What's 811 Reading? discussion

Discuss a connection you can make with your text, either with yourself, another text, or the world.

Please consult your rubric and models to ensure that you are doing your best work!

For a “4”: Did I….
• Write a topic sentence that provided the title, author, and genre of my text?
• Provide context of what is happening in the text, so my reader understands what I’m talking about?
• Find a direct quote from the text that proves my idea?
• Thoroughly explain the significance of my quote/how it proves my idea?
• Check for correct punctuation and spelling?

The Privilege of Youth: A Teenager's Story

In Dave Pelzer's autobiography non-fiction novel, The Privilege of Youth, a connection I would make is myself. Dave is with his older brother Paul and wants to spend time with him. But Paul wasn't ready for the spenting/hangout time. This relates to me by when my younger cousins and brother ( One of the cousins are 7 years old and the other one is 11 years old. My brother is 11 years old) wanted my to play the wii which the game is Just Dance 4. And I wasn't in the mode to play because I was tired. So my cousins and my brother were begging and yelling "PLEASE play with us we are bored without you!" I was like oh my gosh... Fine! However, they were excited and played with them. Back to Dave, he states "Come On! I said, nearly jumping out of my skin from enthusiasm. I haven't see you in months! We'll go to the park, we'll goof around. Come on, let's hang, (111)." This quote shows that Dave wanted Paul to hang out with him because he haven't see him in a very long time. This relates back to me because I haven't seen my cousins in months and not happy to spend time with them. Therefore, Dave wanted to spend time with his brothers to have the great hang out until they meet again.

In the non- fiction memoir Yell- Oh Girls! by Vickie Nam, I can relate to this in many ways. Since this book is about asian girls and I'm an asian girl i have a lot of things in common with the stories the girls have. " Aren't you gonna be a doctor. All Asians are good at science right" (267). This quote from the book is from an Asian girl's story. I can relate to this because a lot of times people tell me that since I'm asian I should be good at math and have high grades. So if an Asian gets bad grades or something they would he teased or talked about from being different because all Asian's are supposedly "smart". I can relate a lot to this non fiction book by feeling the same way all these girls felt because they are Asian.

In Daniel Keyes science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon, if I could relate this book to another person, it would be myself. This book is about a character named Charlie Gordon who is mentally retarded and scientists are testing him out to increase his IQ and become a genius. He wanted to be normal and as smart as other people are. How this related to me is not because I'm retarded and use a machine to increase my IQ. This relates to me because back in elementary school, I was very dumb because in class, I was always quiet and never participated even if I knew the answer to the question. How this book relates to me is I wanted to be a smart and a sophisticated student that participates very often during class. What I did was to read more books, study and be prepared to become successful in school. I'm trying to say that my IQ was probably like Charlie's when I was in elementary school because I was just that dumb in class. Charlie wanted to be smart, and I wanted to be a smarter student by participating more in class and raise my IQ, just like when Charlie's IQ increased and later on became a genius and learn how to spell words correctly. Charlie once stated,"I dont no if I wil pas the test but I am exited tat I might becom as smart as others and wil once beet Algernon in a race." This quote relates to Charlie's dreams of becoming a genius and myself of becoming a more successful student in middle school because Charlie was at first retarded and spells incorrectly and then later on passed the test and became a genius. For me, I wasn't successful and I was just very dumb in school back in elementary school. Then, I changed myself as a student by studying more often, come prepared to school and participate more often. Therefore, this is why I would relate this book to myself.

In the non-fiction book, Letters to a Young Brother, by Hill Harper, I would connect this book to myself. This book speaks about how Hill Harper sends letters and messages to his young brother, reminds me of all of the times that my dad sends me emails once in a while or so. "Hill, I want to go to a good college, but I'm no good at taking tests.What should I do"(42). This quote shows that when sending messeges it helps you get in touch with your reletives and get some bonding done, like about Hill Harper and his young brother.

