Reading Log

30 mins Literacy Narrative
9/5 60 mins 48 pages
9/7  30 mins 19 pages

Response to Literacy Narrative

This past week I have been working on my literacy narrative. It is about my first experience with Accelerated Reading in the fourth grade. I have enjoyed working on it actually; in my opinion, writing in class is much more exciting than taking notes. I am very exciting to finish the story and publish it online. This will be one of my first papers to publish.  

            Although it has been fun to write, I struggle with using vivid verbs. To me, it is so much easier to use one of the “be” verbs or a non-vivid action verb than a vivid action verb. One method to help me with this problem is to look up synonyms for non-vivid action verbs. For example, by looking up synonyms for the verb write, I found compose which seems like a much more vivid verb.

Dialogue

Henry had to tell his mother that he failed his biology test. He had forgotten to study and made the worst grade in the class. Once his school bus creaked to a stop in front of his house, he trudged up his driveway with his eyes down.

            “Hello Henry how was your day?” Henry’s mom asked as she turned from the stovetop to face him when he walked inside.

            “Well,” he said as he closed the door quietly. He could not even look at her. The house then became eerily silent. “It was ok; I did not do my best on the biology test. I failed it.”

            “Is that so?” she asked. “Why did you do so badly?” She tapped her foot impatiently and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

            “Because of the horrible job the teacher did of teaching,” Henry fibbed. “Everyone else did just as bad as me."

Reading Response

As my free choice of reading, right now I am reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. The author of this book is Seth Grahame-Smith. The setting of the story is during Abraham Lincoln’s childhood. The book switches from first person to third person; I find this very interesting. The book is told in first person when Lincoln tells stories or events from his journal.

            In the beginning of the story, Abraham Lincoln lives with his dad, mom, and older sister. Shortly into the story, Lincoln’s mother dies from a terrible, unknown (to Abraham and his sister) sickness. Abraham Lincoln is just devastated, and his father, who after the death of his wife rarely speaks to his children, does not offer any comfort. When drunk, Abraham’s father reveals to Abraham that a vampire killed his mother. Thomas, Abe’s father, borrowed money from a vampire. When he was not able to pay it back, the vampire became angry and took revenge by killing his mother.

            Abraham becomes so angry at not only the vampire but also his father that he runs away to live a vagabond life killing vampires. 

Reading Log

8/27- 20 mins literacy narrative reading

8/29- 30 mins reading 29 pages

8/30- 30 mins 26 pages

9/1- 40 mins 36 pages

Reading Response to Other Text

In The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook, one of the literacy narratives I read was titled, “Proficiency” by Shannon Nichols. In this narrative, the author described her adventure of taking the standardized writing proficiency test. Nichols had to pass this test in order to graduate high school.

            Nichols extensively prepared for this test. After she finally took the test, she was almost positive she passed. As it turned out, Shannon Nichols passed every part, except writing! Nichols kept trying and decided to take the test again; unfortunately, she received the same results and did not pass. When preparing to take the test for the third time, she did not try as hard. She thankfully passed after three attempts but never felt the same about writing.

            The theme of this literacy narrative was that in life, sometimes unfortunate happen. We will not succeed at everything. This theme was sad and a bit harsh, but life itself is a bit sad and harsh. 

Five Minute Experience

Last night two of my friends spent the night. As we were driving them home to drop them off this morning, my mom pointed out a reoccurring thumping noise! Every few seconds, we heard what sounded like someone beating on a bass drum. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! My worrisome mom became concerned, and we pulled over immediately to figure out what was causing the noise to occur.

            The countryside road we were on was quite curvy, so we had to pull over in someone’s driveway. After my mom stopped our car, we hoped out onto the black concrete of the driveway and checked all of the tires. On the front left tire, I noticed a stringy piece of rubber unattached to the rest of the tire. It reminded me of the peel of an orange rind that was not attached to the rest of the orange. It turned out the noise was created when the piece of rubber  hit against the rest of the tire. We drove to one of my mom’s friends who conveniently lived close by. Even though it was humid and hot outside, he changed the tire for us. 

Reading Response

This past week, I finished reading That Summer by Sarah Dessen. This high school romance was a great story.  The theme of this story was that even the people that we place the most trust in can hurt us. The main character, Haven, realizes this when she finds out Sumner, her sister's sweet old boyfriend that she adores, cheated on her sister, Ashley. This is important message in life that everyone, especially young people, should learn. We are all human and we all make mistakes. The mistakes we make, though, can have a big impact on the people in our lives.

            My question for this story was, “Why is Sumner so important to the Haven?” Throughout the story, Haven was struggling with the many changes that were going on in her life from her parent’s divorce to her sister’s wedding to the dramatic change in her best friend’s personality. Then Haven runs into Sumner, Ashley’s old boyfriend. Sumner was definitely her favorite of all of Ashley’s boyfriends; he was the nicest. I feel that seeing Sumner reminds Haven of time in her life before the crazy life changing events were taking place. Haven does not want to let go of her old life in which Sumner was a part of. That is why it is so hard for her to let him go.  

8/21- 50 pages of That Summer in an hour

8/24- 78 pages of That Summer in an hour and thirteen minutes