Nanowrimo- Happy Ending

Hannah Wendel 6/16/15

English                Period 8

Context and Reflection

I have chosen an excerpt from the end of my novel which I wrote for the nanowrimo novel activity in November. I have decided to chose this piece of writing because I wrote it in the beginning of the year, therefore this revision will show my improvement over this year. This piece of writing did not have much flavor, and I decided to add more to it. As this is an excerpt and it is supposed to draw the reader in, I really want to make it interesting. I made the dialogue better in the excerpt since most of it consists of dialogue. Also I have added the main characters' feelings and inside thoughts.

Original date made- 12/4/14

Revision date- 6/17/15           Period 8

 Nanowrimo Excerpt

With all three killers tied up in the corner, there was nothing left to do but call the authorities. After about 15 minutes of awkward silence while Jake, Drew, and the other agents waited, the authorities came. Five men and women barged through the door. “Well, thank you boys for catching some of the top criminals out there,” the chief exclaimed proudly “But chief, these kids did nothing. We did more than them!” an officer behind him protested. “Oh, compose yourself George!” the chief demanded.

As all three bandits were being dragged out of the house, one of the criminals spoke, “Don’t let these men drag us away! We never did anything to you.” At that very moment Jake felt a pang of sadness flush through his body because one of the criminals had taken care of them for a long time. “Don’t let them get in your head man,” Drew comforted. “You’re tough. You can handle this.”

After everyone had left, there was only Jake, Drew and Agent Farley remaining. “Boys, seeing as your caregiver is a murderer, I was wondering if you would like a father,” Agent Farley said quietly. As the boys stared blankly at him, Farley felt worried that they would say, “no.” 

“Only if you are up to it. It can be temporary until another family adopts you,” Farley quickly added. The boys continued to say nothing with their mouths open. As the seconds wore on, Farley started to regret his statement.

Jake thought to himself, “The coolest secret agent ever wants to adopt us! I feel woozy, I am so excited I don’t know what to say.” Finally Jake spoke, “Oh my gosh, Farley, that would be great!” 

Drew was so happy he could barely speak. He said, “Ya, Farley that would be amazing.” 

Farley thought to himself , “The kids like my idea! I am so happy to finally start a family. Ok, now just play it cool.” Farley mumbled under his breath “Please just call me Charles.” Farley recognized how cheesy he sounded and blushed. Then out of nowhere, the boys both instinctively hugged their new dad, Charles.

About the Author

My name is Hannah Wendel, and I have been in this district since kindergarten. I moved to Ithaca when I was two years old, and I went to Northeast Elementary then Dewitt. I am in 7th grade, and I believe I have improved drastically as a writer since 6th grade. I was a pretty good English student last year, but I did not understand the concepts. This year I believe that I have learned a lot more. This includes using my GUMS to edit and write a good piece of work. I was never very good with commas, and I have gotten much better at using them. The class this year has slowed things down so that I could understand literary elements, how to write dialogue, and figurative language. I believe that I have made a huge stride of improvement during the course of this year’s Eighth period English class.

Owen Poles' FINAL!!!

Part 1
Why I Chose this Piece
I chose this piece because it was one of the pieces I felt truly able to improve.  I tightened up the argument and added more references. I really think that writing like this was where I improved most so that is what I am showcasing. 

Part 2
Is Historical Accuracy or a Good Story More Important in Historical Fiction?

The historical fiction My Brother Sam is Dead by James and Christopher Collier is set in the Revolutionary War and very historically accurate when compared to the nonfiction text, The American Journey by Appleby et. al. It is also an interesting read, keeping you hooked at each chapter and surprising you at the end. This proves that it doesn’t really matter whether it is more important to be historically accurate or a good story; My Brother Sam is Dead shows that a book can be both.
There are many occasions where the book My Brother Sam is Dead is accurate. On page 173 it says, “The whole country is starving.” This is when one of the characters, Sam, is explaining to his family why he is so thin, and saying the continental troops are hungry. This fact is mirrored on page 162 of the nonfiction text The American Journey. It says, ”They lacked decent food”, or that they were hungry and what food they had was poor quality, when talking about the continental troops. The similarity between the fiction and nonfiction books makes me believe that the book is accurate on this occasion.
The book has many other places where we can prove its accuracy. One place is on page 86 where Tim says, “The rebel troops had been beaten and the British had taken over the city. But the way Sam wrote about it he made it seem like a glorious victory for the rebels, He said his regiment had made a magnificent retreat and that the British were lucky to get out of there alive but it seemed the other way round to me.” The main character, Tim is right so if we look at this ‘the other way round’ we find that the meaning is pretty simple. The colonists were defeated and barely escaped alive. And then the textbook, The American Journey, confirms this. On page 156-157 It says “Outnumbered and outmaneuvered the continental army faced serious retreat at the hands of the British.” So the meaning of that is basically the same. They were outmaneuvered and defeated. The accuracy is a constant factor throughout the book, seen in many more places. The main characters in the book are the Meeker family who actually existed, along with their hometown of Redding, which was, as described in the book was really a pro British settlement. The accuracy of the book is really quite astonishing.

