4th GINS post

In the past few weeks we have been exploring global issues novels as well as the study of consumerism and economics.  Our teachers have asked us to now make connects from our book that relate to our study of consumerism and economics.

The global issues novel I have been reading is "A long way gone" a riveting, breathtaking story about a young boys life in the war of Sierra Leone.  This novel takes you through the young boys life as he is trying to run away from the war but eventually the rebels catch him and he is forced to become a child soldier. The book also takes you through the struggles in the boy life and how he escaped the tragic place in one piece.

The boys name in "A long way gone" is Ishmael.  He is only 12 years old and he is with his older brother Junior, his best friend Talloi, and his other friend Mohamed.  One thing I really noticed reading this novel is what all the boys’ value. The thing they value most is food but another big value they have is music.  Before reading this book I would have never expected for these boys to value music so much.  The reason that music (rap in particular) is such a key value to them is because it is how they pass their time not having video games or homework and it also is something they love and have a huge passion for.  In a way music helps them cope with what is happening around them.

Even though Sierra Leone is a very poor place and does not have much of an economy you could say they run off a market style economy.  Some people there sell crops or whole food dishes in a market and others sell clothing and novelty items.  This way people buy and sell and contribute to the very small but running economy with no government contribution. Another key thing we have learned about that connects to my novel is the problem of scarcity.  Since Sierra Leone is a very poor place there are not even close to enough materials, land or, money for the wants and needs of the people. Most people there are living in very poorly built shelters and don't have much or any food everyday, and to top that they have to deal with the rebels and the war happening around them.

I think this novel perfectly reflects to one of our guiding questions "How would your consumer identity be different if you lived in a different nation?" If I were to be living in Sierra Leone I would not be doing this post right now I would be working and fighting for myself in a cold, cruel, place.  This book really shows you how your life would be living in that nation and how your consumer identity would be different.  It would be different in a way not having toys and games so often but rather to be buying food and definitely not as much as here in Canada.  While shopping you wouldn't be looking for cookies and cake like we do in Canada, you would be strictly focused on finding proteins and veggies to stay healthy and living.

Bibliography: 

http://www.alongwaygone.com/ishmael_beah.html                                 

-November 19 

3rd GINS post

Roundtable 2

Second GINS post

Round table discussion: https://soundcloud.com/petey99/gins-roundtable-peter-garrett

We have just recently completed a round table discussion about our global issue novels.  Please take a look and see if you agree or disagree with anything we said!

First GINS post

-What is the main issue being addressed in your novel?
The main issue in my book is child soldiers but a few other big issues that are addressed in "A long way gone" are poverty and war.


-Why did you choose this piece for your project?
 I read the back of the book and it was by far the most intriguing one of all.  I also herd from my teachers that it was a very deep book so that made me even more interested.  The biggest part that made me choose "A long way gone" was the issue of child soldiers as I dont know much about them and wanted to read and find the truth on them.

-What background knowledge do you already possess on this issue?
 I don't really know much about child soldiers other then they are young boys and girls that fight in wars and that it is illegal to be under 18 and fighting in Canada.  Since I don't know much on the issue I really liked this book because I would be able to learn a lot from it rather then already knowing everything.

-What questions do you have as you begin to read?
 A question I had on the very first page of the book was, "Who are the refuges?"  As I was reading the book I started to develop other questions about the rebels gang such as, "How did the rebels become so powerful?" and, "Where are the rebels getting their supplies?"  So far after 20% these questions have not been answered but I hope to find answers in the next part of the novel.  One last question I had was "Is this an accurate book"?.  Some of the things described in this book are just unbelievable so I was wondering if this information was true.

-What characters/players have been introduced so far?
Ishmael - Main character
Junior- Older brother
Talloi- Friend
Mother and Father
Gabrila- Friend
Mohamed- Best friend

Listsperation challenge 1

For my litsperation challenge I decided to do a drawing from the book I read “Rot and Ruin” This book is a thrilling and suspenseful zombie book.  I have read a ton of zombie books but this book in my opinion was a real winner.  My litsperation challenge was to draw what I think one of the zombies would look like from the book.  There is tons of great description in the book that I got to draw.  One thing I really took out of this is that I need to start taking art…  In the book the main character spends about half a page describing the zombies about how most of them have bullet holes in them and you can see bite or scratch marks on them from another zombie.  He talks about how most of them have deformed arms that look to have grown back after falling off.  In the book they also talk about how the boys play a game looking for a zombie with two ears.  Apparently they have never found a zombie with 2 ears and that’s why I have only drawn 1 ear on my zombie picture.  Also you may notice that the bottom the eyes are shaded, this is because the character in the book describes how there pupils are very small and the bottom of their eyes are always bleeding because they are burning and look they will explode from all the sun.  They also describe how is rare to find hair on a zombie as they mostly burn their hair off from staying outside so long and rotting.  The last thing he says is that they all have bad teeth and blood around their mouth.  This is what I think a zombie from the book would look like. 

