Semester 1 Reflection

This first semester sure seemed to fly by. Seems just like yesterday when we walked into the school, awaiting our new high school lives. This semester in honors English, I have done a lot in both my blogs and outside of class.

I have always loved reading. Back in Intermediate school, I used to read about a new book every week. Yet, when I reached 8th grade, it seemed like my love for reading had disappeared. Possibly it was because I had much more work than before in 8th grade, but I stopped reading. I stopped going to the library, and stopped checking out new books. But this year, my love for reading has rekindled. I read about 10 new books this semester. It may not have been a lot from before, but it was definitely something. I enjoyed reading new books and series such as the Maze Runner series, the Divergent series, and the Ranger's Apprentice. I normally like fictional books, so that's what I choose when I selected my books, and I don't regret the decision. Also, the weekly blog posts also encouraged me to read more, because we had to write about what we were reading.

The blog post, again, rekindled my love for reading. Aside from that, we also posted about stories we were reading in class. At first, my blog posts were not the best, I'll admit it. But as I progressed along, I started picking up things that made my blog posts slowly, but surely, better. They are still not perfect or the best in the world, but they still have come a long way since I first started blogging. For example, at first all I would give is a quick summary of the book, and what it contained. But I started adding more and more voice, and my own thinking of what I thought of the book. And soon, most of my blog posts reflected what I thought of the book, not just some short summary of what I read. I also linked sources to where I find summary's or statistics, in case someone wanted to look more into the book I was blogging about. Near the end, I started stating specific evidence from the books too, justifying my thoughts of the book.

Although my blog posts and Independent reading has grown more in the last semester, it could be better. To start things off next semester I am going to use my good reads more often. I barely used this semester, but now I will keep updating my good reads with my recent books and quotes. Also, with my posts I am going to add more connections with my thoughts and the authors, by possibly putting in a video of the author or an interview that happened with author, so people can see 'both sides of the story' so to speak. Tied in with this is that I will be trying out different genres of books, not only fiction. Even though I enjoy fiction books, most likely I will also like another genre of books, who knows? And a last thing that I can greatly improve upon, is my comments. Each week I did in fact make a comment (sometimes made two) but they were all a couple days late. I am going to get into the habit of making a comment right after I publish my post, so not only my post, but my comment is on time as well.

All in all this first semester was a blast, and certainly a lot smoother than I thought it was going to be. Next semester I hope to accomplish more reading, books aside from genre. Also I want to greatly improve my blogging, connecting with the reader and expressing my own thought. 

The Kill Order

So I feel kind of awkward posting another blog from the same series, but this is the last one. We all know of what happened to Thomas and the rest of the world in the Maze Runner series. But... how did it all start? Why did it happen? Well, I'm here to tell you, after reading the prequel of the series, The Kill Order.

The Flare was released into the world 13 years before Thomas' time. It started to spread rapidly, and soon it was out of hand. A couple of brave people, Mark, Trina, Alec, and Lana, tried to stop the Flare by delivering an immune girl to the government so they can try to find a cure. If you want to read the rest of the summary click here:

Summary

I found this book interesting, but a little depressing.  The people in this book had already gone through a lot of pain, and at the end SPOILER they end up dying. Also, since we know that their effort was in vain, because we know the Flare was present even during Thomas' time. SOO basically in the end the entire story of The Kill Order was basically a waste. The only part that really seemed to matter was how the Flare was introduced. I don't think this book was really necessary. Honestly, I am done with death and destruction for a while.

If you have read The Kill Order how do you think the story was? Do you think the story was necessary?

The Death Cure

It has all come a full circle. After going through so many hardships, suffering so much, and losing friends, Thomas' story has come to an end.

After the Scorch Trials, Thomas, the gladers, and the members of group B were carried away to WICKED's headquarters, where they were all told a devastating truth. They all had the Flare. And to make matters worse, there was no cure to it, and that was WICKED's goal, to find a cure. They told them that all the kids were being used as test subjects, to record their brain patterns and try to find a cure. Also, they told them that most of them were immune to the Flare, yet some were not because they needed a control group. Newt was one of them. After hearing all this, Thomas learns that WICKED wants to cut open his brain to try and complete the cure. He and the other gladers don't trust WICKED, so they run away and counter attack and destroy WICKED. But some friends die along the way such as Teresa and Newt. At the end the gladers and other immune people, after going through a flat transporter, arrive in a wildlife paradise, where they will live out the rest of their lives as the rest of the world goes into extinction.

