Literature Group Responses

Strangers


Author's note: This is a literary analysis of Daemon Hall. My group members and I are about halfway through the book. I am working on voice and transitions, I am also working on vocabulary, along with sentence fluency to have an effect on the transitions.

A man will offer children candy. He tries to lure the kids in with sweets. Most kids will say no to strangers, but some won't, they will just think it is someone trying to be nice, weird people can come in all forms. Some kind looking, some mean looking, and some famous. In Andrew Nance's Daemon Hall, he shows why you should never judge a book by its cover.

Ian Tremblin, a famous horror author, hosts a contest. Five kids will be able to share their stories and the winner will be able to publish their own horror novel.  In this contest he forces kids to brave the night inside a haunted house and aren't allowed to leave. He says they are not to go but when one girl, Kara, asks to go, Tremblin  always makes an excuse.  Luring kids in, he offers them a prize, and they come. Then they are trapped in a building that was haunted.

Even though they're trapped, that's not all. The house also wants to feed on the kids. Tremblin could've easily invited them to his house but no, he got them into a mansion that was haunted. And at one point it I almost like he is trying to torture Kara. She says that she specifically hates psycho-killer stories. Then Tremblin shares one. She is scared out of her mind and obviously asks to leave, but Tremblin will make an excuse.

Just like in this book, sometimes it seems as if strangers are trying to hurt me, or emotionally. I went on a cruise to the Caribbean with my family a couple of years  ago and we stopped at a few islands. On one of the islands you could go snorkeling. My parents forced me to go, even though they know I have an extreme fear of sharks. It was almost as if a stranger could see this, he made himself bleed and went into the water, the whole time I was scared for my life. Strangers can be mean, or worse.

People you don't know and take an interest to you in public can be a threat. Even if they look nice, they may not be like that on the inside, and you should always notice when someone is watching you, like a sixth sense. Notify someone  and watch out.

 On The Bright Side

Author's note: I am working on voice and great sentence structure, I will also like to have a good conclusion

Something bad happens, and a person is devastated. This person will spend much time worrying about how it might've been his/her fault, and will eventually they will burn out like a light bulb into the black hole of despair. In Mark Twain's "The Glorious White washer" he demonstrates how a boy can take something bad, and turn it into something glorious.

Tom sawyer was able to use his cleverness to get him out of a Saturday chore by tricking other boys into doing it for him. Instead of doing the chore Tom got to spend his Saturday like a boy again. At the beginning of the day he tried getting a grown man to do it for him. When not putting yourself down into the dumps and pouting like a toddler, that you think your way through and get something good out of it. Tom didn't just trick one boy, he got almost every kid in the town, the other children weren't very smart, but it is still possible to have a bright side on everything.

Clever Tom got kids to do his work for him, but that's not all that happened. He also made the kids pay to have to work. He earned things that were of value to him even when they were doing his chore. Not just tricking other people is looking on the bright side. You can also see the good that came out of it. Or realize that you may have helped a family member. Someone in a polluted place may have benefited from you doing a chore like picking up trash on the beach. Every time, there  will always be a benefit for the better.

My mom is always reminding me to look on the bright side for something good. Over the past Christmas my family and I took a vacation to New York. We visited my cousins and headed of to my grandmas house to spend the Christmas day with her. We weren't planning on going to Virginia but that's what happened. I was at my grandmother's house when my parents received a call. My mom picked up and her face turned deadly pale, she informed to my grandmother and me that my cousin Joey had died. He lived in Virginia so we went there for the funeral. After we left the wedding ceremony my mom pointed out one thing. That even though it took someone to die, my mom's sister, Jean, and her mother, my grandmother, had started talking again. Jean and my grandmother hadn't been talking because my grandma always accused Jean of stealing things from her, even though that wasn't the case, my mom's mom always has to blame somebody. Even there was a great tragedy of a boy who was only in his twenty's, there was a silver lining to it.

Something rather despicable may have appeared in your life, or another that may have affected yours. Though, in your mind, you should always let the bright side take over, not forgetting about the bad, but always notice how something good has arrived out of it

Good Parenting

Author's note: In this piece I really try to express my opinion through voice. I want to use correct punctuation to have an effect on this. I also tried to use a fictional narrative introduction.

A dad doesn't allow his children to have birthday parties, selfishly takes their presents from Christmas or various other holidays to sell for his own money. This parent is a nightmare to children. Most kids don't like their parents all of the time, but that might be because they don't realize how much their parents sacrifice for them. A good parent will sacrifice time, money, or just about anything else. In Francisco Jimenez's  short story "The Circuit", he demonstrates how awful a child's life could be when a parent is always selfish.

