Quarter Two Reflection

I think that my biggest improvement in ELA was inbedding quotes. The way that I did this originally was by introducing them directly after a topic sentance or transition. This way there was no context, and the transition was very choppy. During this quarter we read some text that demonstrated different ways to add quotes, and I decided to try it. It is by no means perfect, but it is far better than the way things were before. I hope that by useing some of the new methods I can Add some diversety to my work. Old habits die hard, so i know it may be very difficult but I will try my best.

One thing that I have accomplished this year is joining battle of the books. Every year I wanted to join , but I never worked up the nerve, as none of my friends wanted to join with me. Thankfully this year I do! As I don't really know how this works I hope that my groupmates can help me get accustomed to the way this works. I'm not going to be idealistic and expect us to win the entire thing, I know that begginers luck wont help, but I do hope that we don't completely fail. I can't wait to get started.

The most challenging part of second quarter was probably keeping up with my homework. I don't like weighting things by hand, due in part to my terrible hand writing. Add that to the fact that I am a world class procrastinator, and I never get anything done. This then results in me putting things on for other days, then doing a weeks work in one day. Now it is still leagues better than last year, but that's mostly because I'm getting better at coming up with things on the fly. I do hope over the next two quarters that I can improve, other wise this will be an example interesting freshman year.

TKAM Comparative Blog

  I think that the biggest difference between the book and the movie is, that aunt Alexandria was not present at all during the movie. In the book she was a prominent figure, she was set up to show the differences between Atticus and the rest of Maycomb. For example, " Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb again."  This shows Alexandria's opinion on Atticus's behavior in comparison to children's, this is  not showed in the movie at all. Another reason that this is a major difference is, but she shows how the Finches differ from the rest of the town.  For example, "Maycomb welcomed her… Miss Rachel next-door had Aunty for coffee in the afternoons, and Mr. Nathan Radley went so far as to come up in the front yard and say he was glad to see her."  This is the way of contrasting how the town ask around Atticus to how they act around Alexandria, none of these people would be doing these things for Atticus yet they do that for Alexandria. Again this is hardly, if at all, shown in the movie.

In my opinion books portray the story better. There are a lot of things in the book did you not translate into the movie that really add to the story. For example, we see less of characters like Miss Maudie, and Mrs. Dubose. Then there are the characters that we don't see at all, Such as aunt Alexandria and Mr. Dolphus Raymond.  Another example our events that were important to the plot being completely removed. Things such as Mrs. Dubose death, Christmas at the landing, and the mixed children. These things really add depth to the characters and the plot yet they were not added. I understand that in a movie based on book it is hard to add everything, however there are certain things that did not need to be removed that I wish had been left in.