In Daniel Keyes science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon, if I could relate this book to myself. The novel is about a adult who is retarded. He is at the beekman college for retarded adults where he is trying to improve is IQ. Before progress report 7 the scientist did experiments on him and he gradually became smarter. "I beet Algernon. He states "I dint even know I beet him until Burt Selden told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so excited. But after that I beet him 8 more times. I must be getting smart to beat a smart mouse like Algernon. But I dont feel smarter"(22) This quote shows how he is getting smarter. He was never able to beat Algernon but now he can. I feel like him. When i do something i was able to do i get really excited but i fail the next try. When I play piano, and I finish a piece and it's perfect and i do it again I mess up. And then i do perfect again. Therefore someone i would relate this novel to is me

Tuesdays With Morrie

In Mitch Albom's non fiction novel, Tuesdays with Morrie, I could relate this book to the world because many people want to celebrate there lives, but they don't know when they are going to go. Morrie had a chance to live his life the way he wanted before it was time for him to go. He wasn't the type of person who would just sit around and let death take over him. Morrie had a funeral for him self where everyone would come in and celebrate and give him their condolences before he really died. Morrie had a disease that couldn't be cured, and it made it hard for him to walk, eat, use the bathroom, and change his clothes. He had someone help him with all the things he couldn't do on his own.

In Darren Shan's fiction book Lord Loss, a connection I can make from the book to the real world is that brothers and sisters do not always get along but you will always love them. In the book, the protagonist, "Grubbs" was caught smoking and he assumed his sister told on him. To get back at her he found dead rats at a garbage dump, cut them up and put them in his sisters shower. ""I hate you" Gret hisses"(9). I chose this quote because it shows how Grubbs scared his sister, but he never got to say sorry or I love you to her before the demon killed her and his mom and dad. This quote was most important for this subject out of all of them because those three words came out of her mouth with a lot of anger and when she said that, they both never knew they would never see each other again. Therefore, you should always apologize after you do something bad to your siblings, or anyone because you may never know if it will be your last time.

In Julia Alvarez's non-fiction novel, Before we were Free, a connection I can make from this book is to myself. This book is about Anita trying to fit into the whole situation. She tries to have confident for herself in case for bad situation. And one time, she survived the thanksgiving play because of her lack of embarrassment. Anita states, "I have confident for myself, I am a believer!" This quote shows how much Anita has so much believes for herself. I can connect with Anita because every time there is a situation, we believe to ourself to get out of the bad situation. Not only I should believe to myself also the world.

Im Eric Schlosser's non-fiction novel, Chew On this, a connection I can make is myself. Chew On This is about how fast food make their food and how they get people to buy their food. It also tells the history of many fast food places. Many people go to fast food places because there is so may of these stores all over the world. You can see a McDonald on almost every block. Many people have gotten fat off of these foods. "Morgan Spurlock went on a 30-day on McDonald diet and at the end of the month, he gained pounds and had some problems." This means that eating McDonald all of the time can lead to gaining weight and heart problems. I only eat McDonald once or none a week because the food is very unhealthy even though they taste good. I dont try to eat McDonald. There fore I can relate this to myself

In my non-fiction novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer a connection I can make with my main character Christopher Jonhson is that he lives his meterial possetios cause he felt like no one liked him and that they only liked him for his things.I think I can connect cause I think life is not what you have but what what you live for live what you make of it.In the book he leaves his home and meterials and decides to to erase his life commpletly and goes to alaska.He stood out cause he is out going.In the book it states that he wanted to be alone and be away from everything modern.This shows how he is out there is not in touch with the tecnolagy.

In Jon scieszka nonfiction book Guys Write For Guys Read I would recomened this book to myself because the book has lots of funny,action packed, advice, and touching just like me. It also talks about life lessons and I have a little brother so i give him life lessons and tell him to remember them because they could help you when he gets my age. "so the basic idea of Guys Read is to help get boys interested in reading by connecting them with things they will want to read." This quote shows that the book is giving what boys actually want to read like interesting, funny, awesome, gross, and action packed books. Therefore this would be a good book that relates to myself because it is a book that is funny, action packed, awesome, interesting and more just like me.

In Joe Simpsons non-Fiction novel touching the void a connection I can make is to myself. I would make this connection to myself because in one part of the book the climbers are caught in an avalanche, and about to die but one of them keeps telling himself "Were gonna make it man just hold on!" and at the end a lot of snow passed by and they survived and climbed to a place were they could rest and set up camp. Therefore this would be a good connection because I don't give up and lose faith in myself, just like the climbers did.

In Jim Sterba's nonfiction novel Nature Wars one connection I would make is to the world. The novel is mainly about how people are trying to live without bothering the animals that live around them, but it is becoming a problem because drivers tend to hit animals by accident, turkeys are eating crops, beavers are flooding driveways, bears and raccoons are eating from trash cans, etc. "Emotion ruled over science, and that's a real problem for wildlife management in this country"(79). This quote shows why I would make this connection to the world, because there are raccoons living in Central Park, and the people in charge of the park have to make sure that people don't come in contact with the raccoons and other animals that live there.