            So as you can see the book, My Brother Sam is Dead is very historically accurate, and I believe that it is a good story. The reviews I found also like it rating it in the 3.5-4 star range. It has also won the John Newbery medal and it taught in schools as an example of historical fiction. It is perfect example that a book can be both historically accurate and a good story. Now if I was forced to choose I would say that a good story is usually more important, that is why the reader is reading fiction. However, some books, such as textbooks, are centered on facts not the story and then facts are the most important part. On the other hand, sometimes if a book is historical fiction centered on the facts, then you can add some interesting but true facts to keep the reader hooked and the story interesting. But it usually better to have a good story. This book shows, however, that an author doesn’t have to choose because a book can be both.

Part 1

Why I Chose This Piece

Hi I am Owen Poles and I am a 13-year-old member of the Dewitt community. I have English with Mr. Scott and have improved a huge amount this year. I have done because of the help from Mr. Scott and help from my parents. I hope that you enjoyed my piece and plan to try to write books someday. Thanks for reading.

Context and Reflection:

The assignment the I will be using as my 2015 English Final Exam is one of the many Slices of Life. This assignment revolves around baseball tryouts for modified that took place in March of 2015. Slices of Life teach us about grammar and different ways to write paragraphs. I think that what made me chose this piece was the fact that the story is nice and short and more than easy to work with, because it's what I made up anyways.

This is my Slice of Life that I have revised and took lots of time and effort creating.

Slice of Life

“ It was monday, the 16th. Tryouts were today. I was in fact a little bit more nervous than I thought that I might be, but I knew I would have the skill and ability to make the team. Once practice started, the other boys in 8th grade who made the team last year warmed up with the other kids who were trying out, kind of like a mentor teaching it’s apprentice to do something new. After stretching out, we went to the huddle and broke out into groups where we would then break out into groups to field ground balls. Now it was my turn to take a ground ball, life seemed great at the moment and if I messed up as I was about to get my first one, maybe this would go so fast that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything for the longest time.All that I could think of was the way Coach.Z was going to see my skill and maybe start me in the field.He hit the ball, Life seemed seemless at this point.  Now the ball was in my glove, I grabbed it out of my glove and threw the ball at the first-baseman at what felt like 100 miles per hour,and the ball got there in no time. I was right, I didn’t mess up and things went by quickly , and I never had a worry for the rest of the tryout. After practice Coach came up to me and told me in his office that I had made the team and that I was a nice player. I went home had my daily hot cocoa and then went to bed. “

About the Author:

My name is Andrew Alise, I am a student at DeWitt Middle School located in Ithaca, New York. Through out my young years on this Earth, I have learned and still have many things to learn as an English student. All of my English teachers including Mr. Scott and Ms. Redfield have taught me lots this year about the subject. Last year, I wasn’t the best in English, every marking period, a high eighty percent at best is what I would receive from the district. But over the SUmmer, I had time realize that the grade I got wasn’t where it needed to be so I studied and when it came time to come back to school, I really hit the nail and did everything that I could to do my best and outperform the other kids and so I could do much better than last year. and as the year went on, I achieved my goal and here I am now  with an achieved goal. Thank you Mr. Scott for all the things that you did to help me.

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What Wins? History or fiction?

Alex Whitehead English- Scott
6/17/15 Period. 1

Introduction:

           The assignment that I have chosen is my Historical Accuracy vs. Great story writing from the beginning of the year. I chose this piece, because I saw several things in it that I would like to change. I also thought that this piece was a good sized one, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to work with. I added some parts such as how it helps to engage the reader if the story is fictional, and I changed a lot of other grammar and some other words too. These changes made the reader think more, and I think that making the reader think is a good part of writing.

Writing:

Is it more important to have a great story or have historical accuracy? In

My Brother Sam is Dead, part of the book is historically accurate, but some stories that we have looked at such as Winter in Valley Forge are completely historically accurate. Most people may think that historical fiction books should be mainly historical, but actually, historical fiction books should also have a good story. My Brother Sam is Dead has just that.

