Molly Wakenshaw

1) How does the writer use the hook (“three blonde heads”) to grab the reader and set the tone for the essay?

The author uses “three blonde heads” to grab the reader by its the first sentence and it shows that the Ashleys are perfect and everyone knows who they are.

2) Re-read the paragraph starting “The first time I actually became aware…”

Some specific examples of show and tell are when she said “As I walked into the classroom, all my friends pushed up to me, cooing my name: “Imma, Imma I missed you so much.” and when she talked about how the teacher said she always mispronounces peoples names.

3) Why does the writer use the example of the pencils? What is she trying to show?

The writer uses the pencils to show that Immas name isn’t a popular, but that Ashely is.

4) How does the writer turn it around? What anecdotes and information does she give to show that she has regained her pride for her name?

She turns it around when Imma goes back to Nigeria and finds out what the real meaning of her name is and talks to all of her friends.

5) What advice would you give the writer to make the essay even better?

1. Rittenberg hooks the reader by giving specific examples of exactly what is dad said and explained the situation of where they were in his house. What’s happening is Rittenberg is a 16 year old who’s hanging around the house once night when he over hears his parents talking about how they think their generation is going to lead to their sons generation being worse.

2. What specifics does Rittenberg use to emphasize how older generations saw horrible things in their lifetimes?
The specifics he uses is how his grandparents and great-grandparents lived through two world wars, killer flu, segregation, and a nuclear bomb.

3. To show his hopefulness in his future he uses the examples of how he thinks a cure for aids and cancer will be found also how there will be more peace for some countries and he might even see the Cubs win the world series.

4. The title is used to make the point that even if there are bad things going on tomorrow will be a new and better day and that his future will be better than the past has been.

In the book Inexcusable the main character Keir has been in love with Gigi for the longest time, but Gigi already has a boyfriend who is away in the army. Keir and and Gigi are both seniors at the same high school. On their graduation night they go to the party afterwards together and Keir admits that he raped Gigi one night, but he keeps trying to convince her that it wasn’t rape, because he’s in love with her. I like the book so far, because it deals with serious issues and has some suspense towards the end.

1. The Party Was Awesome

All the way down the street you could hear the loud bass of the music thumping. You walk in the front door and you can barely get in. People are everywhere, screaming in each others ears trying to talk over the music. Soda cans and chip bags are lying all over the floor. Meeting lots of new people. This was a night i’ll never forget for a good reason.

2. I got an A and i felt good

I was anxiously sitting and waiting at my desk. Waiting for the teacher to begin walking around the room passing back the final test of the year. All the other kids got their tests back making a frowning face when they saw it. Finally it got to mine. He laid it on my desk face down. I slowly flipped it over scared for the result. I jumped out of my desk screaming. I got an A.

3. He is the greatest Teacher Ever

Not only does he not give any homework, but in his class learning is actually fun. There is none of that read this and write that kind of stuff. His class you actually look forward to going to and you hope that for some odd reason the bell never rings and you don’t have to leave.

4. My computer is my best friend

My white apple laptop is always there when i am bored and have nothing to do. You can always just open it up and click on the internet and play hours of tetris. Even though it doesn’t talk to me i feel the friendly connection between me and my laptop. It never yells back or does anything wrong, and whenever i want to have fun it’s always there to keep me occupied either through long hours of studying or playing games.

5.  Yesterday I was very bored.

I was sitting there on the couch flipping through the channels. The only thing on was those stupid infomercials and soap operas. I called what seemed like to be every person in the word and nobody answered their phone. The boredom was getting to me so bad that i decided to actually do my homework for once.

1. He got him to stop “overthinking” by telling him to keep his head quiet, and they threw some fastballs which  he already knew how to do to get him warmed up to learn how to throw a change-up.

2. Bryan thought it would be better to learn a change-up first, because it’s easier on the elbow and because learning a change-up is the first step to becoming considered a pitcher rather than a thrower.

3. You throw a change-up with the force of a  fastball just with a different grip to make the ball come out of your hand slower.

4. A change-up works because he tricks the batter that the ball is coming like a fastball but its really coming slower, so the batter will usually swing too early.

5. A good pitching coach is one that has misdirection, an teaches you something different to do something else. Also he teaches you how to be a “self coach,” so that you can do it on your own when you’re out on the mound, and the pitching coach can’t come out to give you suggestions. Also even if you don’t win all the time he can teach you how to correct your mistakes.

More thoughtful questions

1. We can learn from the pitching coach that in school sometimes doing other things will help you understand or learn something else better. Also that its good thing to be independent some of the time and to be able to help yourself learn things.

2. The equivalent of a “change-up” in writing would be using good word choice, because you could just use boring words like a fastball which is just a fast pitch, but then you can “change-up” and use better more descriptive words instead.

3. I think what the author means from this is that there is always the option or chance that something is going to go wrong no matter what you’re doing. Even if your feeling really good about something. The next second there will always be the chance that it could go completely wrong. And even if you don’t always do your best there is a way to learn to correct the mistakes you make.

Failure, in many ways, is the default setting in baseball. A pitcher can be on a roll and cruising through a game, but he is always just one bad pitch, or one fielding mistake, away from a meltdown. The thing Bryan Price teaches is not how to win all the time. What he teaches is how to right yourself when you falter or fail.

Both Anthem and Fahrenheit 451 are stories about two very different made up societies. In Fahrenheit 451 everyone in the society  is controlled by the government, and they are supposed to do what the government tells them. Anthem is similar because everyone is told what job they are going to have and what group they are going to be in whether its the group of scholars or the street sweepers. Both books are based on something to do with books, writing, and knowledge. In Anthem Equality wants to be in the group of scholars and he wants to learn a lot, but equality can’t be a scholar because the government assigned him the job as a street sweeper. In Fahrenheit 451 Montag wants to read books so that he can learn from them, but he isn’t able to because of the government which tells Montag that he should burn the books and not read them.  In the book Fahrenheit 451 the people in the society could do what they wanted to as an individual within reason of what the governments laws and rules are, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be “we” like it is in Anthem. The difference in Anthem is that everyone is supposed to be as “we” and not as one. The endings of both books are similar yet different. The difference is that in Fahrenheit 451 the city is destroyed and in Anthem its more peaceful because nothing gets destroyed and Equality and Liberty are left in a house in the Enchanted Forest. The endings are both very similar because in Fahrenheit 451 after the city becomes destroyed Montag is left to go back and change the society to the way that he wants it to be. In Anthem  Equality and Liberty have a child together, and Equality starts reading books and finds out about a lot of things he didn’t know about, and then he thinks about how their child could grow up to be very smart and change the society into something better then what it is now. Both endings are about changing the current society they are in.