Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome. After the school shooting she’s all alone, since her brother, Devon was the only one who tried to understand her, and now he’s gone. She befriends a first grader named Michael whose mother was also killed in the school shooting. They both share the same pain. Together they try to find closure. Caitlin also tries to help her dad with his depression by telling him they need to find closure. To find closure she believes they need to finish the chest that Devon was working on before his death. Her dad is reluctant at first, but then agrees. They finish the chest and donate it to the middle school. For Caitlin, she found closure through a friend and finishing the chest, and her dad found closure through seeing his daughter grow emotionally and socially and finishing the chest as well. This is a wonderful book that makes us look into a world like Caitlin’s and see the pain of someone related to a victim of a school shooting.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
February Book Blog 4-Mockingbird
The Story
Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome. After the school shooting she’s all alone, since her brother, Devon was the only one who tried to understand her, and now he’s gone. She befriends a first grader named Michael whose mother was also killed in the school shooting. They both share the same pain. Together they try to find closure. Caitlin also tries to help her dad with his depression by telling him they need to find closure. To find closure she believes they need to finish the chest that Devon was working on before his death. Her dad is reluctant at first, but then agrees. They finish the chest and donate it to the middle school. For Caitlin, she found closure through a friend and finishing the chest, and her dad found closure through seeing his daughter grow emotionally and socially and finishing the chest as well. This is a wonderful book that makes us look into a world like Caitlin’s and see the pain of someone related to a victim of a school shooting.
Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome. After the school shooting she’s all alone, since her brother, Devon was the only one who tried to understand her, and now he’s gone. She befriends a first grader named Michael whose mother was also killed in the school shooting. They both share the same pain. Together they try to find closure. Caitlin also tries to help her dad with his depression by telling him they need to find closure. To find closure she believes they need to finish the chest that Devon was working on before his death. Her dad is reluctant at first, but then agrees. They finish the chest and donate it to the middle school. For Caitlin, she found closure through a friend and finishing the chest, and her dad found closure through seeing his daughter grow emotionally and socially and finishing the chest as well. This is a wonderful book that makes us look into a world like Caitlin’s and see the pain of someone related to a victim of a school shooting.
February Book Blog 3-Mockingbird
The Characters
Caitlin: Caitlin
is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome. She’s very smart but anti-social. She takes everything literally. After her brother dies, she’s the one who
thinks of finding closure with her father.
She loves to eat gummy worms, and
names them all. The person she was
closest to was her brother Devon, before the school shooting. He was the only one who tried to understand
her world.
Josh: Josh’s
cousin was the one who was the shooter at the school shooting. He feels like everyone hates him because he
was related to the shooter. He bullies a
lot of people, including Caitlin, due to this.
In the end of the book you realize he was simply misunderstood, and a
friend was all he needed.
Michael: Michael
is in first grade. His mother was a
teacher at the middle school and she was killed at the school shooting. Michael is very morose about his mother’s
death. Caitlin befriends him and they
try to find closure together. Michael
also befriends Josh who makes people see the kind side of Josh.
Harry: Harry is
Caitlin’s father. He’s depressed all the
time since Devon died. He lost his wife
first, and now his son. He cries a lot
and when he was told Devon had died, he went mad and started throwing things
around in the house. He doesn’t pay much
attention to Caitlin now and doesn’t have much patience with her. He does try to try, which is very hard for
him considering everything that’s going on.
Mrs. Brooks: Mrs.
Brooks is Caitlin’s councilor at school.
She tries to help Caitlin make friends and find closure. Since Devon has died, she’s the only one who
really tries to understand Caitlin.
Caitlin enjoys being in her presence; she’s like a friend to
Caitlin.
Mockingbird February Book Blog 2
School Shootings and
Gun Violence
There have been many school shootings since 2000. The most recent one has been the Sandy Hook
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. School
shootings affect people who experienced them, and the people close to the
victims greatly, just like Caitlin and her dad, Harry. “I thought we were all gonna die,” says
Kaitlin Roig, a teacher at Sandy Hook elementary, in an interview, fighting
back tears. Many people like her were
scarred, and the fear and pain they experienced will never leave them. One student even said in an interview that
she was scared to go to school now. It’s
horrible to think that somebody can have the heart to kill innocent students;
it’s absolutely sick.
