If kids could choose to go to school?

If kids could choose to go to school I would only go part of the time. I would go sometimes in order to get a good education to get a good job. To be honest most of the time I wouldn't go just because I'm so tired in the mornings and never want to at school at 7am. I would probably force myself to go at least once a week just so I wasn't stupid and could get the job I want and go to a good college. I feel like if kids could choose so many people wouldn't go so getting into a good college would be so much easier. I would go to college everyday once I got to that point so I could get a major and all, but as for high school.... I think not...

Writing Center

This semester I went to the writing center for my literary analysis. I went to see Caitlyn and she was VERY helpful! I went knowing that the organization of my paper was a little off. I read the paper out loud and we hilighted awkward sentences to go back and fix later. I fixed a few things that were repedative or just sounded wrong. I also fixed some spelling and grammar. She helped me with my introduction and conclusion because they were both very alike. Overall, the writing center really helped me and I will be going for a lot more papers!

Reading times: 

LOTF (reading and annotating)

Pages 145-202- 57 Pages total- 1 hour 15

The Book Thief 

Pages 1-42- 42 Pages total- 30 mins

Working on LOTF Journal: 

45 mins total

Total Time: 2 hours and 30 mins

Reading Times

LOTF: (Reading and Annotating)
Pages 60-145- 1 hour 45
LOTF Journal Posts:
20 mins
Total: 2hr5mins

❄ What is your favorite family tradition? ❄

With the holidays right around the corner I decided to do a sort of "holiday themed" question. My prompt is what is your favorite family tradition?

For me this would have to be everything we do on Christmas day. The day always starts with me being woken up by my loud (and excited) brothers wanting to open their gifts. I walk into the den in my Christmas PJ's and all of our gifts are sitting out on the chairs. Everyone has their own section so I walk over to mine and we open up our presents and possibly get a little too excited.. (is that possible?). We snatch our stockings off the mantle and reach into them to see what we got. Before we know it the entire family is sitting down at the table having Christmas breakfast.
"Katie! Pass the breakfast casserole!"
"Shh Jack its early I'm tired!"
We enjoy out french toast casserole and biscuits and then proceed to fool around with out presents even more. Once we have calmed down a bit we usually sit and watch Christmas movies or take a little family time break. Next, we head over to my grandmothers house, open our gifts from her, and have Christmas dinner. Just thinking about all of this is making me so happy. I love the feeling of walking out of her house into the crisp air. When we drive home suddenly lights and decorations on all the houses start to blur and I find my favorite day of the year over.
I literally cant wait for Christmas this year.




Reading times:
LOTF- 1 hour 20
Literary Analysis work (outside of class) :  35 mins
Writing Center: 20 mins

Thanksgiving Break

I am so excited for Thanksgiving Break! It seems like this year so far has been a lot of work and no breaks, so Im excited to have a week off. I really like sitting down at the table and catching up with my family. We make some really good treats for Thanksgiving. My favorite is turkey with cranberry sauce. Also, I think my mom may be bringing me black friday shopping this year so I'm really excited! On Friday we will also get our Christmas tree and decorate the house. We play christmas music and get out whole house decked out! Its really fun! That is basically my favorite thing to do ever (no joke). On Saturday this year, though, we are having a wedding dinner for my aunt who recently got married, so Im excited for that. Anyways, Im just really excited to finally get a break and have fun with my friends and family!

Beauty and the Beast

The past 2-ish weeks I have been helping with the lower school play "Beauty and the Beast". Last night was the closing night and I'm actually so sad that its over. I was on headset on stage right (which is really fun I love headset). I also helped with random stuff like mics, costumes, and basically whatever I was needed to help with. Anyways, the first show night was wednesday. Things went pretty rough over on stage right. I repeatedly forgot to open/ close the castle door and take on/ off the trees. I also forgot to put the table on for Beauty and the Beast (the song). It wasn't really that big of a deal for anyone else but me, so on Thursday I was sure I was going to get everything right, and I did! Everything came in and out on time, all the kids did an amazing job! It was great. Friday, though, was even better. Everything was very smooth and nothing was forgotten at all! At the end of the show on Friday night Kate, Julia, Emily, and I had an encore and we went up on stage and performed a 5 man show of B&theB in about 3 minutes which included some fantastic mashups. It was awesome. Oh! Ginny and Jordan came back to help us and it was awesome I love them. The lower schoolers were all so sweet and I just loved helping! I will definitely help again next year!

