Post 20

I have finally finished my summer blogging. Through this whole experience I have learned many things. One of them being, time management. Since there was a lot of work and recording to be done everything had to be timed. I regret not starting this earlier and not keeping up with the blog more frequently. I think the assignment I enjoyed the most was reading "On Writing" by: Stephen King, his writing style is what I really go for. The book was always very humorous and entertaining. Catcher in the Rye was decent. I didn't enjoy it as much though. Maybe because it was an older text? It wasn't too bad, the only problem I had understanding was some of the slang the author use. Annotating was probably the hardest for me through out this whole assignment. I wasn't sure if I was suppose to put a lot or a little but I did my best to even it out.

Post 19

"The Crucible"-
After Proctor is accused his is given an opportunity to sign a form saying that he confessed to his sins and the charges of being hung would be taken away. At first he did it but seeing the other women rather dying then lying about something they did not do he ripped the form in half and proceeded to be hung. Just days before, while Proctor was in a cell, Abigail came to visit him and asked him to go away with her. He refused of course, resulting in Abigail running away never being seen again. I didn't really like this story, it really showed the unjust court system the Puritans had. They were too god-fearing and believed God was out to punished all those who sinned.

Post 18

"The Crucible"-
After Proctor has realized his wife has been accused he already knew who did it. Proctor knew that Abigail wanted his wife dead so she could be with him. Proctor's wife was sent to jail. His servant the little girl finally confessed that the girls accusations were all a hoax and were just pretending to be hurt. The lack of her ability to pretend to faint or be afflicted made it less believable. It made it even worse the fact that Proctor admitting having affair with Abigail, and her being the reason all these accusations were made. Proctor's wife had to simply say he did have an affair and everything would of been stopped from there, but her failure to say Proctor did caused the court to still believe the girls. After giving up, the Proctor's servant gave into the other girls and accused him of witch craft.

Post 17

"The Crucible"

In the crucible Abigail and the girls continue to accuse innocent people of witch craft. I feel like these girls do not see the magnitude of their accusations. I feel their minds are corrupted by Abigail. Abigail is doing this for just herself, to get the satisfaction that she accuses Proctors wife so Proctor will be hers.  She decides to stick a nail into her stomach and sent one of the little girls that was a servant of Proctors wife and give her a doll that looked similar to a voodoo doll. Now many women, like Proctors wife herself, are being accused by these girls.

Post 16

"The Crucible"-
At first I had a hard time trying to figure out where the movie script started in the book. I eventually found parts that were similar. Also, at first I did not know what was going on. Once Abigail was confronted my the pastor. I also realized she was madly in love with Procter but he was married and he was trying to get away from her. Events a little bit before that was little Betty, not being able to wake up. Everyone at first just thought it was a sickness but some people were convinced it was witch craft.

Post 15

"The Catcher in the Rye"By: J.D. Salinger-
While Holden is talking to Phoebe his parents come home from a party so Holden has to quickly escape without being seen. He goes to one of his former teachers' house for the night. His name was Mr. Antolini. He begins to talk to him about his future and Holden, as always, just nods and agrees. He finally decides to sleep and then awaken by Mr. Antolini patting him on the head. Holden was terrified and shock so he quickly leaves his apartment to go to the train station to get his bags. At this point Holden was set to run away. Before he left, he wanted to see Phoebe. He left a message for her to meet him at the museum so they could have lunch together. While Holden is waiting he is reminiscing again of the times he went into the museum as a boy. Phoebe finally arrives, but as Holden sees her coming towards him, Phoebe is lugging a big suitcase. She wanted to run away with Holden. Holden insists and brings her to a carrousel. While Holden watches her, he thinks. He decides to not leave.

