Then & Now

In September, we weren't really understanding book as we are now. We read books for fun but we didn't really understand why the author wrote the book, the characters, and the plot. For example, Dacnarie read a book called Summer of Secrets by Paul Langan in 7th grade and while reading the book she found it hard to picture the characters personality and looks. She also found it hard to understand why certain characters would do certain things. But as the months went by in Humanities class, we learned how to understand our books in different ways. One way was writing in our reading logs. Writing our reading logs helped us understand why our characters did different things and understand how their personality changed throughout the book. Loretta thought writing in the reading logs helped because while reading her books she would be able to write down what characters appeared and what she thought of them like she did in Marked by P.C Cast and Kristen Cast. She wrote down in one of her logs that she didn't trust the High Priestess, Neferet and later on her suspicions was correct.

Way back when in September, Dacnarie was not so interested in other genres besides realistic fiction and mystery. Now she is also into fantasy, romance, adventure, and horror. Dacnarie knows she is very into different genres other then realistic fiction and mystery because before she may not have enjoyed a fantasy book like, PoiSoN by Chris Wooding. This book is about a girl named Poison. Her baby sister gets kidnapped and she tries to get her back. Along with friends she met along the way. She also finds herself connecting with characters more. For example, she found herself connecting with Alice in Twilight by Stephanie Myers. Alice is Carlisle and Esme's adopted daughter. Alice is very animated. Alice shows her feelings and can be pushy at times. Dacnarie is just like that. She is animated and doesn't hide her feelings either. Also, Alice and Dacnarie both love clothes!

Loretta was the opposite of Dacnarie in September. She liked fantasy, adventure, and action. Now, she finds herself also liking more realistic fiction and non-fiction books. She knows that she's more interested in other books besides just fantasy and fiction because she really enjoyed the book Wild Swans by Jung Chang. That book was an auto-biography of Jung's mother, grandmother and herself. It talked about how life was like in China during their time. She also found herself connecting with characters like Dacnarie. For example, while reading Luna by Julie Ann Peters, she found herself connecting with Regan. Regan is Liam's, the main character, sister. He depends on Regan all the time to help keep his secret. Regan doesn't want spend all her time helping out his brother but she can't say no. Loretta knows how she feels because Loretta always has to help her dad and mom take care of her two brothers and sometimes they would take up all her time.

This year our class read The Outsiders by S.E Hinton as a read aloud. We really enjoyed reading it with our class because during the read aloud some students would act out the characters. This helped us picture what might happened in that scene. Reading aloud with the class also helped us learn how to interpret what the author was saying in their books and it helped see what other students interpreted out of the book. Loretta thought the book was saying how sometimes the way we look isn't how somebody is in the inside and it's just how other people think you are just by looking at you. Dacnarie thinks that the book was talking about someones inner self and, even though the person may look tough and doesn't look like they are well educated doesn't mean they are those things.

Reading this year in humanities helped us grow and learn as readers and as individuals. Taking all this with us will help us greatly in high school