Monday, January 17, 2011

King Still King?

Sorry this blog is late everybody for some reason blogger wouldn't let me publish but its all better now and thats all that matters.

Is Martin Luther King Jr. important even today? Does he still have an impact in our lives? Can we see his impact on our every day-to-day life? The true questions are would we have this same present day life? Would our lives be the same? Would our ideas and thought be the same? Would we look at other races the same and think we are equal? If Martin Luther King Jr. did not do what he did, we would not be where we are today. I think someone else would have fought for the same changes but probably much later. We would not all know those famous quotes of equality that we hear every day. So yes, his work can still be seen today. We can see that races are treated more equal every day, we can see different races getting along and coexisting together.  I think if King was never around then nothing would have changed until much later and the outcome could have been completely different and could have changed what we know today.
 Therefore, this 3-day weekend should be enjoyed but not just thought as another day off school. We should think off what the day is for and how this person changed history forever. Without this person, the present might not be the same. So on this three-day weekend think about a little more than sleeping in past 1 pm. Think about the person we take a day to acknowledge because Martin Luther King is still a King today.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Response to This Sacred Soil AND Children of the Sea

It’s the first week back from winter break and I can’t say I am excited because I’m not. However I can say I excited about our new unit we are going into, the Short story unit. I like reading short stories better then novels like House of the Seven Gables because if it’s awful then you just push through and it’s over. It’s easier for me to retain all the information from a short story and remember all the small details them remember them from a long boring novel we read but that’s just me. But without further adieu my response to the short stories the first being The Sacred Soil by Chief Seattle.  This was a speech from the author Chief Seattle to Governor Stevens in the 1800s. In the speech the Chief Seattle explains to the Governor that as white population grows his people start to disappear forever, the natives are becoming extinct.  He explains to the governor that even as American continues to rise in population they will always have their land. Their land is connected and sacred to them to them in different ways having ancestors of generations buried in the land making wherever they walk sacred to them. They understand that the white men will never understand that because they are so far away from home and their ancestors but to them the land is completely different their ancestors are in the soil. This speech comes out of courage and leadership the Chief standing up for his people. To sum it up he is telling the white people even if you take over our land because we got wiped out because of your growing population this land will always be ours it is connected to us and sacred to us we are a part of this land. The next short story was Children of the Sea which was the story that kicked off our lovely unit. I thought this short story was very good it kept my attention always making me want to keep reading. I thought the journals from the boy and girl in Haiti were both sad but also interesting. I liked how the characters were able to express their selves through these journals to each other since their lives were not in the best condition.  Through their journal entries they expressed their emotions for each  other but also their pain and fear of their horrible life situations, this is one of the things that kept me going the emotions and feeling is the texts. I thought this was the best of the short stories of the week since but there are still more to come. When reading it I couldn’t put it down and then when finally it was over I felt disappointed because the ending was not my ideal ending. Even with that I thought it was one of the best things we have read so far in American lit and if that started the unit I can’t wait for what comes next.