Deserted Island Simulation

I had a ton of fun doing the deserted island simulation in class yesterday. I came up with 2 plans,  a very flawed plan, and an actual plan. Okay so for the flawed plan Bria, Chanler, Kate, Alex, and I are going to be the supreme rulers and we are going to supply wifi and computers and koolaid packets for ourselves and people who follow us. Alex is going to make us all sushi. We are going to start a factory and make sneeds and the color of your sneed determines your social class and we will sacrifice people to get food. Okay onto the real plan. The class will split into groups and one group will be in charge of taking care of the 1st graders and keeping them safe, another group will be in charge of making an obvious sign that we are there so if people come to rescue us they can find us, Dell will be in charge of finding food and boiling water (which eventually we will run out of food so thats not good), and some people will be in charge of shelter. I think that the problem is 1st of all we will eventually run out of food because theres all of us and a ton of 1st graders. The other problem is that if we dont get found i think everything will eventually just fall apart and we will all fight and get mad and hate each other because of  being stuck on a deserted island for so long. I think that the splitting into groups would work so we werent all panicked all at once. Anyways, I just hope we dont get stuck on a deserted island.

Reading times:

Working on my essay: 2 hours
Reading and annotating LOTF: 20 mins- pages 7-31
Total time: 2h20m

Reading Log

Paper Town by John Green - Pages 1-12- 10 mins
Peermark- 40 mins
Literary Analysis: 1 hr 30 mins

Total time: 2 hours and 20 minutes

Homecoming Week Shopping

This weekend I went shopping for homecoming week with Taylor. It was really fun, but also a bit stressful. The first place we went was Target to get tshirt and tights for twin day and some shoes for pong day. We went to the shoe isle and I found what I needed, so the day started off pretty well, Next we went to look to look for tights and we found what we needed, but they only had one pair. I didn't know where else we would get them, but I knew we could find some somewhere. Next, we went to look for light pink tshirts and, of course, they didnt have any. Thats when we started to panic. We didnt know where else we would look, but we decided to look for the tights again and we found 2 pair! We grabbed what we needed and checked out. My mom said that they would probably have the tshirts at old navy, and luckily, they did! Once we got our shirt we headed to hobby lobby to get the rest of what we needed! It was a really fun day and Im really excited for homecoming week!

Reading Responses

This week I read Sucker, The Sniper, and A Worn Path. I really enjoyed Sucker and the Sniper, but A Worn Path confused me. Sucker was a realistic fiction story that had a 1st person narrator. Sucker was easy to relate to and the audience seemed to be for my age people. It took a while for me to understand why Sucker did everything Pete said, but once it changed I understood. The sniper was also really good. It was cool to read about a taste of war and its also a good story to make inferences with. A Worn Path was more of a confusing story and I still dont really understand what happened. I think my favorite was Sucker because I understand it and it makes the most sense.

Reading Log:
Sucker: 30 mins
A Worn Path: 30 mins
The Sniper: 20 mins
Insurgent: Pages 480-525- 40 mins
Total Pages: 45 pages
Total time: 120 mins

Reading Log and Personal Questions

My personal question for the second quarter is:
What makes someone "popular"?

Reading Log:
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Pages 433-480- 47 pages total
Time: 50 mins
Reading Short Stories
(studying for the test)
60 mins
Total time: 110 mins

Reading Log

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
40 mins- 30 pages- 403-433

Short Stories-
"And of Clay"- 35 mins
"Waltz of the Fat Man"- 40 mins
"The Girls in their Summer Dresses"- 30 mins

Total Time: 150 mins

Plot Diagram

Short Stories

I have really been enjoying reading short stories in class and annotating for different things. Before we began this unit I had never annotated for a specific theory or idea. I had always just annotated to help me understand the story or novel. I'm beginning to understand more what the parts of a story are and what is needed to have a developed short story. I am also beginning to add on ideas to my short story as we read more and more stories. I am still, though, having a little bit of trouble coming up with exposition, climax, ect for my story, and I am not sure that I have a stable plot. I think taking notes in class on each literary element and annotating for that element has been really helpful. It has really helped me realize what needs to be in my story. I don't think anything we have done has had no rhyme or reason to it. 