Matt's Anthology

http://issuu.com/missgroeller/docs/poety_antholegy

Bamfield short story reviews

Hello viewers I have just recently came back from Bamfield Marine Science Center in B.C and man did I learn a lot.  Today I am here to share with you my reaction to two short storys I read at Bamfield, The Sea Devil and the Whale story


Sea Devil:
This is a radical tale of a man fishing for mullets but suddenly his net is snagged by a sea devil and he is dragged into the sea.  I really liked reading this short story because it gave lots of fun and exciting description that made me feel like I was sitting in font of a warm fire having a man tell me this story.  The author of this short story used a ton of wicked smart and creative similes and metaphors in the writing and for me that really added to the fun and thrill of the story.  The overall theme of the story I think is to not do anything dangerous alone because it could threaten your life.  One last thing I want to add about the story that made it so interesting to me was how the author wrote 10 pages of a story but the story was telling only about 2 minutes of this mans life.  That just shows how much detail there was in the story and thats why I enjoyed it so much.  I encourage my viewers to go out and find this short story as it is something you will want to read.


Whale Story: 
This was a fun tale of a little girl moving to Bamfield because of her fathers job.  She has trouble leaving behind her house and best friend but soon learns to love her new home.  They live right on the ocean and have a little dock they can swim out too.  One day the girls dad tells her to never go past the dock to the island, but can she resist the temptation?  Personally I felt the whale story was slow and a bit boring for my liking.  I found it lacked fun juicy descriptive words.  Although there was a lot of description in the story it dragged on and on and got very boring and I lost interest.  Sara the little girl in the story, I found her to be boring flat character even though she was the main character.  You cant really tell what the overall theme of this book was as you would need to read more into it. But what i've got from it so far is to always be positive even when something you don't want happens.  Another little bit that I got from the story so far is to always listen to your parents as they know whats best for you.  I encourage my viewers to go find this book and read the whole thing and tell me your reaction and if you agree/disagree with me on my analysis of the book so far.

Back from summer

Hello followers,

Hope everyone has a nice summer.  Mine was spectacular.  I read a lot of books over the summer and am currently reading the book Rot and Ruin.  A spectacular tale about a zombies.  I am only a few chapters in but the book is very cool and so far very riveting.  I encourage all my followers to read it with me and give me your take on the book.

-Matty D

Scorpion project. Film study post

Film study

Hello readers and today I am going to do a protagonist comparison with the protagonist for the movie Gataca, and the protagonist from the book, The House of the Scorpion.

Theses two characters even though they are from different stories they are very similar in many ways.  Vincent the protagonist from the movie is pretending to be another character named Jerome.  He is acting like Jerome because the real Jerome is not able to walk so he gets Vincent to be him for him.  Matt the protagonist from the book is El Patrons clone and you could say is also acting like him because well they are the same person.  In the end of both of theses stories the real Jerome kills himself and El Patron dies so Vincent and Matt now become those characters for real.  In the movie Vincent is suspected of murder and no one really likes him except for one girl, his brother, and the real Jerome, and that also kind of happens in the book as no one likes Matt but Maria, Tam Lin, and Celia and you could argue that El patron liked him but that was really only because he was going to use him.  Both characters go through the same kind of story and only really have 3 friends that they can trust.  Also both characters are very smart and tricky in many ways and I think that they are pretty much similar for the most part. 

Thanks for reading and I encourage you to watch the movie and read the book and give me your feedback on these two characters.

Scorpion project. Narrative structure post

Hello viewers and today I am here to write about the narrative structure for the book, The House of the Scorpion.



 I'm going to start by talking about my favorite part of the book and what was one of the many parts of the rising action.  So this part takes place when Matt is in the plankton factory and he escapes in my opinion the most important part of the rising action was there because it leads up to the ending and is just really suspenseful because you don't know what they are going to do now with no money food or water.  It is probably the most suspenseful part of the novel and is written with a great deal of detail and mystery. 

The falling action of the book I found not as exciting as it was very bland and boring and I think the author made it that way with lots of description in the climax and rising action but not much in the falling action to try to enhance the exciting parts more but I would have like the falling action to be a little more exciting.

The climax in the book I would say is when Matt is running across the boarder because that is a really suspenseful part and probably the most exciting part in the whole book and there was also lots of rising action leading up to that point then it kind of fell a bit.