Similar to the father previously shown, the father in "The Circuit" was selfish and unkind, "Go run and hide!" exclaimed the "Papa" when the school bus came their way. Panchito's only hope of having a better life for his children was going to school to get a better education. His dad crushed his hope by telling the boys to hide. Maybe the father wanted his son to have a job that wasn't labor, but that would mean school, which in turn would mean that he would have no one to help him work on the farms. Most kids hope to be able to not go to school. Sitting in class is better than excruciatingly painful labor on the farms or the factories.

Furthermore, the parents even seemed to not notice their children's distress at moving, because they had to move every season for new work. That meant they could live anywhere, for any job. At the very beginning Panchito describes his younger siblings crying and whining about moving. Even though the kids worked, its not like any of the money was spent on them. I bet most of it was spent on gas to move! During the first move of the story, they move into a small garage with dirt floor and termite infested walls. There wasn't enough room for the entire family so the father volunteered Panchito and his older brother, Roberto, to sleep outside. Sometimes sleeping under the stars is nice, but when you have to wake up soaked to the bone in sweat, it isn't.

The kids in the story might have selfish parents, but I don't. I have just recently gotten new shoes, costing my father over eighty dollars. Just to find these shoes we searched two different stores, and not finding anything we went home. The next weekend he ran a marathon, came home, and decided to take me out looking for shoes again. Not even rested from his marathon he still decided to take me to the store. And not only was he sacrificing time and money, he was also sick. He selflessly realized that I might catch his cold, so he constantly told me to wash my hands and he was also washing his a lot. So you might not realize what your parents do. The little things that they do, that show they love you so much, and try to make you not notice them so it doesn't seem like they are showing off.

As I have great parents, other people might have some that are a little over the top, a good parent is one that sacrifices for their children, not one that buys them whatever they want. Once a parent starts doing that the kid will become so spoiled that once he/she moves it won't know where to turn or have a clue about the value of money because their parents spoiled them. So a good parent must be right in the middle. Panchito, unfortunately had to suffer through not having anything, but some kids will soon suffer because they will not have anything.

"All Summer in a Day" - February 8

Author's note:I really tried to include some more of my opinion in this response so I could have a larger amount of voice.

Every year a poll goes out in the United States asking what the participant fears. In every single one of these the number one fear is spiders. One serious thing very little fear is isolation. In Ray Bradbury's short story, "All Summer in a Day", the main character, Margot, is very isolated from all of the other children. They even invited her to play, but she didn't even respond. The author left the ending open for the reader to decide what happens to her. Insanity? Suicide? Whatever it is, it isn't good. Scientist even conducted a cruel experiment on monkeys relating to Isolation. They wanted to see what a monkey would do if it was never touched, ever, in its lifetime. They gave it fresh food and water, but kept it in a cage and completely by itself. Eventually the monkey would just sit in a corner and starve. The scientists saved them, but if not, the monkey's would've committed suicide. All because of Isolation.

"All Summer In A Day" has a very large amount of evidence to back up the purpose of the story. When the main character, a girl named Margot, gets bullied, she doesn't even respond. Bullying is a serious topic, but she was almost asking for it. She just would stand in the corner and when kids would bully her she wouldn't do anything. And sometimes, she would almost try to aggravate the other children by talking to herself about the sun, and when they told her to be quiet, she would continue ignoring them. Pushing them even further to the edge of bullying her.

Even when not being bullied, Margot would isolate herself. Kids would invite her to play tag with them. "Tag, your it!" A kid would say to her. She would totally ignore and not even acknowledge the child's existence of ever touching her or speaking to her. What would really annoy the kids is when she bragged about how she had seen the sun and they hadn't. She would describe the sun endlessly witch eventually led to her being locked in the closet. This story is classified as irony, it also included a good dose of it as well.

Being isolated wasn't completely her fault. She was forced to be with a mean cast of people. Her parents would've taken her back to Earth if they didn't have to pay. Margot desperately wanted to return to earth, but her parents still valued money more than their child's sanity. After Margot was locked in the closet the teacher asked if everyone was here. The students reply was none other than "Yes". The teacher didn't even take the time to do a roll call! How could a teacher not notice that a pupil as strange as Margot was missing! What nice people these students are to lock another child in a closet so that she wouldn't see the sun that only comes out once every seven years. It's hard to be optimistic about her sanity staying in shape without seeing the sun for another seven years!