My Brother Sam is Dead is a fairly historically accurate book, but some of the book is not. It is historically accurate though, because it is about hard times during the Revolutionary War. In the Colliers’ book, on page 150, it says, “ Timothy, I want to pray. Come here and pray with me.” This is the mother wanting to pray that everything will get better eventually during their time of hardship and war. This connects to histories in other articles such as the articles in the American Journey book. In one of these American Journey articles a man tells about how “ Soldiers suffered through a lack of food and clothing, and many became ill and died.” Overall, most of the history in the book is correct, but it is also a great story with a little fiction, because without this touch of fake, My Brother Sam is Dead wouldn’t be historical fiction. Fiction also adds a little bit of strange action into the story, because the story isn’t then all planned out as it is in the history books, so you don't know what will happen next.

Having a great story in Historical Fiction is also a good idea as I have said, because it takes the reader on a journey. In My Brother Sam is Dead, the journey is of Tim going on many adventures throughout the colonies.  It is also important to have fiction in Historical Fiction, because it adds a special creativity. Fiction also makes the book more of a story than a history lesson, so you become more engaged in reading. In the book, the family was actually not completely fake though. There was a family in a town called Redding who has the same last name. Also, a story makes the reader feel as though they are being thought about as they are reading, because the reader can make some connections to some of the characters.

Overall, In the book I read, My Brother Sam is Dead, by the Colliers’, it has several historically accurate parts, some of which include the hard times, and some of which were that people were dying and that towns were split between the Tories and the Patriots. Its good that the book is somewhat accurate, but the fact that some of the people are made up really helps give the book some more excitement. This balance of accuracy and story telling is what made this book so great.

About The Author:

Alex Whitehead is an epic pwner, who knows a bunch of other scrubs. Besides being a meme master, Alex is an english student at DeWitt Middle school. Alex tries to do his best work whenever possible, and tries to increase his skillz in writing and other subjects whenever possible. Alex has improved greatly, as long as he isn’t hallucinating, this past year in Mr. Scott’s class. Alex has written tons of work, and even accomplished 10,000 words in his NaNoWriMo story. Alex has improved a lot not just from his love of Steam and Netflix, but from his effort. Alex has done a lot of research on tactics of writing, and has listened in class everyday to learn new things. If you look at this revised copy, you can still see some of the earlier years wording, but you can also see some of my wording from now which is much for sensible.

Gayle Forman's Biography

Angelina Gremaud                 Period: 4

English      6/15/15

Gayle Forman’s Biography

Gayle Forman is an author of eight novels and has won over six awards. She is still writing, publishing and editing novels. Gayle Forman was born on June 5, 1970 in Los Angeles. She now lives in Brooklyn New York with her husband, Nick. Forman has two daughters, one of whom is adopted. After she graduated from college she became a journalist who specialized in reporting on young people and social-justice issues. She  started out working for Seventeen Magazine. Later, Forman became a freelance journalist, writing for magazines like Details, Jane, Glamour, The Nation, Elle, Budget Travel, and Cosmopolitan.

In 2002, Forman went traveling for a year around the world with her husband, Nick. That same year her daughter, Willa Forman was born. Soon after, the three of them traveled to Ethiopia and adopted Gayle’s second daughter, Denbele. Two years later, at the age of thirty four, Gayle Forman started writing novels. Three main causes made her become an novelist. One: poverty, two: escapism, and three: boredom. In conclusion, Gayle Forman has traveled all around the globe to places other than Ethiopia and she is a successful, married, l mother of two.

The Real Reason Why Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappeared

The Real Reason Why Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappeared

Part 1 (Reflection)

I chose an assignment that is from ELA bootcamp. The assignment was to make a theory

on why Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared. I am demonstrating my skills at making inferences from quotes. I chose this piece for this assignment because it is my piece that needed the most revising. It also is the piece that I had the most fun writing. I made some grammar revisions, but the main revisions were to the writing itself. I added a little bit more here and there about the aliens and changed some things that didn't make sense or that I didn't like. I also added another quote at the end to meet the requirement that said “quotes” not quote. These changes made the piece easier to understand and more interesting.

Part 2 (The Piece)

Some people wonder what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370. Well here is what happened. Flight 370 was taken over by teenaged aliens. Here is how it happened. Teenaged aliens love to ride in human made airplanes, but their parents don't let them. This is because alien parents think that human technology, especially airplanes, are very bad and dangerous. Young aliens love the thrill though, so one boring Mars summer day a group of aliens got together at a Rent-A-Space-Jetpack center. Together they pooled their allowance and each rented a space jetpack. Earlier they had told their parents that they were going down to a town on Uranus for the day, but that was not their real plan.

