Pre-AP English: September 2011

Exposition: The story opens with a introduction to one of the best wizard schools in the world. Alisha (the main character) the best student of her grade (talent). Charismatic, kind, loving, all the qualities that a person can have. Along her 8th grade year she signs up for too many activities in her school.

Rising Action #1: Alisha is in the battle club (a club here wizards use their magic strategies for personal defense and offense to others). Since student tele-transport magically from their homes to the school it is really simple to stay battling as much as they wanted. Since she was the best in her club she always wanted to stay more and more to battle. Her coach named her captain. That meant he needed to make attendance lists and make essays of the improvement of her teammates. She was really excited, her ambition (being captain) was being forfilled.

Rising Action #2: Her science teacher was the head of the of the Wizard and Witch Council (student council). She was so good at her leadership skills so he assigned her as one of the executives. She didn’t want to but she couldn’t say no to that opportunity. So she just went with it. Since the school was elevated in the air by a enchanted piece of stone, she and her comrades needed to have brilliant ideas for special things that would fall off of the giant hovering stone. Apart from that they needed to build these. They chose her because Alisha had the name of her grandmother which was the founder of the school. She was always known for being the best (people expect that from her having the same name).

Rising Action #3: She was in the three AP courses since she was a brilliant student. The program started to give more and more work and homework for the academic level to rise. Each day, Alisha had more and more homework (especially her herbology class, she once needed to make a rain cloud to feed a living flower). She needed to get EVERYTHING done. Her battle club captain responsibilities, Wizard Council executive and her three AP courses homework and projects. Because of this, she didn’t have time to hang out with her friends. So she started to get worried about her social life... (lost recently)

Climax: Alisha, after having too many responsibilities she finally decides to DROP IT ALL OUT! For the last week she wasn’t been sleeping well, having problems listening in class and even not having time to have dinner. She stared to her necklace that her grandma gave her (pocket item) and the raven in the necklace transmited a message that only she could understand. She send a fairy to tell her coach that she didn’t want to be captain anymore. She send her talking owl to her science teacher telling she wanted to go out of Wizard and Witch Council. Two thousand pound backpacks off her back.

Falling Action: She encounters her worst enemy Lindsey (enemy; they hated themselves since kindergarden because of a paint spilling in each others clothes). She brags about her new position as executive member of the “Student” Council plus her join to the battle club and new assistant of the director. Alisha simply said: “congratulations”. Then she encounters the school counselor and he intercepted her. He noticed that she was having a lot of problems in her classes. Alisha tells him that was because of her load of responsibilities, she admitted that she had made a great choice dropping one or two down. She is still the best student of her grade so, no worries.

Resolution: She is living happy in her school, now she has more contact with her friends and she keeps up her grades. By the way, she is really happy seeing Lindsey suffering because of her loads of work... Not even the magic of one’s wand can make all those things easy. But, her deep dark secret was revealed; she couldn't keep up with anything... :P

RED: ELEMENT (CHARACTERISTIC) OF A MYTH

GREEN: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EXAMPLE IN STORY

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Character Map Questions

Why did Alisha loose her focus and why?

   -Alisha had too many responsibilities so her overload made her things mandatory so she lost the love for her after school and in school activities plus she wanted to focus a little more on her personal life.

Why do Lindsey and Alisha don't get along?

   -They both don't get along because since they were little they are competing to be the best so that created a constant state of hate between them.

What is more important; friends or study?

   -For Alisha friends and study are equal because she knows that without her friends her life wouldn't be the same but study is very important as well so she tries to improve her personal life plus keeping up with everything she has to do at school.

What happened with her families' magic?

   -They were known to make magic with birds, had many birds as pets.

Character Development + Plot

Character Development

Character development is how an author invents and creates a new character to it’s story. The way he/she makes in in their own hands, there is no rules as to why a character needs to be that way but but does have some steps as to what are some traits that you need to invent, for example:

best friends, ambition, talent, secrets, etc... Once you fill in these requirements wit the things that come out of your mind, you have created a character. For the creation of one single character is it necessary to create more characters separately but along with it. One of the characters would be their best friends, worst enemy (antagonist) and all the character that are involved on the solving of the problem in the story. The author uses the traits that he invents for the development of the story itself ad to create an opinion within the reader. The author creates the character depending on their traits and personalities (hateful, joyful, villan, hero, etc...)Some of the traits of this certain problem would be things that will create curiosity which can leads to actions in the story, or action which can also create actions in the story. So, the development of a character does not only develop the character itself but also the story, the reader’s opinion and the other characters within the story.