I found this books ending kind of sad, and confusing. All the effort that the gladers and WICKED go through... for nothing? In the end, basically the world ends except for the small group of about a hundred people. How will they survive without the help of others, and without technology? I feel like this ending was left a little incomplete, and that the author could possibly make a sequel to this series, maybe showing the story of Thomas' kids and how they travel back into the real world. What do you think?

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

I am reading the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This book is about a 12 year old kid, who has to go trough things no child, or man, should have to go through. His entire family was killed by a group of rebels, and these rebels were killing people throughout Sierra Leone. Ishmael was taken in by a squad of soldiers fighting against the rebels, and was trained to become a deadly killing machine. For three years, Ishmael and other kids killed and killed, hopped up on drugs. But after these years, Ishmael was taken to a rehabilitation center and started a new life.

The main idea of this book was to show the struggles, and pain of war. Ishmael's entire life almost got ruined, he lost his family, he was fighting in the front lines, he could have died anytime. He showed the struggles of life in Sierra Leone as a boy soldier. Specific examples of the hardships of the war is the lose of his friends and family and he had a lack of food and resources to survive.

Summary(Link)

The number of boy soldiers that fought in the Sierra Leone war was shocking. It was 5,000-10,000 kids. Most of them died, they didn't have the luck that Ismael did when he was rescued to be rehabilitated.

Link

Also many people don't realize this, but even today children are being used to fight wars. Examples of this is that many countries use child soldiers such as: Uganda. The outside research connects to the realization that war is full of pain and struggles. In our memoir it just refers to Ishmael being recruited. However, when Chris and I researched this we discovered that must children were drugged and abducted to join these countries armies. This connects to our realization because it shows how much pain the family went through when the child was taken away and was fighting for his life. It also shows the pain and struggle of war not only affects the victim itself, but also their family.

A Long Way Gone is an interesting book, that shows a different lifestyle. It shows the struggles and problems that people faced in the past, and still do today.

Ismael Beah older:

The Scorch Trials

How would you handle it? The stress? The pressure? The pain? If you had your memory taken away, sent in a gigantic maze, battle through monsters, your best friend dying in you arms, only to be thrown into a destroyed city to battle against crazy people and the heat of the sun.

In The Scorch Trials Thomas and the remainder of his friends had just escaped from the dangerous maze, and had been thrown into a destroyed earth, where everything had been burned away, and the locals infected by a vicious virus where it drove you insane. Now they have to travel across this barren wast land, through a destroyed city with Cranks in it (people affected by the virus called the flare) only to be captured by a group of girls that had also gone through the maze trials at the same time as them. At the end of the book Thomas his friends join up with the girls in the other group to reach a point where a cure was promised for the flare

In this book Thomas has to go through many more difficulties than the maze, and throughout the entire event he is learning more about what happened to the world and why WICKED is putting them trough this. If you were in Thomas's shoes, would you trust WICKED and do what they say or would you try to find you own path?

The Maze Runner (Continued)

 This week. I continued to read The Maze Runner. I was able to finish the book, and I was shocked by its ending. Instead of a boy coming into the glade from the box, a girl arrives. And the girl and Thomas can talk to each other telepathically. While this is happening, the walls aren't closing! So every night the grievers come and take only one glader and kill him. So Thomas, with the help of Minho (a runner), he is able to solve the code of how to escape the Maze. Some of the gladers stay back at the Glade, while others follow Thomas to try and escape the Maze. The gladers are able to escape the Maze, but many die including Thomas' best friend Chuck. At the very end, the book reveals that the Maze was only the first trial, their second trial is now going to begin.