The teenaged aliens quickly made their way down to earth. The boss of the group, Zorg, turned on his xZug 170 tablet. He opened up Hack-Earth, a program that he had downloaded the previous night while his parents were asleep. It essentially hacks any system on earth because of how low-tech earth technology is. He soon found what he was looking for which was the flight plans of planes. What luck! Malaysia airlines flight 370 was right below them! The young aliens flew down onto the top of the airplane and strapped their Jetpacks to the top of the plane. These aliens are used to harsh environments, so their breathing is fine. They grabbed the side of the plane with their suction hands and began their climb down to the underbelly of the plane where the circuitry is. They cut through the bottom of the plane with high powered laser pointers that they had “found”. once they were in the cargo hold they cut the circuitry. They then climbed to the main area of the plane. They then tied all of the passengers to their seats. Once this was done they proceeded to the cockpit where the pilots were panicking.  They tied the pilots up in the lavatory. Once this was completed they put in some of their equipment that they had picked up at the alien hardware store on Pluto. This fixed some of the problems with the system that they had created by cutting the circuitry, but only enough to fly the plane, not to track it or communicate with it. They then filled up the tank of the plane and had the most fun that they had ever had for seven straight hours. They had to stop after seven hours because If they did not get home soon, their parents would worry and discover that they were not on Uranus and they would get in trouble. They ditched the plane in a random volcano and flew back to Mars with their Space Jetpacks. Before they got home they made a quick stop at the Rent-A-Space-Jetpack center to return the space jetpacks then they went home.

a quote can’t stand alone-When you think about it “a hijacking seemed plausible because  of the way MH 370 went dark all once, as if someone had pulled several circuit breakers in rapid sequence.” (“The Vanishing”, 29). This quote shows how probable a hijacking is, and if a human hijacking is possible, then an alien one is too! It may be probable that there was a hijacking, but what about those circuits? Well “those circuits are in a bay beneath the cockpit that is accessed either from the cargo hold or through a hatch beneath the carpet next to the business-class lavatory.” (“The Vanishing”, 29). This shows that the circuitry is not hard to access and that it is probable that they could be cut or pulled, so it is probable that aliens could have cut the circuitry.

Part 3 (About The Author)

I am Zachary Foley. I am a student at Dewitt Middle School. I am in Mr. Scott’s English class. This year in English I am typing up my work more which means that because of spell check  my spelling errors have gone down dramatically since last year. I have improved at citations and making inferences from quotes.Last year I didn’t know how to do in text citations or how to cite a play, but I do this year. This is because we worked on this a lot this year. Thanks to all of that work that we did this year about citations and making inferences from quotes I am better at both.

Essay

Ben Garcia
English
June 16, 2015
Period 4

Context & Reflection:

               The piece I chose to edit & post was an essay we had to create in January of 2015, when we had to read a historical fiction book about the American Revolution. The piece itself was first created to say which was better: historical accuracy or telling a good story. The learning I am showing in this piece was understanding the text we had to read, and compare it to another article. The reason I chose this piece of writing is probably because it was the longest piece I had (319 words!) and was most likely the one that has the most reason to it. Enjoy.

The Piece:

In Historical Fiction, what do you think is more important: telling a good story or the accuracy of the story? In the Revolutionary War, the British took control of New York City, and black slaves sided with both the British and the colonists. In historical fiction books, they are usually good stories, with only some historical accuracy. In the next section, we will examine the texts of Chains and A History of Us. Some think that historical accuracy is the most important in a historical fiction book, but, in reality, telling a great story is the best.

The book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson is in some ways historically accurate to A History of Us, created by Joy Hakim. In Chains, the book Common Sense by Tom Paine was given to Isabel, a black slave girl slaving in NYC, by a shop owner. In Chains it says, “I pulled out Common Sense from its hiding place and read by firelight” (Anderson 262). Joy Hakim also describes that same book by Tom Paine.On page 59 of A History of Us by Hakim, it reads, “Tom Paine . . . wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense. So, obviously, Chains is more or less accurate when compared to A History of Us.

Historical fiction may be good, but we should leave the accuracy to the textbooks. After all, it is called historical fiction. In this piece of writing, we have discussed the Revolutionary War, and slaves sided with both sides of the war. Also, we now know that in some parts of the story, Chains is also accurate to A History of Us. As we have learned, historical accuracy is really important in a historical fiction book, but telling a great story is even more important. Historical fiction adds fact to a story, instead of just stating them like in textbooks. So, that is what is different between historical fiction books and nonfiction textbooks.  

About the Author:

My name is Ben Garcia, and I have definitely grown as a writer in the duration of the school year. As a Fire Ant, I had the privilege to be under the teaching of Mr Scott, who was a great English teacher throughout the year, always determined to help us learn. So, because of him, I progressed as an English student more than during my 6th grade year. Therefore, I learned a lot about grammar and many other things throughout my 7th grade year in Dewitt Middle School.