Post 14

Literature Textbook:

I finally finished units 5 and 6! Unit 5 was titled "The Harlem Renaissance and Modernism". During this time World War I began and many writers were influenced by the current tragic events of the war. It wasn't all bad, there were some notable events that happened in this era: the roaring twenties and the 19th amendment passing. One of the more tragic events during this era, was the great depression, when the stock market crashed and many people lost their jobs. Even though it was hard to get by, there was still new writing forms being developed, one being modernism. Modernism is when writers were forced to shape their texts into more modern times, the 20th century. Unit 6 was called "Contemporary Literature". This unit talked about the many times in history and one of them was the civil right movement. Colored people were being discriminated. This pushed people to rise up and make a difference. Another topic they talk about is the "American Dream" a moral that americans believed in that was the success in life. Many people did not agree to this dream for they thought it was "shallow".

Post 13

"The Catcher in the Rye"By: J.D. Salinger-

Holden goes to his apartment even though it is too early and despite the fact he could get caught by his parents. The elevator guy was a bit hard to get by but he ended up lying to him and saying he was going to their next door neighbors apartment. He sneaks inside and goes to find Phoebe. Phoebe stays in D.B.'s room while he's gone so that was the second place Holden looked to find her. She was there, and he woke her up. Holden and her were just catching up and Holden brought up the possibility of him running away. He talks about being at a children's play ground near a cliff and him just watching the children from falling off, he wanted to be the catcher in the rye. 

Post 12

"The Catcher in the Rye"By: J.D. Salinger-

Holden decides to still go on the date with Sally Hayes. It was going great until he made a comment causing Sally to leave the date earlier. One thing that intrigued me that he was able to tell Sally that he loved her, but it seemed like he didn't mean it "full-heartedly". After that date he decides to catch up with an old friend named Carl Luce. When they meet up at the bar Luce seemed more pestered and uninterested while talking to Holden because of the many questions Holden had asked. After being super drunk he walks around Central Park and accidentally breaks the record he got his little sister, Phoebe. 

Post 11

"On Writing" By:Stephen King-
Stephen talks about meeting his wife, Tabby, in college. Tabby was also a writer, and a history major. He explains how perfect the were together but later on as newly weds they were both financially unstable and new to the world of adulthood. They have two kids, Naomi and Joe and at the time they were, as he put it, "too many for college grads working at a laundry and second shift at Dunkin' Donuts." Stephen talks about his times working at many places, one of them as a janitor at a high school called Brunswick High. His encounters in that school lead him to write the story "Carrie" that his wife helped him write it. 

Post 10

"The Catcher in the Rye"By: J.D. Salinger-
After all that stuff Holden went through he decided to call up a girl he use to date named Sally Hayes and asked her on a date. Before he met up with Sally he went by a store and bought this record called Little Shirley Beans for his little sister, Phoebe. So he went to a park that Phoebe usually goes to so he could give her the record. She ends up not being there and so Holden decides to walk through a museum that he use to go when he was Phoebe's age. He starts to remember all the things he did when he was young boy in elementary school. Suddenly he isn't in the mood to go on the date with Sally, but he goes anyways.

Post 9

"On Writing" By:Stephen King-
Stephen King talks about when he made this newspaper called the "Village Vomit" it turned out to be a great seller until he got caught. Most of the articles in it were making fun of the teachers he had at his school. All the teachers weren't offended as much as one teacher named Ms. Margitan. King was convinced that this teacher hated boys and especially him.

Post 8

"The Catcher in the Rye" By: J.D. Salinger- 

While Holden is at this club he runs into his big brother, D.B's ex-girlfriend named Lillian Simmons. She strikes up a conversation and tries to invite him to have a drink with her and her Navy boyfriend. Holden insists and says he has to meet someone when he really didn't have to, he just didn't want to stay. When he gets back to the hotel a elevator guy was trying to make a deal with him. This ended up a bad idea and he got beat up and robbed of 5 dollars more then he was suppose to give. During when this was happening I remember reading that Holden had said he was crying. I think it is showed one part of Holden I didn't see often in the book. He was scared. Usually Holden seemed like that didn't care about school or anything else.