That is my summery of the narrative structure of the book, The House of the Scorpion.  I encourage you viewers to read it an give me your thoughts on the book.

Scorpion project. Theme post

Hey everyone today I'm here to talk to you about the theme of the book I have just recently finished, The House of the Scorpion. 

When you read this book the first impression of theme you get is right in the first 10 chapters you can already tell that the theme is about equality and inequality just by the way Matt gets treated. Throughout the whole book it really expresses how Matt is treated so unfair and he is so disliked just because he is a clone.   Another part that really expresses inequality is the plankton factory.  There all the kids are treated terrible and put to work as slaves.  But I think the overall message really is to not be greedy and have equality amongst others and that really shows when El Patron cant have Matt's heart because he has been so greedy Celia makes it so that he has to die and can not cause harm to anyone anymore.

That is what I believe is the real theme of the book but I would like to hear what everyone else has to say so I encourage you to read this book and to share your thoughts with me! Stay tuned for more post on.... The House of the Scorpion

Scorpion project. Connections to real world post

Hello readers and today I am here to write about some real world connections to the book I have just finished, The House of the Scorpion. 

The first real world connection I thought of while reading the book was dictatorship.  For those of you who don't know what dictatorship is it means a country governed by a dictator. And that is what El Patron is basically doing.  He forced his way into the power and was ruling Opium.

Another real world connection that I thought of was when we were able to clone a sheep. I thought that might connect to the idea of cloning in the book.  Although we have not been able to clone humans we were able to still clone a sheep.

And the last real world connection I want to talk about is stem cell research.  Stem cell research is a huge moral debate that is happening in the world right now and they are be bating the use of embryos.  The U.S wants to use embryos for research so that they can study the cells within them but that means that they would be killing a potential life that could be brought into the world.  This relates to the book because Matt was grown to be used for his parts and in the real world they want to use these potential pieces of life for their parts.

Thanks for reading and I encourage you to check out my other blogs for more info on The House of the Scorpion.

Scorpion project. Characterization post

Hello readers and today I am going to be writing about some of the characters and their roles in the book I am reading, The House of the Scorpion.  The first character I would like to talk about is the main character and also the protagonist of the story Matt!

For Matt the book starts with him as a child about 6 years old living in a house with 1 other character and not being aloud to go outside or not being educated on the outside world.  He then gets taken to the big house where everyone discovers he is a clone.  He is treated very badly and no one likes him for being a clone but there is something about him that makes him different from other clones.  Eventually he is saved by a powerful drug lord and everyone is forced to be nice and serve him.  He meets this one girl Maria who turns out to be the love of his life.  But then Matt realizes that his true purpose is to give implants to the drug lord so that he may live on longer.  When the drug lord dies Matt is sent to be killed but escapes with the help of his friend. When he escapes he is taken as an orphan and put to work as a slave you say.  Soon he escapes that with the help of 2 other slaves he meets and then Matt goes on in what I think is his true purpose in the book, he goes on find Maria.  When he finds her he returns to the big house to find almost everyone dead.

I now want to talk about the antagonists in the story and my opinion is that there were many antagonists and here is why.  At first Matt has to deal with Rosa a maid in the big house that treats him really bad and keeps him help up like an animal.  But shortly she is taken out of that role and make into an eejit (someone who does what they are told because of a chip in their brain) So then the antagonist becomes Tom a boy that just dose not like Matt and is always trying to mess things up for him.  But then again he is sent away and taken out of that role.  Then there is El Patron and he is not in the antagonist role trying to make Matt give him transplants so that he may live for a longer period of time.  El Patron then dies and when Matt is at the plankton factory and there are these people called Keepers and they are very mean and don't let Matt have freedom so they are now in the role of the antagonist.  I kind of like how the author did that because it really switches things up and keeps the story fresh and interesting.

 And the last character I want to talk about is Tam Lin.  Tam Lin is assigned to be Matt's bodyguard but they become close friends.  Tam Lin shows Matt this wonderful place called the Oasis and basically helps and support Matt with everything and he is one of the only people that treats Matt like another human.  Eventually Tam is sent away to protect El Patron but he leaves signs that he will always be there for Matt and towards the end he helps Matt escape Opium when he is told to kill him. 

That is basically all the main characters of the book but there are a lot more smaller characters that I encourage you to read about in The House of the Scorpion.