My favorite short story that we have read so far is A&P. I liked it a lot because its a very real story and just something that could easily happen, unlike Harrison Bergeron or A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. A&P was one that we annotated for character in. The characters in the story were all very developed, especially Sammy. You could tell what he acted like and how he thought through the way "he" wrote. The looks and attitudes of the girls in the bathing suits were also very developed from the way Sammy described them. I think A&P was also easy for me to understand unlike some of the other stories. 

Reading Log:

Insurgent By Veronica Roth 

Pages 363-403

Time: 50 mins

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings- 40 mins

Dry September- 30 mins

Total Time- 120 mins

Falling asleep as my character

I had a really good day today. My family got along really well, we always do anyway. I love being close to them. I wish I was closer to my friends though. I don't have many of those. Maybe tomorrow at school I'll talk to someone. Try to make some friends. Ugh no they wont like me anyways. Maybe another day. ] I should get some sleep. Oh gosh what if I go to school and the one friend I have doesn't talk to me? I gotta sleep. School tomorrow. Im.. so scared.

Reading Response- Insurgent and Short Stories

This past week I have read 3 short stories and a bit more of Insurgent. I am really really enjoying Insurgent so far. The story is very choppy, but in a way that flows (i know that makes no sense just bear with me). Basically what will happen is there will be a huge problem and it will get fixed. Once its fixed someone (TRIS) will do something stupid and screw everything up again. Everything, though, has its resolution. This past week I have gone back to my reading question which is "How do peoples experiences change the way they live and function?" This has really been hit well with what I read this week. A lot of the decisions Tris made came from grief or a need to pay back for decisions she previously made. Some of the stupid decisions she made came from guilt or grief of previous decisions. For my short stories I read Harrison Bergeron, To Da- duh, and A&P. I really enjoyed Harrison Bergeron. It was a wierd story that made me think about what things may be like in the future. I didnt enjoy To Da- Duh as much. It didnt make much sense to me and I just didnt enjoy the story line. I liked A&P because it was sort of a funny story. All come together I really enjoyed my reading this week.

Reading Log:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth'
80 mins- Pages 293-363
70 pages

Short Stories-
30 mins- Harrison Bergeron
35 mins- To Da- Duh
20 mins- A&P

Reading Response- Chanler Turnley's Literacy Narrative

This past week I read a ton of Literacy Narratives and enjoyed every single one I read. One that sticks out in my mind, though, is Chanler Turnley's. Her story was about how in 3rd grade her teacher made her start AND finish a book, a skill she never had before. The vivid detail in Chanler's story was amazing. I still remember the part when she talked about the red book cover of Ramona and Beezus. Another thing that stuck out to me in her paper was her dialogue and the vivid detail she used to show how she reacted to it. In one part of her story she talked about how her teacher said that once they started a book they had to finish. Chanler talked about how her jaw dropped and she was shocked. I could really visualize the way she looked.

I think Chanler did a very amazing job on her paper and with the peer help she was able to develop her conclusion, which seemed to be the only part faulting in her first draft. I really enjoyed helping Chanler with her paper and I'm really glad I got to see the stages of the paper!

Reading Log:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth-
9/11/13- 65 minutes- 69 pages- 224-293

Writing Log:

Literacy Narrative-
9/9/13- 30 minutes
9/10/13- 45 minutes
9/11/13- 35 minutes

Total time- 175 minutes

69 pages and one literacy narrative :)

Idea book for E-book

First of all I would like to say that I absolutely loved writing my literacy narrative. It taught me a lot about writing stories, which is my favorite thing to write. Fortunately, I don't have to make any changes to my paper for the e-book. The only names that were mentioned are my mom and Mrs. Milligan, and they are both mentioned in positive ways. I do, though, have some ideas for the e-book. I am thinking that maybe a good picture of the book cover, maybe in the coffee shop i read at, would help my reading come to life! As for formatting I am hoping to maybe make it more of a poem type format. Especially in the coffee shop scene. I think the cover should definitely have a little something from each persons story in it. I really like the title [Insert Title Here]. I know it seems kind of weird, but I like how it kind of symbolizes how everyone story is its own and you can interoperate it how you want. As for audio and video I feel that we should steer clear of that. I only think this because I think it would serve as a pretty good distraction from the stories!