Plot

The plot is a very important element when writing a story. The plot includes all of the elements of a story (setting, exposition, conflict, rising actions, climax, falling actions, and resolutions). The plot is mostly the setting but it also carries our the characters their moods, and everything they do in the story. The author uses plot to create the mood within the story, the plot creates opinion in the reader by making him/her think (why are the things the way they are?) so by creating the opinion the reader can be hooked into the story or not depending on personal tastes in literature. It is very important to build this types of opinion for the reader to have something to search for and something to attached to apart from the character and the conflict by themselves. these two need a plot to be placed into a proper setting and mood inside a story. the author also uses the normal elements of a story to create inferences inside the reader’s mind. The exposition shows the beginning and the details you need yo know to orient yourself. The rising actions are the ones who make the actions lead to the solution of the problem. The climax is the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY. The falling action take the story to the end while getting it away from the climax (solutions to conflicts). All of these are used by the author to make a good and qualified story.

Grammar Quizes

Run-on Quiz:

The only thing i had trouble with was that the use of a comma is correct along with a conjunction (FANBOYS).

Who/What/Which:

Still making sure that "who goes along with PEOPLE.

Sentences:

I need to identify a little better the categories of sentences

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Myth Brainstorm

Overload

Once upon a time there’s was a school in the heights of heaven, in a mountain taller than the everest. This school was for the sons, daughters of the greatest wizards of all time. Her name was Alisha, she was a very talented witch. She was in 8th grade, as every student in middle school she has a lot of work to get done. She has to keep up with her advanced classes and also her battle club. Plus she is in the MS wizard council... Overtime her free time was lowering, she needed to get done all of this stuff, and magic didn’t help her that much. One day she came to school with dark circles in her eyes, totally tired, with a muscle spasm and a lot more pimples. Her Magic History teacher intercepted her and took her to his office. He noticed that she was having trouble getting all of these done. She said she loved the things she did but she was constantly exhausted. Her teacher gave her a solution. She needed to lay off the less important of these stuff to get herself on track. She dropped the Council and lowered her meeting of Battle Club. Weeks later she felt better, swinging her wand she created a rainbow outside her classroom to represent her happiness.

Main Character: Alisha

Problem: Overload of responsibilities

Solution: Laying off a portion of them

Setting: Nkosi’s School of Witchcraft and Wizadry

Why is it a myth: This story includes made up characters and their traits as well and it includes magic which is one of the traits that a myth has.

True or False

There was this beautiful girl called Francine. She was the the daughter of the daughter of Aphrodite. She went to a school for the children of the gods of the Olympus. She was a very beautiful girl, all the the guys in her school wanted to be with her. Athena’s daughter (Anabeth), filled with jealously and grief created a rumor. The rumor was: that Francine and Mike (nephew of Hephaestus). It started spreading around the school and all the kids started to laugh at them. Everybody believed this stupid rumor because Aphrodite and Hephaestus were couple in a time. Mike didn’t really care about because he was a “nobody” but for Francine that built a popularity for years and it went down in three days. The sounds of Anabeth’s laugh of grief made cry a lot. Her tears were golden just as her hair. People say that when her tears fell to earth turned into gold. Zeus saw her crying and came to her. Francine told the King of the gods about it and in return, Zeus took the powers from Anabeth away and gave them to Francine, to make her more smart and powerful than the people that ever bother her again.

Main Character: Francine

Problem: Anabeth made up a rumor about her and Mike

Solution: Zeus took Anabeths’ power away and gave it to Francine

Setting: Mount Olympus Middle School

Why is it a myth: It has the Greek gods which were created initially in myths and it made up events and people.

Why?

