The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

In the Sherman Alexie's book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the narrator Arnold Spirit, commonly referred to as Junior, is of Native American descent. Junior lives on a reservation and faces a challenge when he reaches his freshman year of high school. Mr. P, a teacher who works on the reservation Junior lives on warns him about the dangers of staying on the reservation, and that Junior would be able to live a better life in the future if he were to leave the reservation.
Reservations still exist today, both physical and metaphorical reservations that people just have to get away from to grow as a person. I used to go to an elementary school called James Ward. James Wards was a small school located near Chinatown. I enjoyed my time at James Ward and I've dug my roots into that school. It wasn't until the sixth grade that I decided to leave the school for the Whitney Young Academic Center.
James Wards wasn't a very great school but it was better than most schools, which is what I liked about it. In all honesty I really didn't want to leave. However, I knew that Whitney Young had more to offer me than James Ward did. I became aware of the fact that Whitney Young was on a whole other level than James Ward. So I went and tested for the Whitney Young Academic Center, and I made it in. Here I am, a freshman in Whitney Young, and I don't regret my decision in leaving because I feel that I was able to accomplish more than I would have been able to in James Ward.

Native_Son Blog

Bigger Thomas was tried for the murder of Mary Dalton. During the trial, Bigger was defended by Max, a lawyer who was to help Bigger the best he could. Bigger did kill Mary Dalton, there was no denying such a fact which was already proven. However, Max tried to get the courtroom as to understand why Bigger had done it. Bigger was forced into a life he could not change by any means. Max pointed out that African Americans were forced to live a life of poverty, and resort to crime for a chance at a better life for themselves, and maybe even their families. In the room of Mary Dalton, Bigger was given a choice to either make Mary exist no more, and hide her death as best he could, or to knowingly turn himself in for her murder, and likely be hung for it. Bigger however, was still a criminal in the eyes of the whites. Although Max's sound argument in defending Bigger brought many new thoughts whites had not considered before, Bigger Thomas was only given the death penalty for his crime.

Green Light, Yellow Car, Church Steeple

Nick, the narrator of the story, The Great Gatsby, references about the Green Light, the Yellow Car, and the Church Steeple. Small little details with significant meaning in the story. While Nick was at Gatsby's party, "There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house so [he] stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour" (Fitzgerald ). Kant was a German philosopher who sought for his reality staring at a church steeple. Nick was entranced, contemplating about his reality and what would become if Daisy and Gatsby do run off. Even though this was a passage easily passed over, I found it to have a deeper significance to the story.

Janie

Zora Neale Hurston's story protagonist Janie, in the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God," seems to be lost in a sense. Janie wants to find love, however, she herself does not understand how she can find such a thing. For Janie, her quest for love is in relation to the first paragraph at the beginning of the story. "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. for some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time" (Hurston 1). Janie seems to be the Watcher, and her dream of achieving love can be described as being on that ship in the distance. So far, Janie's dream seems to be out of reach. Her first marriage with Logan Killicks was a love that she did not want to make. Upon meeting Jody, she made it her decision to run off and marry him. Only after learning that Jody had a different goal in life. Their indifference had changed their relationship and Janie was not to reach love. Janie is in a sense "The Watcher" (Hurston 1) waiting for her dream.

Classmates I am Thankful For.

I am thankful for my classmate Adam Flam, Alejandro Garcia, Andy Garcia, Juan Goodum, Kyle Yu, Quincy Hirt, Rivka Goetz and Sally Keller. Thank you Adam for bringing your ability to analyze everything Mr. McCarthy says and making it easier for me to understand. Quincy, thank you for adding an alternative perspective to the classroom discussions, and bringing a whole new idea about the topic. Kyle, thank you for helping Mr. McCarthy keep the class interesting and to keep me interested in the class. Juan, you have been blessed with the sneeze of a giant, no offense, and it keeps me alert in Mr. McCarthy's class, so thank you. Alejandro, thank you for adding your personality into the class, you give the class a new personality which I enjoy. Thank you Andy for your perspective of literature which helps take it to my understanding. Thank you Rivka for having a great understanding of literature to help me achieve a greater understanding of American Literature. Thank you Sally for bringing alternative ideas about the literature we are reading to give me an alternative point of view to see literature from. Finally, Thank you to the rest of Mr. McCarthy's first period English II class for being there so Mr. McCarthy has a class to teach. I am thankful for you all. Have a happy Thanksgiving, but you are probably reading this after Thanksgiving anyways. . .

principles we should keep

One of the principles we should preserve, today to post-apocalyptic time, is theft to be morally wrong. The concept to steal from another human being is unjust. Even in post apocalyptic times, theft is wrong because you are taking things another person could have spent countless hours working to obtain. Theft should remain immorally wrong no matter the circumstances. Thieves harm the people they steal from and possibly others connected to that person. There is the natural law of Self Preservation but we as a species have evolved intellectually and morally to understand that theft is wrong and should not be accepted, under all if not most circumstances.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was one of America's most well known authors. Hemingway was a talented author who developed his skill in literature since his high school  career as a newspaper journalist. Hemingway, like most authors remained unknown, until he had written and published one of his finest works, The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway was a talented writer, but corrupted by the aftermath of World War I. Later in his life, after many successful stories he had written and published, Hemingway lost his "Hemingway style," or his style of writing in his stories. His greatest work, The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingway's "greatest" published piece yet. Hemingway was a man of youth, with a history of many wives, and divorces. Even after much success with his career as an author, on July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. Despite his death, his work of literature is still admired to this day.