Breaking Friendships

"Hey! I haven't seen you in like a week! I missed you!" Samantha said, her face jumping with excitement.
"A week really isn't that long... but yeah I missed you too." Ariana mumbled
"Oh... um, well what store do you want to go to first?" Samantha asked,  looking around at all the stores around her.
"I don't know. You pick." Ariana said, her tone soft
"Okay. How about Urban Outfitters?" Samantha added
"I guess. There clothes are kinda weird though. I don't know why anyone would wear them." Ariana said.
"I love their clothes... Whats wrong with you Ariana? All you have is insults for me. If you don't want to be here then leave. You aren't forced to be here." Samantha mentioned, choking in her tears.
"Wow, don't be such a baby. I'm leaving. I can't stand to be seen with someone as stupid as you." Ariana replied.
"Why did I ever trust you. I though we were friends?" Samantha cried
"You thought wrong." Ariana said as she stomped away

My literacy narrative

This week as I was writing my literacy narrative I realized a lot about myself as a reader and writer. I used a lot of the reading as a reader and writing as a reader skills. I am still struggling on my conclusion though. I cannot seem to come up with a way to transition from my story to my conclusion without saying "That went on until ____". Another thing I'm struggling with is helping the reader understand things that really only I would understand. Its hard for me to imagine that someone else couldn't understand, but I have to step back and think, they weren't there. They aren't me.

On the other hand, there are many things that I'm excited about! I'm really happy with the vivid detail that I used in the story. I am also happy with the way my paragraphs flow, al but the conclusion. I really like my story too. The questions I have are..
Should I make my conclusion short or long?
Is it okay to have a pretty long story?

Writing log:
9-3-13- 30 mins
9-4-13- 1 hour and 15 mins
9-5-13- 30 mins
Total-2 hours and 15 mins

Reading Response- Literacy Behind Bars

Literacy Behind Bars was one of the literacy narratives I read in NORTON. I really liked this literacy narrative. It really helped me understand the format and idea of a literacy narrative. For those of you who didn't read it, it is a story about a man who basically taught himself how to read and write when he was in jail. He went to school up until 8th grade, but when he went to prison he decided that he wanted to improve his reading, writing, and penmanship. He began to write words from the dictionary page by page. To me, its really inspirational how he didn't just mope around in prison or spend his time being mad or sad, but instead he spent it learning and thriving.

I noticed a lot of things about this piece while I was reading it. The first thing I noticed was that the first paragraph was very strong and pulled the reader in. It talked about how people who read his works may think he learned it all from school, but instead it was all from his prison studies. The next thing I noticed was that it was his choice and he really WANTED to improve his reading and writing. He had to request a dictionary in order to do what he did and he came up with an argument and got the supplies he needed because he WANTED to learn. The next note I have is that even though the piece was written about a story that happened in the past there are still present tense references for example when he talks about how he remembers "aardvark"from the first page of the dictionary. The last thing I noticed was that the way he wrote the story was very vivid and gave me a good image in my head. I really liked this piece.

Literacy Behind Bars, NORTON
8-27-13-  20 minutes

Insurgent

This week I continued to read Insurgent. The more I read this book the more I fall in love with it. Every chapter has a new problem and you never know whats coming next. While I was reading this week I noticed that Tris and Tobias's relationship is going down rather than up and that worries me because they are perfect together and their relationship adds a lot to the story. At this point I can't really tell if they are in love or not. I have also noticed mixed messages about Jeanine's plan. It seems like everyone has their own interpretation of who was involved in it and why she did it. I personally think that she wanted to ruin Abnegation just for the sake of it. I don't think she really had to much reasoning behind it. I do wonder, though, why if she had given up her time to make a simulation that worked on the Divergent why wouldn't she just use that on everyone to prevent any Divergent from "ruining" her plan.

I really liked the attack scene and the way everything played out. I really liked how they injected them with the big needle, but no one knows how or what that was. It leaves you with a sense of mystery and makes you infer a lot about what it could be. I also have noticed that Uriah has been a part of this book a lot more than Divergent. Overall, I'm REALLY enjoying Insurgent so far!

