Night Blog Post 3.26.15

Pages Read: 0-46

Prompt: What do you think of the book so far?

    This week in class we started reading Night by Elie Wiesel. Night is about a young boy who is almost thirteen and he gets taken from his home. The little boy gets taken from his home and goes to a concentration camps. Before this happens though, the German soldiers invade the Jewish community which they live in, Sighet. The Germans were acting nice at first which is what Moishe the Beadle didn't think would happen at first. After they were nice and the Jews became comfortable with them, the soldiers started to order around all of the Jews. After that, they took the Jews and put them in Ghettos. From there they were deported on their way to the concentration camps.

     On their way to the concentration camps, their was a lady who kept screaming "Flames! Look at the flames!" They were on a train and they couldn't see the fire she was talking about. The Jews were on the train for days and every night the lady would scream "Flames!". No one knew why she was saying this, but they were about to find out. The train stopped and the lady once more screams "Flames!". The Jews looked out the window and they saw the flames. The flames were coming from a concentration camp, the Jews just arrived at Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz.

     When the Jews arrive at Birkenau, they are split into two lines. One line is for men and the other is for women. This meant that the main character and his family was split up. His mom and sister went in the women line and him and his father went to the men line. From there they were going to be split again. One line was for people who were too young, too old, or too weak. The main character and his dad were confronted by one of the inmates there and he asked their ages. The inmate told the main character to tell the guards his age was fifteen and his dad's age is forty. This was so they could stay alive.

     I think this book is really good so far. The storyline seems very interesting and from what I have read, it is. The characters seem interesting as well. I'm excited to continue to read the rest of the book because the story and journey throughout the book seems good. I think that this book is going to be great. The story is true which makes it ten times more interesting to me. I can't wait to finish it! But from what I have read, I really like this book and I think others will enjoy it too.

AOW Holocaust Impressions 3.23.15

 

 There were many varying topics for the AOW last week. However, we all had to choose an article on the Holocaust and they were all different. Some articles talked about survivors and their stories while others talked about the camps they were held at. Others included Holocaust Remembrance Day, experimenting on people held at these camps, and accounts of people being charged for killing the people in these camps. Even though there were many varying topics, they all come back to talking about the Holocaust.

     One of the articles that really captured by attention was Bela's and Citlalli's. Their articles talked about how a doctor was experimenting on people while in the concentration camps. He mainly experimented on twins when they were first born. He once did an experiment on a new born baby who had no twin. He decided to see how long t could survive with no food and that was two weeks. After two weeks he decided to kill the baby because it would be a lot less effort than trying to nourish it back to a healthy state.

     Another article that captured my attention way Sarai's. Her article talked about how Isreal doesn't have a set date to remember the Holocaust. This is because they believe that if they celebrate this depressing time then the people will become depressed. Isreal thinks that instead of holding a celebration for all the people who were freed, they should just remember the tragedy and those who perished.

Berlin Memorial Activity 3.19.15

While doing the Berlin Memorial Activity in class today, I learned that Jews were not allowed to do many things. Of course I already knew that they were restricted from a lot of things but what I didn't know was that there are over 400 Jewish decrees! Some of them were outrageous! There were decrees stating that Jews couldn't attend school, couldn't own pets, or even go to bakeries. Those are just three of the 400 laws that were given to Jews. Other laws were extremely irrelevant like "Every Jew must change their middle name to 'Sarah' or 'Isreal'." Why is this important? Does their middle name really matter?

I think that this monument was built to remember all the people that passed away. By having a memorial it reminds people of the hard times that the Jews had to go through. By creating this monument it represents a tragic time in history, the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a very gruesome event that happened. By having a monument to show the public, I think they are hoping to not have a repeat. This memorial shows respect for those who lost their lives and represents the Holocaust and how serious it was.

As we did the activity and had people come up by the year these Jewish decrees were passed, there was a lot of variation. Some years there seemed to be many laws passed and others there were very few. I wonder why this is. One year (I believe it was 1939) almost the whole class went up to put at least one decree on the wall. This however was not the case in every situation. There were a few years when only one decree was posted on the wall and another were there were none. Most of the time there was more than one law posted on the wall they all had to do with similar topics. Some of the laws were about transportation, education, where you can and can't go, as well as what you can or can't own.

