Sources of light by Margaret Mcmullan

          In  1962, a year after Sam's dad died who  was a war hero and Sam and her mother must move, along with their very opinionated views, to Jackson, Mississippi, and they don't  fit in. People like the McLemores fear that Sam, her mother, and her mother's artist friend, Perry, are in the South to shake up the dividing lines between black and white and blur it. As all this is happening Sam learns to focus to bring all the bad things out.
        The author develops this idea by really making you feel and showing examples of how it would be like to be a teenager at this time. It also shows the struggle of her and her mom and others and what they went though just to try to help. It shows Sam's growth though out the book.

The Boy Who Didn't Care

                   Once there was a boy who was lazy, deceitful, and didn’t care about school. On Monday at school his teacher assigned homework to be done in his journal. When he went home that day he started to play video games. After a few hours he remembered his homework. “I’ll do it later” he said aloud to himself, but never did.

On Tuesday at school the teacher said,“Take out your journals and put them on your desk for me to check.” Knowing that he didn’t do the work, that morning before class he took his friends journal to show his teacher, tricking her into thinking he had done the work. So he put out “his” journal and started the class work as she went around.

 When she got to his desk she looked at the journal with a questionable look on her face,“This isn’t your journal” she said quietly so only he could hear.

 “Yes it is” he stated.

“Boy” she said the anger rising in her tone, “I am a lot smarter than you give me credit for, and this is not your journal.” They just looked at each other.

“Miss, this is my journal.” he lied.

“No, it is not” she said quickly then marked a 0 by his name then moved on to the next kid beside him. That same day she assigned another assignment to be done in the journal. He went home that day and started to play video games. After a few hours he remembered his homework, “I’ll just use my friends journal again, my teacher won’t know,” he thought. So thats what he did.The next morning before class he got his friends journal and that day when the teacher said,”get out your journals for me to check,” he used his friends journal.

When the teacher got to him, she looked questionably at the journal again. “This is not your journal boy.”

“Yes it is”

“Don’t argue with me, this is not yours” you could hear the anger in her voice as she said this. Then she marked a 0 by his name and moved on to the next kid beside him. That same day she assigned another assignment to be done in the journal. When he got home he went to go play video games and found that it was broken, so he decided to do his homework. The following day when he put out his journal for the teacher to check the kid beside him was shocked he actually did his homework.

When the teacher came to him she looked disappointed, “ Boy, this is the 3rd night in a row that you didn’t do your homework and don’t even try telling me that this is your journal because it is not.” she said annoyed.  

“But this is my journal” he exclaimed.

“No it’s not and stop lying!” she practically shouted.

He stood up and shouted, “Yes this is my journal, it’s my work why don’t you believe me!?”

“It’s your friends journal, and you think i am dumb and will believe it’s your work when its not.” she hissed

“Call my mother, call my father, call my brother, it’s my work and i am not lying!” he pleaded

“I am done with you” she said as she marked a 0 by his name and walked away.

Moral: No one will believe you when you tell the truth if you lie all the time.

Response to The Pearl

In The Pearl By John Steinbeck the lesson is Don't let things that are to good to be true change who you are. In the beginning of the story Kino is happy with his life. He has a beautiful wife, a healthy baby boy and a house on the sea. When Coyotito is stung he is angry and begins to change and with everything he does has a little more anger in it and is not like Kino to do. When he finds the pearl he is grateful and happy and has hope that Coyotito can be cured, but now has great wealth and begins thinking differently. When he goes to sell the pearl he is doubtful and greedy, the man offers 1,000 dollars and Kino refuses thinking he is being cheated, where as the original Kino in the beginning of the story who is happy and selfless, would have accepted the offer without hesitation and with great thanks. By letting the evil take over who he is there are many consequences the worst probably being losing his son. And i think he finally realized when Coyotito died that he was being ridiculous and was to late to change back to himself.

Constructed response

In the story “A Dark Brown Dog” by Stephen Crane, the point of view  is 3rd person omniscient because the author lets you see the emotions of all the characters and its not being told by one of the characters. “A child was standing on a street-corner.” he is telling about the child instead of the child saying something to make it 1st person like i or me.  The tone of this story is dark humor. The author takes a dark topic and find a way to make it kind of funny at the same time. “one day the father came home exceptionally drunk” “he thought it would be fun to throw the dog out the window” “he swung him two or three times hilariously about his head and then flung him with great accuracy out the window.” The concept of throwing a dog out the window is not a happy topic and is rather dark but the words chosen by the author make it more funny, like hilariously, and great accuracy. The effect this story had on me is a little difficult to explain. i can’t necessarily come up with one word that describes how i felt but while i was reading this it made me sad and couldn’t imagine why someone could hate and animal so much. personally i am an animal lover and i especially love dogs so this was very sad for me to read.

       In the story “The Day I Got Lost" by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the point of view is 1st person because the narrator uses words like I, and me. " ..that man will be me, Professor Shlemiel" the narrator refers to himself as me. The tone of the story is humorous. The character Professer Shlemiel is clumsy and absent minded. He leaves his brief case in a taxi, loses things every minute end even forgot his address. "I'm forgetful. I enter a coffee shop, hang up my coat, and leave without it. By the time I remember to go back for it, I've forgotten where I've been. I lose hats, books, umbrellas, rubbers, and above all manuscripts. Sometimes I even forget my own address." This story I actually found little humor in because while its a funny topic personally I would hate to be this forgetful and absent minded. I hate the feeling where you forget something and just can't remember no matter what and its even a worse feeling when it's something you should know like when you leave for a vacation and you get that feeling you forgot something but you know you didn't. I just can't help but feel bad for Shlemiel because I would hate if I was like that its the worst feeling in the world.

Response to poetry

the authors purpose of writing this poem is to remember all the lives lost in 9/11."the names" states as many names of the people as possible. the tone of this is sadness because he is seeing all the names all over the city through out the day and grieving over the loss of strangers.