Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Rise Of A Star

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the greatest basketball player of all time? In the story called “The Rise Of A Star” by David Lee Morgan, LeBron James can feel that way. This book is based on LeBron James one of the greatest players to ever step on the basketball court, in many people’s opinions the best. He was just a poor little ghetto kid that had nothing until June 26, of 2003.
Can you imagine what it would be like to have to move almost 7 times a year? That’s how it was for LeBron James. He had to move a lot due to money problems and shelter. LeBron James had a very scary and hard childhood. One good thing that happened for him is he met three guys and those four guys all together were so close that they called each other the “Fab 4.” They were so close that nothing would ever tear them down or bring them apart. Later another guy moved to their town and they let him become part of their gang so they called themselves the “Fab 5.” Which was also the starting 5 of their varsity basketball line up. All of the “Fab 5” were so close they were like family. Nothing will ever tear their friendship apart.
Currently today they all stay in contact and they all talk to each other. LeBron moved on straight to the NBA from high school, Sion Cotton went to college, Willie McGee went and played football at Ohio State, and Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce attended the University of Akron and now currently play on a European league team together. These 5 guys are individuals are all men that all kids can look up to. They grow up with just about nothing and now are successful and they are known to be one of the greatest starting 5 in high school basketball history.
Talking about history, LeBron in many people’s opinions is the greatest player ever to play basketball. There is stuff that he can do that no other player ever could, or ever will be able to do. The cool thing is, he is young, and strong, and smart so he easily dominates the league and everyone in it. Not only is he a great player, but also a great man. He is always going back to his home town to help kids and families so they don’t have to go through what he had to. He is always going to charities and donating moneys to help all kinds of causes of America. The world will never be perfect but specific individuals like LeBron is willing to help to try and make it a better place.
In conclusion this book was great! It was a great story and would give everyone incredible entertainment and a great story for them to read about. They can realize why LeBron is the person he is today, because what he had to go through. It seems like the people who grow up living a hard life are nicer in the future and the people who grow up living a nice life are selfish and not as nice. Wouldn’t you think it would be the other way around? Like for instance Michael Oher, he grew up in a terrible area and had no family. He is one of the nicest athletes today, and will always treat people good because he knows what life should be like, nice, and not terrible like him or LeBron had to go through.

Drugs

Have you ever gotten pressured into doing drugs? That is called peer pressure. Say someone offers it to you and you say no, but then people around you call you a wimp because you are scared to do them. That’s peer pressure. You should never give in to peer pressure. I can tell you that I have never done drugs, or have gotten pressured into doing drugs. You will not have to worry about things like alcohol, or drugs as long as you hang around the right people who are worried about themselves, their reputations, and the law.
Most drugs in the U.S.A are illegal because everyone knows how bad they can be for you. Drugs like, marijuana, ecstasy, and cocaine are all illegal drugs here in the United States Of America. Although, these drugs can be prescribed by a doctor for medical reasons and purposes and that’s the only way that they can be legal. Drugs can be found or bought practically anywhere. There is a kind of drug called inhalants which is illegal but there is almost no way to get rid of inhalants. Things like sharpies or spray cans give off toxic fumes and when exhaled it makes your brain not function correctly or as we would call it get high. It kills brain cells and harms your body. Since you can’t function correctly you could even be risking your life! It is unhealthy to do any type of drug, and you should for sure not have them unless you want things like bad breath, bad body odor, chance of cancer, age faster, and be judged tremendously by the people around you. Why would anyone want that? The people I feel bad for are the ones that got sucked into it and are addicted and can’t stop smoking or snorting these different types of drugs. Or the people who inhaled second hand smoke from other that smoke around them. People get sick from second hand smoke and die all the time from various cancers and diseases. Why would you want to do that to other people? And most importantly why would you want to do that to yourself?
In conclusion, I think the world needs to end smoking. It is doing nothing but harming our country and the people in it. It is ridiculous. The smoking does nothing but damage our ground by littering, and smoking can cause more car accidents because people worry about getting their smoke more than worrying about driving, the butts of the cigarettes that people throw on the ground can cause fires, all these different problems from smoking. The main question is why do people smoke? Do they look cool? Do they feel cool? Why do they do it?