This book has so many twists and turns...I can't even keep up with it! Also, I don't undestand what is W.I.C.K.E.D. 's goal.( WICKED is the company that put the gladers in the Maze) throughout the book it kept coming back to one point, WICKED is good, which leads me to believe that WICKED will play an important role in the upcoming books. I can't wait to start reading the Scorched Trials. If you were a glader, would you follow Thomas into the Maze or try to survive in the Glade as long as possible?

The Maze Runner

I have started reading the book The Maze Runner. In this book, a group of kids have to survive in a clearing known as the "glade", and the glade is surrounded by walls. Every morning the walls open, and a couple people known as "the runners" run in the maze, trying to find a way to get out. But.. in the maze there are dangerous creatures known as grievers. These kids know nothing of their past besides their name. However when stung by a griever, they start to remember their past, but go insane. Thomas, the protagonist in this book, becomes the first one of all the kids to survive a night in the maze and kill a griever. This is how far I have gotten into the book.

I really like this book so far because I have never read anything like this. It is interesting how the kids didn't remember anything of their past, but have still managed to survive. Also I like the bravery and curiosity Thomas shows all the time, like asking about the maze, and he killed a griever, being the only one ever too. Plus he rushed into the maze, knowing he could die, to save his friend, which takes courage.

Hunger Games vs. Divergent

Many people have read both the Hunger Games and Divergent. These two books have many things in common, and some things not in common.

A thing in common that these two books have in common that their governments are a dystopia. In a dystopia there is an unjust government. where a person or a group of people want change in the government. Another thing in common about these two books is that the people live in separate groups, not meeting to people of the other groups. In Divergent there are the factions Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Candor, and Amity. In the Hunger Games there are the 12 (later on 13) districts. Also in these books, conflict is brewing in the governments. And not only are the plots similar in these two books, so are the people.

In the Hunger Games the main protagonist is Katniss, and in Divergent the main protagonist is Tris.  These two characters are more similar than people think. They both have to change because of the government. Also, they both have to go through pain and suffering to achieve their goals. Plus they both are strong willed, for example in the Hunger Games in the arena, Katniss never gives up. She keeps on fighting to win. While in Divergent even when Tris is at the bottom of the scoreboard she keeps on working, and keeps on fighting to make it into Dauntless. Both of these books have similarities and differences, but both of them are excellent novels.

Heroes of Olympus

This week I read a new series called The Heroes of Olympus. In this series there are a bunch if people who are the off springs of a god and a mortal (human) therefore called demigods. These demigods are both the kids of Greek and Roman gods, and each have a separate camp in the US to train new demigods, so that demons don't kill them. But, the Romans and the Greeks hate each other, but they need to combine forces with each other and the gods to save the world from the evil and powerful earth goddess, Gaea. Will they survive? Read the series to find out.

Weekly Reading

This week I started reading a new book called the last book in the Pendragon series called The Soldiers of Halla. In this book, there are people called travelers who can travel to different worlds other from Earth. There goal is to stop an evil traveler that want to destroy all the worlds, and rebuild them as his own. In this final book, the evil traveler, Saint Dane, has succeeded in his goal. Will the travelers be able to stop him now that he has power?

I liked this book a lot because it has all kinds of characteristics. There is suspense, action, and a little humor. Also there are many plot twists too, you don't know when a certain chain of events might just quickly change. I would recommend to read this book, but not only this book, the whole series.

Prompt A:
Hazel from The Fault In Our Stars  develops throughout the book by becoming more open with the world. By meeting Augustus and traveling around the world with him taught her not to always stay depressed that she has cancer, to live life to the fullest. She becomes more positive, and has a greater impact on other characters. She propels the plot forward by overcoming her problems, and trying to do new things. Like go meet her favorite author. An example from the book is when she first meets Augustus, she decides to have fun and go see a movie with him, instead of going home and staying alone like she normally does.

Augustus from The Fault In Our Stars develops throughout the book by coming in peace with death, and having fun with other people. He especially helps Hazel overcome her problems. He propels the plot by explaining to Hazel, the main character, by teaching her to have fun with her life. An example from the book is he takes Hazel to Switzerland to meet her favorite author.

The article is about the tragedy of cancer. Also it explains how Green wrote the book in the view of the people with cancer rather than to the people.

The Fault In Our Stars Article