I think that one of the most challenging restriction I would have would be not being able to have a pet. I love animals! I personally have four dogs and if they were taken away from me I would be devastated.  Animals are truly a man's best friend and I personally can't live without them. I think it is pointless to take away someone's animals if they aren't harming others. Let them own pets if they want to, what is the big deal?!? 

Reflection Blog 3.12.15



- Of the books you have read this quarter, which was your favorite? Why? Out of the books I have read this quarter my favorite would have to be Twilight. I wanted to read twilight for the longest time and when I did, I enjoyed it. Twilight has always interested me and I really liked the plot. Once I read it, I knew it was going to be my favorite book. It was my favorite because of the way it was written. Twilight was written from Bella Swan’s perspective and is easy to read. The word choice also helps to form the setting and plot very well.

-       *In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts? I think I improved the most on my writing. I still make errors in my writing, especially in my AOWs and Blogs. When it comes to essays however, I feel like I improved. My body paragraphs have increased in content and the way they are/ should be written.


- *What is something you have accomplished since the new year that you are proud of?
 I have accomplished being able to use time management. Before I used to procrastinate until the very last second but I don’t really do that anymore. Whenever I am given an assignment I like to start as soon as I have time. If it is due by the end of the week I will try to start when I am given the assignment.

-       Where are you in your 40 Book Challenge? I am about 12 books into the 40 book challenge. I don’t have much time to read most of the week but I try to squeeze in some time over the weekends and at night. Some of the book I have read are “To Kill A Mockingbird”, “NightJohn”, “Along for the Ride”, “If I stay”, “Twilight”, and “Go Ask Alice”. The other books I have read are not listed on my blog because I read them over winter break.

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- *What has been the most challenging part of 3rd Quarter for you?
 The most challenging part of third quarter for me was balancing the homework. There were sometimes days where I had 2 hours worth of homework and other nights I had very little.

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Bio-Poem 3.11.15

Annie
Knowledgeable, courageous, overachiever, and perfectionist.
A character in Jenny Moss' story.
Lover of outer space and writing.
Who notices the good in people.
Who feels annoyance at sound of doubt.
Who learns how to take risks.
Who says "I yearn to leave, yearn to stay".
Who used to think dreams were hopeless but now knows they can come true if you believe hard enough.
Major character in Taking Off.
A book that made me believe too.

AOW Impressions 3.06.15

        This week the articles were the same as usual. Could we expect anything different? One of the main focuses was on ISIS. By seeing a repeat in topics over the past few weeks defiantly shows that ISIS is a huge deal. I do have to say, I was pretty surprised by the amount of articles that focused on ISIS. Usually about half the class has something that involves ISIS somehow. This week there was less than 10. They all varied in topic though. Citlalli's article was about how ISIS has been trying to persuade teenage girls to  join them. They contact the girls over social media and told them how "cool" it was to be apart of ISIS. I think that is outrageous! Other articles on ISIS included, 19 Christians hostages being released and 21 Christian hostages being killed.

       I was surprised to hear about some of the health issues happening. Autumn's article was about how a virus leaked somehow and scientists are trying to figure out how. This virus killed all of the test monkeys and is extremely dangerous to humans as well. Carlos' article was about the measles virus and how there was a huge outbreak causing people to get extremely ill. Nadrian's article was about how scientists just might have found a cure for Ebola! This vaccine has cured all their test animals that were infected with Ebola. They think this could work on humans but have not yet tested it on them.

      Overall, I think this week was really good. All the ISIS articles talked about different things and there was a larger variety. My favorite articles were Julia's and Nik's because they talked about "#TheDress". "#TheDress" has been trending all over social media and everyone was wondering "is it blue and black or white and gold?" Many things were cleared up in the last week and in their articles some of it was explained. We see the dress differently than other depending on the way the light goes in our eyes. I personally saw blue and black.


A few questions you can answer in the comments if you WANT:
-What color did you see "#TheDress"?
-What was your favorite article?

Comments: Stanley, Emily, and Sarai
6th Grade Buddy: Viviana