The Hundreth Dove

Imagine this, being bossed around and always being told what to do and when to do it. That is what life was like for the fowler named Hugh in the short story The Hundredth Dove written by Jane Yolen. The fowler is told to go out and get 100 doves for the king because the king was getting married. The fowler thought of how great he would look if he went out and brought back exactly 100 doves for the king. So, he worked as hard as he could to get those 100 doves and his work paid off because he caught those 100 doves and brought them to the king. The main point of this story is to always try your hardest and stay on task, so you can always attempt on doing the right thing.
Talking about the lesson of the story should make you think back to your past when you were assigned to do something and you did it no problem, or back to a time when you were battling to either do the right thing, or the wrong thing. It is always the best choice to do the right thing, even if it is something you don’t really want to do, you will feel way better afterwards. After you do something good you won’t ever want to do something bad again because the feeling from knowing you did something good makes you feel so great about yourself you will always want to have that feeling. Why would you want to do the bad thing if you will just feel scared, mad, and sad afterwards? When you could feel happy and great from doing the right thing. In the story Hugh chooses to do the right thing and brings the 100 birds to the king instead of letting the 100th bird go like it was trying to tell him. He took the right path and felt good after it because he knows what he did was right.
Along with the lesson comes a very good theme. The theme of the story is man vs. himself because the main character, Hugh has to decide whether he wants to let the bird go and get what he is promised from it, or take that bird back to the king with all the other 99 birds. He ends up choosing the right path and bringing back all the 100. His conscience was telling him to let that bird go because he could get stuff from the bird, but his mind was telling him you know the king told you to bring back 100 birds and this is your 100th bird so why would you let it go? He listened to his mind and brought the bird to the king and felt very good about himself because he knows what he did was right.
After hearing about the author’s lesson and theme from the story it was very hard not to focus on the author’s style of writing. The author really has a great writing style. She is very good at having a good lesson put into a good story which makes it very entertaining. If you read a good entertaining book that has a good lesson it is super hard not to learn from it. If you are ever debating on whether you want to do something think of the positives and negatives for each choice. It will help you choose which choice you should make, and it should help you approach to making the right decision and not the wrong one. If it is hard for you to decide what to do sometimes you can even ask a friend or a family member to help to see which they think is right so you can get some positive feedback. But, you should also know that if you would like to feel better in the end the right choice is always and always will be the right way to go.
So, in conclusion this was a great story that had a great lesson. One of the best. People need to always things through a couple of times before they do something. Think about the stuff that we could have if people always thought stuff through and always made the right decisions like even world peace? People would always be doing the right thing and nothing could go wrong. Although, we are human and we do make mistakes, but all people do is look at the mistakes we make and the accomplishments we have. Look at those first. But, what would life be like if we had world peace?

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Stolen Day

Have you ever lied about being sick or not feeling good so you could get out of something you didn’t want to do that day? I know that I have and I’m sure that other people have defiantly done that. In the short story called “The Stolen Day” by Sherwood Anderson, the main character lies about him having a disease that causes his muscles to ache. This disease is called inflammatory rheumatism. All the main character wanted to do was get out of going to school. He was actually jealous of the boy in his class, named Walter that had the disease because he got to miss school and go fishing and do fun things like that. The thing that was not smart is the main character only thought of the good things that Walter got to do, he never thought of the pain that he had to live through or all the sorrow he was put in because of his terrible disease. The main point of this story was to teach you not to lie because people will just find out and you will or could get in trouble.
Talking about the lesson should really make you think about how lucky you are. In the story the main character is so jealous of Walter because he doesn’t have to go to school and he gets to practically do whatever he wants to do in the main characters opinion. Too bad that’s not true because Walter doesn’t get to exercise or play sports like the main character got to do. He never thought about how lucky he was compared to Walter. So, the main lesson is no matter how bad you think or feel you got it there is always someone somewhere in the world that will have it worse than you. So if you think about it no matter what you say, you should consider yourself lucky.
Along with the lesson comes a very good theme. The theme is man vs. society. The reason it seems like man vs. society because the main character in the story, the person who is narrating the story doesn’t like school and doesn’t want to go to school, so he has to battle the society to get them to believe him that he has inflammatory rheumatism. If the main character would have been Walter than the theme would have been man vs. himself because Walter has to battle himself because his brain is saying stop your aching, you can’t go anymore but Walter just keeps pushing himself to keep going and going and going.
After hearing about the authors lesson, and theme from the story it was hard not to focus on the authors style of writing. The author really has a great writing form. He is very good at having a really good lesson in a story that will entertain you. If you read a book that is very entertaining but still has a good lesson you can defiantly learn from it. If you have something to do and you don’t want to do it just think about all the other people around the world, they didn’t want the natural disasters to come and demolish the land that they live on, they did not ask for people to take their own lives or for them to take family members lives. The lesson is to make you think about other people before yourself. Think about how lucky you are, and what can you do to help other people or make their lives better.
So, in conclusion this was a great story that has a very good lesson. One of the best. People need to stop being lazy and do things like go to school as much as possible because all it will do is help you in the future. Always give it everything you got. Look at Walter, you think it is hard to go to school or do chores, what do you think everyday life is like for Walter? To be in pain to walk, or even just sitting there. Not being able to run or play sports with all of his friends. Think about how lucky you are. Think about the stuff you have not the stuff you could have.