Insugent, Veronica Roth
8-27-13- 15 minutes- 130-149- 19 pages
8-27-13- 15 minutes- 149-165- 16 pages
8-28-13- 10 minutes- 165-178- 13 pages
8-29-13- 15 minutes- 178-195- 17 pages
8-30-13- 10 minutes- 195-205- 10 pages
9-1-13- 15 mins- 205-224- 19 pages
Total Pages- 94 pages
Total time: 80 minutes
Rebel Music, NORTON
8-27-13- 35 minutes (hard to understand so I had to read it twice)
Literacy Behind Bars, NORTON
8-27-13-  20 minutes
Total time: 135 minutes aka 2 hrs and 15 minutes

Hope House

I am a part of a group called Article 13 which is a group of girls that do all they can to abolish human trafficking. We do fundraising, volunteer work, and educate others on the dangers of human trafficking.  Two weekends ago we went to a place called Hope House which is being built to be a shelter for victims of trafficking to help them get back on their feet. Two friends of mine and I went to volunteer at Hope House. We were prepared to do whatever they needed us to do and we got the extremely exciting job of scraping paint off of the sides of the windows. We were there for 5 hours and we got through 24ish windows. It took a while to get the hang of it because none of us knew what we were doing. We tried so many methods until we found the easiest one and by the time we found the easiest one we only had 4 windows left. It was a good experience and now I know how to scrape paint off of windows. It felt really nice to give back to my community and help with Hope House.

Reading Response- Insurgent

My question for my outside reading was "How do peoples experiences change the way they live and function?" I feel like the book Insurgent really portrays this well. In Divergent Tris goes through a lot and learn a lot about herself and her world/faction and she really used that knowledge in Insurgent. As I was reading Insurgent I couldn't keep myself from wondering how Tris and Tobias would stay together with Tris keeping the secret about Will and Tobias having to deal with Evelyn and Marcus. I really like the way Veronica Roth is building their relationship, though. It is a very dysfunctional yet functional relationship in the sense that the people and events going on around them are causing struggles in their relationship, but they are so in love that they wont let it get to them. I think that throughout the book my question will be answered more and more as I see how Tris handles situations using her knowledge of her Abnegation and Dauntless past and her Divergent image.
Insurgent, Veronica Roth
8-21-13- 45 minutes- Pages 35-69
8-23-13- 1 hour- Pages 69-130
Total- 95 Pages
Total time- 1 hour and 45 mins

Reading Log

Insurgent,Veronica Roth
8/13/13- 35 mins
Pages 1-45
Mini Zine
8/11/13- 30 mins
Book Chat Prep
8-15-13- 45 mins

My Taste In Music

I'm Katie Campbell. I'm basically just what you would expect of a 14 year old. I spend a large quantity of my time in my room on tumblr listening to Marina and the Diamonds. I was thinking of what the best thing to write for my free post was and I decided that I would talk about something that I really love which is music. I have a strange taste in music that has just recently changed. Some of my favorite singers/bands are The Neighborhood, Marina and the Diamonds, Alt-J, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, and the Kooks. I honestly don't even know what genre that would be. All of those artists to me have very calming music, other than Marina. The music just puts me in a good mood. I honestly listen to all of the time. When I'm getting ready in the morning, doing homework, cleaning my room, falling asleep, and any other time of the day that I can get my hands on my Spotify playlist. When I listen to music I don't just listen to it to hear something. I listen to it to hear the words and what message the artist is trying to portray. Therefor, my music usually corresponds with my mood. Marina is more for when i'm happy and bubbly, while The Neighborhood is more for when I feel a little more overwhelmed or stressed. Overall what i'm trying to say is that my music really defines me and who I am and I just really love music.

My thoughts on Divergent

This past summer I read Divergent. I really enjoyed the novel. I loved the ideas that the author had about the future world that she wrote about and what it was like to live there. The development of the ideas and beliefs of the world she wrote about were very strong and helped me understand the story. I really liked how each faction had its own belief which essentially "defined" its inhabitants.

I was really surprised when Tris chose Dauntless in the beginning of the book because from what background I thought I knew about her she did NOT seem like a dauntless girl, especially being raised in Abnegation which is essentially the "opposite" of Dauntless. My favorite thing in the entire book was the romance between Four/Tobias and Tris. I loved how Tris went from being terrified of Four to being in love with him. I also noticed how they brought out the best in each other. Tris made Tobias more compassionate and trusting of people and Tobias made Tris braver. Also, I feel like their similarities, unknown or not, are a real component in their love. I am literally in love with their relationship. Overall, I really loved the book.