Post 7

"On Writing" By: Stephen King-

I began reading on writing and I've gotten to chapter 18. In his book, most his chapters are really short, but the cover a lot. So far I read about how he was in a rock and roll band full of writers and how from one of the members he got the idea of writing this book. He talks about his childhood, about his mother, brother, and the multiple places that he lived as a kid. It also talks about his early times as writer and how he was rejected a lot but his stories got better and better.

Post 6

"Catcher in the Rye" By: J.D. Salinger-
I am in the part of the book where Holden is just roaming around this city and just doing what he said he was doing. Going to stay in a hotel in New York til he is suppose to go back home. He still has urges to speak to Jane, an old friend of his, but then again he remembers if he calls her mom will probably pick up. Holden is also still trying to figure out where the ducks go to when the lake freezes over and he asked two of his cab drivers if they knew, both of course, did not know. During his whole stay it seems like he's always depressed and not in the mood. One chapter he was in his hotel room and he called up an old friends' girl that he was trying to get a drink with. In another chapter he was in a bar trying to talk these three girls that weren't very interested. Most of his ideas of trying to keep himself busy didn't seem to work.

Post 5

Literature Textbook: I did unit 4 and it took me a little bit longer to finish because I decided to make my annotions a little bit longer so I had some more notes to look back on. I noticed that a lot of the hard times and great times in history are the times most writers emerged because they wanted to describe how life was going and the different things going on. An example was the transcontinental railroad that was built that cause many settlers to travel, the industry to boom, and writing influences to expand. Also the developments of regionalism and naturalism. Mark Tawin seemed very important in this time of history of writing. He wrote the book "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" which was the first book to be written in "American";he faced a lot of critism.

Post 4

"The Catcher in the Rye" By:J.D. Salinger- I have gotten to the part of the book when Holden decides to leave Pency instead of waiting for the day he's suppose to go because he got kicked out. On the train he takes to New York he meets one of his classmate's mothers. Holden strikes up a conversation with her and tells her all this good stuff about her son. When Holden finally reaches New York he stays at a hotel. While he is at the hotel he gets an urge to call his sister,Phoebe. He describes her as a very smart kid just like his little brother Allie. Just from reading the descriptions he gives his siblings he thinks all his other siblings are really great while he's like the "defect child" of the family.

Post 3

Liteature Textbook: Today I did about three units. I had a little bit of trouble getting started because I wasn't so sure what to annotate. Most of the history I remembered from my history class and so i annotated about important facts and my thoughts. So far from reading the history of literature it has shown me new writers and poets. I find Emily Dickinson very interesting. I would really consider searching up her works. In the textbook she is compared to Walt Whitman. He also seems interesting, he follows most of the romanticism traits that was very common at the time but Dickson didnt as much. I read that her tone in her poems seemed very "abrupt" and "unemotional."

Post 2

I haven't been posting much so I'm changing my post titles to just "post" and the number post it is. I'm trying to blog more often so I wont have trouble keeping track how many entries I've done. I'm trying to still figure out a better way of formatting my progress of my work. I'm going to try dividing this post into two or three to describe my progress so it's easier to read. I won't add in my thoughts in this one so I won't make it too long.

"The Catcher in the Rye" By: J.D. Salinger-
So far in the novel I've gotten to the part where Holden has to write a english composition for Stradlater(his roommate). The english composition had to be about describing something, a room or an area, something very descriptive. Holden decided to write about his younger brother,Allie's baseball mitt. It was a mitt that was made for left-handed people and it had poems written in green ink all over it. Allie wrote the poems everywhere so he had something to read while he was in the out field doing nothing. As I read on a little bit more Holden revealed Allie had died of leukemia.

Day 1

Today I finally began to blog about my summer assignments. I started on it a few weeks ago but I just recently was able to blog about it. So far I have read and annotated most of unit 1 in the literature text book. Also a couple of days ago I started to read and annotate Catcher in the Rye. I am still in the part of the book where I'm trying to figure out the mood of it. I feel like this book will be interesting. I've heard about this book and its been around for awhile. I am very curious what the title means.