Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

I currently finished reading: Toeshoe Trouble. By: Wopppie Goldberg (yes, THE Woppie Goldberg). This is the book I chose for free choice . This is book 2 of the Sugar Plum Ballerinas series. Woppie Goldberg is a famous actress, so I was sum-what surprised when I found out she wrote this book.

This book is about a girl named Brenda Black is an amazing 12 year old ballerina prodigy, but what Brenda wants is to be a doctor. Every single free second she has she study's for medical school. She can piratically answer any question about doctor's. But another why she studies her butt off is because she is kind of poor well, more like middle class very, very LOW middle class because her mom is single and She is a very well behaved child that has her priorities straight: School first, Ballet second. So when her very spoiled rich (she has her own pony)cousin Tiffany comes to town she freaks out! She is so rude, consented brat! Nothing Brenda's mom does is good enough not even one of Brenda's friend's (from ballet class) Dad's pizza ( which is the best Italian restaurant in town. So when Tiffany starts talking about how she is such a good ballerina and constant bragging Brenda just ignores her but when Tiffany says Brenda's not even cultural to know who Camilla Freeman is Brenda just snapped and lies and says that she has a Camilla Freeman autographed pair of her ballerina shoes (which her headmistress of ballet school actually owns) when Tiffany asks to see them Brenda starts to regret she ever told her because then she steals the shoes loses them then goes half way across the state to find Camilla Freeman at a book signing for her new ballet book to ask her if she can sign her pair and replace Ms. Debbe's (the headmistress) pair before she finds out. But after she finally gets it signed she gets caught by Ms. Debbe who is at the book signing to and she learns a lesson and get lectures.

I used six strategies while reading: 2 before, 2 during, and 2 after.

Two before:

1. I skimmed and scanned for text features
2. I researched the book online and read the synopsis

Two during:
1) after every chapter I would summarize what I read
2) if I did not understand something I would re-read it



Two after:
1)I summarized the main idea of the book

2. I discussed it with my mom
   

The main characters are: Brenda, Ms. Debbe, Tiffany, Camilla Freeeman, and all the ballerinas in Brenda's class. The P.O.O. Is Chronological Order because it goes by time sequence. The P.O.V. Is 1^stperson. The author's purpose was to entertain. The genre of this book is realistic fiction there is no sub genre. The moral is be your self.



I WOULD RATE THIS BOOK 5/5 NOT BECUAS E IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING BOOK IN THE WORLD BUT BECAUSE IT WAS A QUICK READ. I would recommend this book to girl ages 10-13 who love ballet and Woppie Goldberg (That's the type of person I would recommend this book to. DO NOT ASK ME IF I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU IF YOU KNOW YOUR'E NOT THIS TYPE OF PERSON OR EVEN IF YOU ARE, IF YOU DO I AM NOT ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION).
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO THE CLASS BECAUSE ONLY GIRL WOULD LIKE IT AND I DOUGHT ANY OF THE GIRLS IN SEVENTH GRADE WILL ENJOY THIS BOOK. I AM BEGGING DO NOT ASK ME IF I WOULD RECOMMED THIS TO YOU ( WHOEVER YOU ARE) BECAUSE I DO NOT!

P.S. IF YOU DO NOT PLAN ON READING MY RJ DO NOT COMMENT, I WILL JUST GET REALLY MAD AND WILL JUST IGNORE YOUR “QUESTION”

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

I currently finished: SOUL SURFER . By: Bethany Hamilton with the help of Sheryl Berk and Rick Bundschuh. I chose this book because it is a very inspiring memoir and also because I saw the movie (TWO THUMBS UP!). I got the newest edition of the book which means (lucky me) there was exclusive photos, two extra chapters and she added a movie journal ( her experience through out the production and filming of SOUL SURFER).

This book is about a girl, Bethany Hamilton how was literally BORN TO SURF. Her surf nut parents taught her when she was only four years old she even had her first competition when she was seven years old... and WON! Bethany went to public school up until sixth to start being homeschooling to procure her dream of being a pro surfer. Her parents backed her up 1,000%. The book takes place on Halloween morning on the island of Kauai, Hawaii she was 13 and even had a sponsor: Rip Curl. She and her mom go early in the morning ( so early it's still dark) to the beach to find a surf, there is no surf but Bethany asked her mom if she could wait there for her best friend Alana. When she, Alana, Alana's brother, and Alana dad finally find a surf far far out into the beach. When they go, the surf is gone so there all sitting on their boards waiting. Then out of the nowhere a shark bites off Bethany's arm. The rest of the book talks about her getting back on the board.