Scorpion project. Setting post

Hey there everyone,

Today I am going to write and tell you about about the setting of the book that I am reading, The House of the Scorpion.  This book in terms of setting is pretty basic as all the action happens in one place.  Most of the events take place in what use to be Mexico in a big house owned by El Patron.  El Patron is a very rich, greedy and powerful man and no one is willing to go against him. At the very beginning of the book it takes place in a small house in the poppy fields where Matt lived until he is brought to the big house.  Another key place that some events happen is the Oasis.  A place that Matt (El patrons clone) likes to go to get some alone time.  In the book it also talks about other places like America and some little places but the setting has never actually taken place there yet.  To be more specific some places inside the house are this room where Matt plays piano and his bedroom.  They talk a lot about his musical talent in the story and I am not sure why the author focuses on that a lot. He seems to do a majority of his thinking in his bedroom and actions in the book usually evolve from there.  Also another place in the house are these secret tunnels Matt discovered where he can spy on people throughout the house but he also uses that as a place to just get away from people as only 3 other characters in the book know about the passageway.  That is basically it for setting so far but I will write more if there are new places introduced.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more awesome post on The House of the Scorpion!

Continuation...

I am now done the book and what a thrill it was.  But there are a few more places that I want to discuss where the setting took place.  One new place is the plankton factory.  Here Matt and others are enslaved to clean and harvest plankton.  The rest of the book mostly takes place in San Luis where Matt goes to find Maria and the ending happens back in Opium while they are in lock down.

Scorpion project. 2nd individual post!

     So at this point I have read the first 50 or so pages of The house of the scorpion and Ive found it very interesting and mysterious.  In the first 50 pages the book gives a lot of detail and I'm very interested and excited to read more into it.  Reading the book so far I am not sure how the title is related to the book but I think it has something to do with the maids of this one really big house because they all wear scorpion necklaces.  So far there has been quite a few characters introduced but none have been very consistent except for Matt the main character.  When I was thinking about the setting of this book and the time of year, it seems to be futuristic because there are clones but its weird because they still use microwaves.  I just thought that by the time they cloned humans there would be a new microwave invention.  So far Matt has been the only clone introduced to the book  and I wonder if there are more. So far the book had been great so far and I'm super stoked to read on and hope my viewers will read it with me!

Change up - Scorpion project

Hello followers,

I bring sad news that I am done with my litsperation blog for now.  But with sad news there is always a bright side.  I will be starting a new project reviewing the book "House of the Scorpion".  Every few days I will make a new blog post sharing my thoughts and ideas on the book.  I will also be working with a group making a voice recording discussing every few chapters of the book.  Keep checking back for new post and thanks for viewing my blog.  Im super excited for this project and hope you read the book with me.

Term 2 litsperation challenge

Letter to the author

Dear Jeanne DuPrau,                              

My name is Matt and I have just recently finished reading your amazing creation, The City of Ember. I found the book to start off a little slow as I was hoping for more action and excitement, but I loved how you used so much description and characterization throughout the whole book.  The most exciting part of the book for me was when Doon and Lina found the room full of all the candles and boats in chapter 17/18.  At that moment I just got so much more into the book I stayed up all night to finish it.  Unlike other books, The City of Ember had many different climax points and I enjoyed that a lot. But on another note you much be a very creative person because in the book there are so many cool things that you made up around the city for example, all the jobs that the kids get was just such a creative thing and it astonished me. I also really enjoyed the antagonist of the book, the mayor.  When I read the part where Doon finds the mayor sitting in that room with all the resources it was very surprising to me. I really enjoyed reading this book and I can’t wait to start the next of the series.

Yours truly,

Matt

                                                                                                             

The Maze Runner Term 2- Review 2

Maze Runner

For my second report I chose to do The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and Cole reviewed this last term.  Cole, in your report you say that the author always described things in great detail and I totally agree with you on that.  Every page there was a significant amount of detail that just flew at me. You also say that you were always trying to think ahead in the book and still got surprised at what happened.  I have to say that this book was very unpredictable and I agree with you there. I also felt that the book was a rollercoaster of emotions and I to found myself reading it for hours on end.  You say that when reading it you felt it was missing something like more character personalities.  I also do feel that way; I found that the author could have gave the characters more personality as most of them are static characters.

I chose to read this book because I heard that there was a lot of action and mystery in it and those are the kind of books I generally read.  I would say the antagonists are the creators because they created the maze and there trying to stop the kids from getting out, and the protagonist would be Thomas because he is trying to find a way out and save everyone from the glade.  The glade is the type of setting where you don’t really know where they are because the author doesn’t give much detail on the glade other then that its surrounded by huge walls.  But I think that the time period of the book would more in the future but you also don’t get much on that because all the kids in the glade don’t remember anything.  Overall this was an exciting thriller with twists on every page and I can’t wait to read the sequel.