Friday, March 5, 2010

The People Could Fly

The People Could Fly
Have you ever wondered what it was like to be able to fly or to have some kind of special power? Well in the story The People Could Fly written by Virginia Hamilton some of the slaves knew magic and they could fly. Slaves had very hard work back in the day. They would get bossed around and could not say anything back to their masters or they would be whipped or put into some kind of pain. I think that slaves back then had to have been the toughest people ever to live. To go out and work almost the whole day, and get little to drink and eat, that proves beyond toughness right there. No one now days would live through that kind of stuff. This is a great story that has a good meaning or lesson, good theme, and is made a great story through the characters.
There were a few main characters in this story. One of the main characters was Sarah and Sarah was one of the slaves who carried a baby on her back. Another one of the slaves was named Toby. He was a very nice man that helped Sarah out when she was getting whipped or hit by their masters. Those two are the main slaves and then the other main people are the masters or the owners of the slaves. They did not give names of the owners in the story though. Back then, the masters would whip the slaves and they would do anything to get them back to work no matter how hungry, thirsty or tired they were. The owners did not care about the slaves at all. They were just selfish people. The owners were so selfish that it should teach the readers of this story a very big lesson.
There is a great lesson that should be heard in this story. I feel that the lesson tells you not to be selfish and that you should care about the people surrounding you. Even if you don’t like them you should be nice to them and always treat them how you want to be treated, which is the golden rule. If you don’t want to be treated like crap than you should not treat people like crap either? Plus, why would you even want to make people feel bad or feel less of themselves? If you treat people like crap like the owners did to the slaves people will think less of you and it will wreck your reputation. All the owners did was think about themselves.
Talking about just thinking about yourself, relates to the theme which is man vs. himself. In the story the slaves had to battle against themselves. No matter if they were tired, hurt, or starving they had to keep going no matter what or it would just get worse for them. So, they had to battle against their minds, because when your hurt or when your hungry your brain and mind tells you to stop, feed me, or stop I am hurt or tired. Back then when you were a slave you had no choice but to go. So, they had to keep fighting and battling and they could not listen to their brains no matter what they said.
In the end, this was a very good story. It helped teach me how life was like back in slavery time. I would have never thought it was actually that bad till I read this story. Can you even imagine being whipped in the back? That would be one of the most painful things that will ever happen to you. The reason they would get whipped is because they had nothing left or they felt like they had nothing but to sit there and give up, or lay there and die. But, we should just be happy times are no longer like that and the world is a better place.

The Lie

The Lie
Have you ever lied about something and it came back and got you? I know that I have. I think every single human in the whole world has. Every single person has lied before in their past and will for sure in their future. Lying is one of the worst things you can possibly do because you feel nothing but pure guilt, and because lying hurts yourself, and could possibly hurt the person you lied to. In this story called The Lie by Kurt Vonnegut, Eli digs himself a very big whole. He lies to his family about making a school that is very known in his past family tree. This is a great story that teaches you a great lesson, has a good theme, and is put together perfectly by the way the characters act within the words of the story.
In this story, there are a few main characters. The main characters are Eli, and his father Dr. Remenzel. Eli’s father really wants him to go to a school call Whitehall because for the last several generations their family has gone to that school. So, he doesn’t want his son to wreck the streak that they have going for them. It means the world to his father for him to go there, and he knows it. So, Eli ends up getting a letter in the mail saying that he doesn’t make it to that school. He feels so bad about it that he lies to his own father and mother telling them that he made it to the school because he didn’t want them to be disappointed and mad at him. Eli was very scared of what his parents reaction was going to be. He is so scared that he lies to them so he doesn’t have to deal with their reactions. As the hours and days went on Eli felt very bad and very guilty for lying to them. He was scared that his mom and dad were going to find out and be even more mad then they would have been if he would have told them in the beginning. No matter what though, lying is never the right thing to do.
This story has one of the greatest lessons I have ever heard! This is a lesson that everyone in the world needs to know about. The lessons is not to lie because all it will do is hurt yourself, other people, and your reputation. Also, you will have to live through guilt until the lie is discovered or until you forget about the lie. It will hurt yourself because it will make you look bad, and it will wreck your reputation because people will think that you are a liar and no one will ever believe you. It could hurt someone else because if they found out you lied to them they might not think that you trusted them because you did lie to them. One thing you really want and definitely should have is a good reputation. You don’t want to be known as a liar or something bad like that. You want to be known as the always honest person. This lesson teaches you how to battle against yourself, and your sometimes evil conscience.
This stories theme is man vs. himself. The reason it is man vs. himself is because even though you knew lying is the wrong thing, your conscience will tell you differently. Most people think before they act and before they speak. In the story Eli probably thought to himself I should tell the truth because it is the right thing to do, but I shouldn’t tell the truth because the truth will hurt my parents a lot and it will also make me look bad to my family and to other people. No matter what people might think less of me. When you think to yourself like that, you shouldn’t even have to think twice and the only thing that should be in your mind is tell the truth. One thing you will learn is to always do the right thing and to always tell the truth, because believe it or not you will always have the better outcome.
In conclusion, this was a great story that has one of the greatest meanings. I don’t there is a lesson that could be better than this one or told better than this one was in the story. It was very fun to read and defiantly made me think about just how bad lying is. I learned that I am always better off telling the truth no matter what, and to keep battling my conscience and always, I mean always try and do the right thing.

Who Is Better??

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Michael Jordan