I used six strategies while reading: 2 before, 2 during, and 2 after.

Before:

1) I saw the movie to get an in site.

2) I skim and scanned for text features

During:

    1)after every chapter I summarized what I read

2)If I did not understand something I would re-read it.

After:

1. I compared the book to the movie
2. I discussed it with my mom

The book is not very different from the book except it took out chapter 2 ( which she is describing her parents that’s why its called: ROOTS). And the fact that in the book it does not talk about her getting 5^th place in her first competition after the attack.

The tone/mode is inspirational. The P.O.O. Is Chronological Order. The P.O.V. Is 1^st person. The author's purpose was to inspire and share. The genre of this book is memoir there is no sub genre. The people in this book are: Bethany, Mom, Dad, Timmy, Noah, Alana, Holt, and the girls surf team.

I would rate this book 10/10 because it's such a great story and to no that she went back on her board was cool.

I would recommend this book to people that like to read sad and true stories and also like reading biography's. ( That's the type of person I would recommend this book to. DO NOT ASK ME IF I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU IF YOU KNOW YOUR'E NOT THIS TYPE OF PERSON OR EVEN IF YOU ARE, IF YOU DO I AM NOT ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION) . I would recommend this book to the WHOLE class.

P.S. IF YOU DO NOT PLAN ON READING MY RJ DO NOT COMMENT, I WILL JUST GET REALLY MAD ( YOU KNOW WHO I AM TALKING TO)

RJ #12

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

I currently finished A CHILD CALLED IT by: Dave Pelzer. This was an extremely sad and scary book. Every time something traumatizing happened I wanted to throw the book in a river, but another part of me could not put it down. The worst thing that happened to him in my opinion was the “gas chamber” with a bucket of Clorox and Ammonia. The reason I think this was horrible was because Ammonia puts holes in your brain and Clorox messes up your lungs so to be stuck in a bathroom with a bucket of the stuff, in a good way it’s SO hard to believe that after all he went through, he survived.

This book is about a boy, David Pelzer who had a “good” life so to speak (because ages 0-5 isn’t much of a life) with a loving mom, a strong father, and two great brothers, what more could a kid in the seventies ask for? Well, everything was peachy keen until for no apparent reason one day his mother decided to get drunk and have her kids search for something she so called “lost”. She made them do this every day for a couple of months while father was at work until she told only Dave to search. After that, things went awry. She started beating him, starving him, forcing him to lie for her. Some of the things she did to him were the “gas chamber”, starving him, punching him in the face for talking, making him eat his own vomit if he wanted to eat so bad, forcing him to eat poop (but he refused), making him ware the same ragged shirt & pants every day,and shoving soap down his throat. However, that is not even half the things she would to “punish” him for being a “bad boy” (even when he did not do anything wrong). One thing that she claimed he was being a “bad boy” was when she get this: PLAYING ON THE GRASS. So for a punishment she made him strip naked (of course no one was home) while she put his hand over the stovetop! First, you do not punish a kid for doing nothing wrong like playing in the grass! Second, he was not even playing in the grass! Moreover, if things were not bad enough with him and his mom his own brothers were beginning to disown him! He was now the family slave. He did not even get a bed to sleep on anymore, but an army coat in the basement. One week she had been threating to kill him and taking a knife to scare him (even though he actually wanted her to kill him) but, became dizzy and actually stabbed him in the stomach it was an accident. (Not that she should had even had a knife in her hand). And to get food he would steal food from the kids at school, but he always got caught which meant beatings at “home”. Once, a child welfare agent was coming in two days to interview Dave to see if he were being abused so, that meant his mom tricked him into thinking she was going to stop her ways so he would lie to the agent. Plus, he was bullied at school. The book ended with his father leaving a.k.a a living hell for him. The first chapter of the book took place as a prologue, which was when the school nurse told the principle, and the police came to tell his mom that they were taking him away from her.

I used six strategies while reading, two before, two during, and two after.

The two before are:

1) Plan how much I was going to read.

2)  Asked people who read the book what they thought of it.

Two during are:

1)       After each chapter, I decided whether the title of each chapter made a lot of sense. (They all did).

2)       I would think about how I felt about every chapter. (I felt horrible after mostly everyone).

Two after:

1)       I thought about the main idea of the book.

2)       I discussed it with my mom.

The people (their not necessarily characters) in this book are: Dave, Mom, Dad, Stan, Richard, Kevin, and Ron. (Most important highlighted and underlined, second most important just underlined.)

