Where the deer nibbled, I gathered the fungus, the fungus of immortality."--page 25. narrator
SIGNIFICANCE:
This is a hardship the main character needed to endure as they attempted to make a new life. You could see how hungry she was and she gathered the fungus for nutrients. She is doing what she needs to survive.
PERSONAL CONNECTION:
I would definitely do the same thing if I was put in this position. She seems like a fighter and I could definitely be categorized as a fighter. This character is strong, but is also fearful and fearless at the same time. She is fearful but is also fearless when she needs to be. I feel that I am the same way.
QUESTION:
Would you do extreme things to survive?

Immigration

An immigrant is a person traveling from one country to another. An immigrant can want to leave there home for any reason. It could be anything from economic turmoil to a simple family feud. Immigrants don’t have to travel to another country for a specific reason.
Like we say America is the home of the free. In countries in the Middle East people are being killed for their beliefs and women have no rights. Our country has so much opportunity that most of the other countries don’t have. We also are able to vote for our leader unlike some countries who are ruled by a dictatorship.
The U.S is very diverse in culture. In fact the U.S is probably the most diverse of all countries. We have very many languages that we learn and speak. We have every kind of food from all around the worlds. We have so much more freedom than other countries and our laws are enforced with great power.
My ancestors emigrated from Eastern Europe. I am part Polish, part Russian, and part Czechoslovakian. I have two friends that immigrated from Poland.

CAPS PRACTICE

CORRECTED: This weekend is the Super Bowl. The teams playing are the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I really wanted the Philadelphia Eagles to go to the Super Bowl because Donovan McNabb deserves a ring. All he has is his Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials.
ORIGINAL: this weekend is the super bowl. the teams playing are the arizona cardinals and the pittsburgh steelers. i really wanted the philadelphia eagles to go to the super bowl because donovan mcnabb deserves a ring. all he has is his campell’s chunky soup commercials.

Book review: Farenheit 451

BOOK REVIEW
By: Cara Potiker




Fahrenheit 451 was in my opinion a fantastic novel. The book was about a fireman named Guy Montag. This book took place in the future so the firemen started fires instead of putting them out. In the beginning Guy liked his job and was perfectly content with his life. Instead of learning kids took TV classes and people changed history. Everything was perfectly fine until Clarisse came. Clarisse was a teenage girl that Guy met on the way home from work one night. Clarisse opened his eyes to thousands of possibilities about the past and the future. Montag started to question life and not just follow along mindlessly with the others.
This book was written in third person. I really loved how Ray BradBury developed the characters. As the book goes on you can see how tortured Guy Montag is with his life, his wife, and his job. Everything was happy on the outside but he needed change on the inside. The plot was incredible to me. Firemen that start fires, television classes instead of a curriculum, a man that is tired of his life so he explores his mind. Reading in this book is illegal. The firemen start fires to get rid of books and people who read are arrested. This whole weird future was made to try to bring peace but little did they know that Guy Montag would rebel.
This book drew me in since the very first page. I didn't want to stop after my required pages of reading each night. In this book when the author showed Guy's though process and the way he was questioning life showed me a lot about the authors writing style and intellect. It was very interesting to see how the though process of the characters changed throughout the book. Guy was definitely a strong character and I really learned to like him throughout this book.
I highly recommend this book for fourteen and up. The vocabulary and story line may be too confusing if you're younger. I give this book a ten out of ten. I though it was definitely worth reading. If you want a book that will pull you in and hold you until the very end I would pick up Farenheit 451.
This book was fantastic. It was written fifty years ago and the world still doesn’t look like it does in the futuristic setting of the book. It keeps you wondering if the future will ever be like that. A must read in my opinion. It will open your eyes to hundreds of possibilities about what the future holds.

Boyhood book review

Boyhood is the story of a young boy living in Cape town, South Africa and dealing with everyday teen struggles. The author's pen name is J.M Coetzee and the book is written in third person. In addition to the style being in third person the plot was dry and boring. The setting starts off in his home in Cape Town and randomly switches to scenes on his aunt and uncle's farm and his old life. J.M Coetzee really shows the difficulties he faced while growing up. The twisted one sided relationship he had with his mother, his hate for his father, and the sexual feelings for his female cousin was slightly disturbing in an intriguing way. His mother was a humble woman and loved him more then anything in the world but only got hate in return. His father was slightly emotionally abusive to his mother but softened in time. His two-faced world spun with feelings of hate and confusion of his sexual orientation. He also talks a lot about religion and how Jews and Catholics were discriminated against. Other than that the book went nowhere and didn't do anything for me. I recommend this book to teenage boys in high school. I think high school boys would relate to J.M Coetzee better than a younger crowd. I do not recommend this book to any boys under ninth grade. Girls from age 14+ would be fine reading this book but I found that it was really hard to get into this book and relate to the main character.