Alex's Language Arts Grade 8

Friday, October 29, 2010

The Gentleman of Río en Medio Vocabulary

  • Negotation – My mom and I negotiated about how many hours I should play video games.

  • Innumerable – My mom believed that I spent innumerable hours staring at the computer screen, something she thought not healthy.
Artwork by John Sloan depicting Latin American festival.
  • Boundaries – My brother and I mask-taped our room as a boundary to our territories.

  • Descendants – Genealogy is the study of ancestors and their descendants.

Stop the Sun Vocabulary


  • Commotion – Although I really needed to do my homework, a loud commotion that blocked the middle of the road attracted my attention.
  • Gary Paulsen
  • Founder – I foundered in mid-sentence because the scene was so heart-breaking.
         




























                         
  • Ruin – The people were shocked because of the ruin that sprawled before their eyes.
  • Inert – John laid inert on the ground, surrounded by ragged pieces of metal that ten minutes ago were his motorbike.                 


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Gentleman of Río en Medio Literary Focus Question 9

          Because Don Anselmo is the primary character of the story, if the story were to be told in his point of view, we would know much more about his decisions and his arguments. He would have given us detailed explanations of why he did not take the extra money, and also why he did not reveal who “owns” the trees on his first visit to the lawyer’s office. We will also know more about the traditions of the Río en Medio town. Therefore, we will have a lot more insights about the story had we been reading Don Anselmo’s perspective if the story.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Stop the Sun Literary Focus Question 5

     Even though both Terry and his mother love and care for Terry's father, they support him in different ways. His mother is a protective person. She wants to protect Terry's father. "Leave the wound alone and it will not hurt," she thinks. "His mother seemed to try to protect him, as if his father could break." (pg. 272) However, Terry wants to understand his dad, "I will sew his wound. It might hurt terribly at first, but then you are free of it forever." This shows that Terry is a practical risk-taker.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Miraculous Rescue


             In a land far, far away, called Knightland, where King Alpha and Lady Omega ruled. Lady Omega owned the huge Mu castle, and King Alpha owned the rest. The king had a daughter, Princess Phi, and she was stolen by Lady Omega to [take her hair away]. King Alpha, grief-stricken, called for everyone to save the Princess, in exchange for his kingdom and his daughter as a wife.
            Lady Omega was notorious for her deadly experiments and magical power. She was seen to control steel people she called “robots.” She could melt her robots with a bunch of mucky liquids she called “acids.” She could see everything in the kingdom with something called satellites. Everyone was afraid of her. No one dared to take a step forward and save the Princess Phi and King Alpha.
            A young knight, Sir Pi, lived in the kingdom. All his knightly ancestors had for him left a rusty armor was some rusty armor. He fashioned for him a wooden sword. “All hail Sir Pi! Only his braveness, his strength could save Princess Phi!”
            Sir Pi was the only one to carry the mission.
            As he set on, he found an old steed that would become his horse, set out to the west, aiming at the disastrous Mu Castle. As his horse limped on the street, he would hum a song about great knights and their shining armors:

Quite indefatigable,
Between our quests we sequin vests,
And impersonate others.
It's a busy life in Knightland.[1]


 ***Later in the day, he saw a little boy carrying a huge load of wheat on his head. Immediately feeling sympathy to the little boy, he said, “Stop, my boy! Let the generous Sir Sigma of Epsilon carry the load on your head. Let he carry you on his magnificent stallion. Hurry, and get on!”
The boy shook his head, “No thanks, I can do my work alone.”
Sigma shook his head, “No, I insist. Sit on my horse!”
And the boy merrily obeyed. ***The steed was moving, its movements harder and harder after each instant. Sir Sigma was not so paying attention, and the great parcel fell down the muddy road, immediately crushed over by a huge unmanned tractor that ran by.*** The boy screamed, “Darn! I need to sell it for money!”
Sigma quite heartily drew his wooden sword, pointed it at the great ugly black tractor and yelled, “You insolent beast! You have destroyed the boy’s dinner! You must pay for your rudeness and your cruelty!!” Enraged at the tractor’s ignorance of him as it continued to flatten the muddy road, he brought the sword down and it was neatly crushed into wood dust. He let out a cry of surprise at the tractor’s strength and lunged at it. The tractor nearly crushed him into human sandwich.
He ran and ran, ran at his greatest speed possible. He could almost see the trees flying over his head. He tripped, and fell down a lake.
Pi struggled, thrashed and thrashed, as he tried to pull himself upwards. On his way up, his hand slid a round, steely object. He heard something. A door was opening. He was flushed into the newfound opening. Water pulled him like a fish unable to control the currents. He tried to scream, but all he could do was some bubbling sounds.
The door was an entrance to a room. Water was rushing in like a torrent. The inside was filled with test tubes with many different colors. There was also some weird looking light. He was pulled towards the light like a huge force was asserted. He struggled, but there was no point. He gasped.
As he opened his eyes he was in a prison cell. He was locked in with no way out. He heard a scream and a terrifying laugh. He saw two faces. One angelic, and one devilish. The princess was lying in a corner, shrank and shriveled as Lady Omega mouthed, “Happy Coming to the Mu Castle.” She howled with laughter and stomped outside the cell.
Sir Pi sat there dumb-founded. “Uh oh! Why am I here? How are we going to get out?” Princess Phi smiled,  “All these weeks I wanted a cell mate. I thought of a plan. Listen.”
Princess Phi talked so fast and smoothly Sir Pi found it impossible to understand her. He would stare at her wondrous face and beautiful, weary smile instead. Princess Phi said, “Do you even have ears? Now listen. You need to do this.”
She scraped her cuffs against the wall with Sir Pi’s help. “The work was too tiring to do on my own,” she explained indignantly to a confused Sir Pi. After she was done, she would haughtily help him with his own cuffs. The princess, an expert at lock-picking, was easily able to pick the locks in the room, and together, they ran.
Sir Pi, being pulled by a quick and powerful Princess Phi, ran towards Lady Omega, who was sitting assiduously in her golden throne, enjoying a bit of watermelon. She screamed when she saw the couple running towards her for her robots. However, she was held first by Princess Phi and Sir Pi.
            “Now, you ugly witch, you will have to tell us where you put your umm,” the knight stammered.
            “Teleporter,” said the princess.
            “Oh yes, teleporter, or you will see your face being distorted and your head bald and…” the knight continued excitingly.
            “All right,” sighed Lady Omega. She turned her teleporter on, and they quickly were transported to the room, filled with water everywhere.
            “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” they tried to scream, but all the was coming out of them were bubbles.

            As the knight recovered, he was lying on bed. The king was smiling coolly towards the knight. “You were lucky my daughter knew how to swim!” he chuckled.
            Sir Pi smiled, but he was still hurt and gulped for air as he located the princess’s face smiling.
            “It will be cool to have such a dumb husband,” Princess Phi remarked.
            They laughed.


[1]              http://www.lyricscrawler.com/song/72420.html– Song ased on Knights of the Round Table. (song)