The genre of this book is Memoir. The sub-genre of this book is Self-help, Psychology and Inspiration. P.O.O. is age sequence. The P.O.V. is 1^st person. The figurative langue is similes and metaphors. I recommend this book to people that have been abused to be inspired and to people that do not appreciate what they have.

I would rate this book 10/10 because the story was amazing, I mean just to know he survived is HUGE.

                       Sincerely,

Shianne Salazar J

Current Event #2

Date: 11-11-11

Name: Shianne Salazar

Title:A legacy of service: Three generations of Pines family have served in military

Author:PERRY STEIN

Source:Miami Herald

The topic of the article is veterans day.

The main idea of the article is (stated) “A legacy of service: Three generations of Pines family have served in military”

The author’s purpose for writing this article is to inform about families that have served our nation and continue to serve our nation.

The author’s perspective in this article is objective/subjective (biased) because objective because he just states facts he doesn't really take a side in the article. He doesn't use words like “I” and “ME”.

The pattern of organization of the article is flashback because its starts here 2011 and goes back in time.

The reason the author chose this pattern for the article is because the article has to do with present day and past life.

The text features included in the article are: a photo to show or give you an idea of what the article is about. A footnote to show you what is going on in the photo.

This article is about a military family that has THREE generations of soldiers that served America in wars and we honor them on veterans day.

The significance (importance) of this article is a family that loves our nation so much to go and fight for THREE generations. And the LEAST we can do is honor that family and show our appreciation on veterans day.

What I learned from this article is that there really are people that care, and want our country to strive and be the best it can be.

What I liked about this article is the ending it was a nice “quote” if you want to call it that by his wife Marjorie Perez- Muñiz.

Soldiers should read this and family’s of soldiers and pretty much everyone in general because it so cool that a family can have (once again) THREE generations of soldiers.

This article reminds me of (text-to-self) my brother who is in the Marines. (text-to-text) I never read anything that has do with soldiers I mostly fiction.. (text-to-world) The army has very brave people fighting for our country everyday and showing there appreciation and we show them our gratitude on veterans day.

New vocabulary:

Word:                              Clue:                                                                  Meaning:

Spanning “spanning 70 years from world War 2 to Iraq”    The distance or extent between

                                                                                                          two points or extremities.

RJ #11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

I just finished reading Half Minute Horrors By: Various Authors. Most of them new to me. My favorite story is Chocolate Cake by Francine Prose:

Lately, I've had the definite feeling my parents aren’t my parents my parents. I can't exactly explain it. But I’m convinced that they're space aliens who look and act like my parents and have taken their places.

I've been asking them trick questions to trip them up. “Dad, what was the name of my first puppy?” “UH.... Fluffy?” “His name was Earnest” I say. “ I've got a lot on my mind: says “Dad”

Tonight I’m trying something new. My real mom is horribly allergic to chocolate. She breaks out in a skin rash if she even looks at chocolate. I bake my fake mom a chocolate birthday cake. I watch her eat it. No rash. She smiles.

“Delicious,” she says “ Thank you Timmy”

“My name is Jimmy” I say.

I liked it because it was really a twist. Out of all of the stories, poems and comics that was my favorite. And I have to say that the stories actually scared me a lot. My to ten favorite stories are:

Chocolate cake- Francine Prose

At waters edge- Ayelet Waldman

An easy gig- M.T. Anderson

Don't wet the bed- Alan Gratz

The prisoner of Eternia- Aaron Renier

The doll- Alice Kuipers

Worms- Lane Smith

Tiger Kitty- Joyce Carol Oates

In conclusion- Gregory Maguire

The dare- Carol Gorman.

I used six strategies while reading in total two before reading, two during reading and two after reading. Two before: 1) plan out what I am going to read and when. 2) skim and scanned the book for text features. Two during: 1) I would summarize each story 2) Depending on the author I would think about what that story would be like. Two after: 1) I thought about the main idea of each story. 2) discussed it with my mom.

The genre of this book is short story the sub genres are Horror and Humor. A lot of the stories had to do with death. The P.O.O of each story was chronological order the P.O.V was in either 3^rd person or 1^st person (depending on the story). The figurative language were similes. The text features were pictures, subtitle, and legends.

The summary on the back is:

How scary can thirty seconds be!?

Read the shortest, scariest, stories every created by: *then it lists the authors. Some of the authors were some I knew very well like James Patterson, Lemony Snicket, and R.L Stine.

I recommend this book to kids that are not easily frightened (unlike me) and love scary stories.

I would rate these stories 10/10 because they were really cool and fun to read so cool that I finished the entire book in one day.

Sincerely,

Shianne Salazar

P.S. I'm sleeping in my moms bed tonight!