Once upon a time a school attended by nymphs. This particular school had a very, very high academic level. One nymph called Tiara attended this school. She was a very good student. One day she came to her nature creating class and sat down in the her table. The teacher assigned to every one of her students to create a flower from scratch, she just gave them a pot of soil and the seed. They needed to make it grow into the most beautiful flower using the nymph powers for nature. Tiara used her hands to create the most beautiful flower of all her class. When her teacher came to check it she congratulated her but gave her 95% credit. Tiara stupefied claimed that her flower deserved al least 100% credit. Her teacher said that she was missing two or three insignificant petals. She asked that she could do to improve her unfair grade. She made another flower, almost similar to the other one but with more petals. Now she had the 100%.

Main Character: Tiara

Problem: She was given an unfair grade when she didn’t deserve it

Solution: She made up the grade with another piece of work (double effort)

Setting: Marynymph Academy

Why is it a myth: because it includes mythological creatures such as nymphs and their powers, which are also mythological and supernatural

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26TM1kpK0po

Monday, September 5, 2011

That, Which and Who/Run-On/CC Sentences

That, Who and Which

People use these articles as relative pronouns. We make the mistake in putting one i the place of the other in various cases. The reason is that these have a different function each, even though you may think they are the same thing. In modern days one refers to things that the other doesn’t. For example:

Which: “which” refers only when you are dealing with things.

Who/Whom/Whose: These refer only to people (singular + plural)

That: “that” refers to things and also for other purposes like to refer to a class or type of person.

All three of these can be used in one same sentences but this time having a different meaning each for example:

“That will be the substitute who will be in charge to put people in their classes, she is having trouble with a copied key; the question is; which is which?”

RUN-ON SENTENCES

Run-on sentences happen when you don’t separate two complete ideas by a period. Or the excessive use of commas (meaning that you separate the independent clauses by a comma to continue with more clauses in the same phrase or sentence).

Some good ideas to prevent these types of errors is to use the semicolon in the place of the two independent clauses (comma places between the two dependent clauses to make one entire independent clause which is a entire idea). Or to just separate each whole idea with a period every single time even though it is the same topic. For example:

“The teacher entered the classroom and sat down in the chair to read, the the stood up to give directions to the entire class, then she sat down again to grade.” = RUN-ON

“The teacher entered the classroom and sat down in the chair to read. She stood up to give directions to the class. She sat back down again to grade.” = JUST FINE.

Compound Complex Sentences

A compound complex sentence is made up of two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses. A very easy way to prevent errors in the use of these types of sentences is t dominate the ladder of sentences:

Simple Sentences
Compound Sentence
Complex Sentence (then the union of the last two)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Issues at a Middle School: BULLYING

Problems in a Middle School

Middle School; the three school grade of your life where more changes happen in you. Compare yourself when you entered in sixth grade and when you are moving to ninth grade at the end of eighth grade. BIG changes happen in your body and your mind. Which tends to bring a lot of problems... Unfortunately.

One the THE MOST drastic problems in a Middle School anywhere around the world is bullying. Bullying happens EVERYWHERE! In Middle School there’s always the bully and the victim. the cycle of teasing and making fun of never stops, unless when the school takes measures against it. In Middle School any one can get bullied, even the most popular kids of your grade (i know, hard to imagine)

One big factor that helps bullying happen is the status symbol you get in Middle School. For example: the sports person, the smartypants, the lazy clown, the ugly, the pretty, the non-sport person, the nerds, the jocks, the popular group, and many others. You can identify yourself by more than one of these (me for example) some of these are good, but some of them can make you the perfect prey for the most dangerous of the Animal Kingdom; BULLYING.

You can stay out of bullying by having certain characteristics such as: being friends with a lot of people, have good grades and not being vain about it, not being lazy, and don’t say things that might upset anyone in any way. Follow these rules and your safe.

The reason I chose this specific topic as problems or issues in a middle school is because it happens everyday in some way or another, and that this can become so “dangerous” that it can permanently damage people emotionally and make people to horrible stuff (flee away from their schools, autism, cut themselves, and even suicide).

Every Middle School had fought against bullying, is fighting against bullying and will fight against bullying because it is something that was never supposed to happen, isn’t supposed to happen y hopefully will not happen anymore. A few people that I knew fled out of CNG because of this specific reason, so this is why bullying is a MAJOR problem at any Middle School.