Gun violence is now the center of attention. Should we stay true to our constitution and keep
the right to bear arms, or should we take away that right to reduce the loss of
lives each year.
Guns are there to protect us, some people say. Others say they’re evil. Guns can be used for self-defense so, there’s
a plus. But then again guns can be used
to inflict pain and death. Really, we
shouldn’t go against our constitution and we shouldn’t allow for so many lives
to be lost due to gun violence. People
who are for guns are saying they need guns to feel safe. The National Rifle Association is fighting to
keep guns. But is there really a need to
keep guns that are specialized to go through
police vests?
Is there a way to keep guns so that we won’t go against our
constitution and reduce gun violence at the same time? Perhaps there is, but to me, the best way to
save people is to completely eradicate guns.
References:
References:
abc news on TV
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Midsummer Night's Dream Question 3
We see love and drama
all around us. We see love that hurts, or makes someone smile. We see love that
is feigned or true. Love is like a mountain range. One rises in their relationship,
then they can fall, but then rise again. Love creates many emotions.
You see the couples in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, experience the many aspects of love. Theseus won Hippolyta over with his leadership and strength. Their ‘love’ doesn’t really seem like love to me. She seems not to have fallen for him because he is who he is, but because of his power. They’re engagement looks more of a, “whatever, let’s get married,” sort of thing. They’re not really in love. Hippolyta seems excited, but not exactly how excited a bride-to-be would be. She’s not running around all happy, not seeming to be able to take her eyes off her soon to be husband. And neither is Theseus. They’re marriage semblances being forced, not like they actually really, truly cared about getting married.
Unlike Theseus and
Hippolyta whose love looks more like infatuation, Lysander and Hermia’s love
for each other is truly there. They love each other greatly, yet their love is
frowned upon by Hermia’s father, Egeus who prefers Demetrius. But when Hermia
is told that she was either going to marry Demetrius or die or become a nun she
was unfazed, blinded by her love for Lysander. She chooses to rebel and abscond
to Lysander’s aunt’s house in the forest with him. She is not scared and
neither is Lysander, for they know that in the forest they can be together.
Then, when Lysander is given the love potion from the flower and he awakes to
Helena and says he ‘loves’ her, Hermia is hurt. Still she loves Lysander and
that’s why she fights with Helena, because she loves him. She’s hurt, but still
wants him for herself; she doesn’t want anyone to take him away from her since
she cares about him. Then in the end,
when they go back to all loving the right people, Hermia goes right back to
Lysander, forgiving. It shows that they will do whatever they need to, to be
with each other. You see their true, lasting love.
Titania and Oberon’s relationship is really messed up. They love each other, but they’re stuck in a place where they practically hate each other, and just because they want the child to be just like one of them. They fight with one another and Titania keeps the child. Oberon gets even more mad at her and decides to go as far as putting a flower love potion on her to make her fall in love with the first thing she sees, which is unfortunately Bottom turned into a donkey. In the end however, he feels sympathetic for her ‘loving’ a donkey and realizes he misses her. They get back together and are both happy. This shows that really, ‘through thick and thin’ this couple will stay together; they can’t be separated.
Demetrius and Helena were once together and loved each other, but when Demetrius saw Hermia he wanted to be with her instead. However Hermia doesn’t like him at all since her heart only belongs to Lysander. Even though Demetrius left Helena for another woman, she can’t get over him. She keeps chasing him, wanting him back, but he doesn’t love her anymore. The more she adores and praises him, the more he seems to look upon her with a look of disgust. Obviously she can’t let go, and the thought of him leaving can’t process her mind since she still loves him so much. In the end of the play however, everything works out and Demetrius falls back in love with her by awaking to her first after being given the flower love potion. Since everything works out you see they were ‘meant to be.’
With these four couple you see a few aspects of love, some being: pain when Demetrius left Helena for Hermia; betrayal when Lysander seems to love Helena; hate when Titania has custody of the child; and infatuation between Theseus and Hippolyta.
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