Themes- The Scèance June 6, 2010

This week are talking about themes, themes means what is the overall book based on, what the author concentrating on. In some books that are many themes that are happening, some books may only have a couple. There are thousands and thousands of themes that could be in a book. But some books only have a few out of the thousands. Finding a theme in a book may be hard to find some main ones and why they are a main theme. Some questions for finding a theme would be, what was the story based on? What where things that where happening that would combine as one?. Things like that, than to get deep and know you theme in your book better you have think about were does it show this theme in the book? Than sometimes you also have to think about were that theme wouldn’t go in your book for because one theme isn’t going to be going on all through the book, there are many themes everywhere in the book and not all happening at once.

There isn’t very many themes in my book. But I think the one of the main themes would be friendship. I think it would be friendship because there were a whole bunch of friends together that wanted to go to a sèance together. They all had to stick together because there were 2 people murdered and went missing unsuspectingly. For finding out who did it they tried to find out by asking all of Sara’s friends because they would either know something from what they told her or a friend that didn’t like her that could have killed her. But after when Sara died they didn’t show friendship because they didn’t want to talk to each other about what had happened and then if someone wanted to talk about Sara no one that was at the sèance would want to listen to it.

Another big theme would death because there are two people who got murdered in a pond at the Thicket area. Than all of the friends went and talked to the dead which lead to more death that happened after that. The book is mostly about trying to find out who killed Sara and Roberta. The whole part of the book would be death, with people trying to deal with 2 deaths that happened when talking to the death.

Themes are very important in a book because they show the readers the whole point of the book. Sometimes just reading a bit through the book can make you think what one theme is but some themes for a book can show a bit a the beginning but you don’t notice it until the end of the book were it will really show it. Themes are spread out everywhere. Some themes can be spread out everywhere in a book and some are really and strongly shown in just one spot.

Author’s Craft- The Sèance May 21, 2010

The author’s craft is another one of those things that if it isn’t well written it isn’t a good book. In my book it is really well written. The meaning for author’s craft is choices an author/poet makes when writing a text (eg, organizational pattern, style, vocabulary, images, symbols, point of view, and audience).

For me good writing is a strong description so that when you are reading the book you can feel like you are the character or you are there in the story. In my book I feel that way because they give good and strong descriptions about what they are feeling or what they are seeing. Here is a good paragraph that shows how I think a good style of writing is “But at the graveyard, which is on a little rise of a hill west of town, I looked around at the ring of mourners and felt even worse. Under the heat of the afternoon sun, which beat against the leaves of the ancient dusty oaks, each of us from the séance stood alone. Like so many pillars of salt, we had tried to look back and failed. And in the eyes of the others who shared the pale, flat sky with us, there was sometimes suspicion, sometimes a little fear.”-Joan Lowery Nixon.  It takes a lot of thinking and a lot of time to try and get a good and well written novel, writers have to wait a long time for their novel to get publish because lots of things they first write is bad so they have to do it over again and do it better.

A bad writing style is saying this happened and then this happened, on and on again. Not really telling you what is really around them and what is really happening. Some books are written from both sides of the story and when they have more than one side of a story the descriptions are normally showed better so that you can understand different sides of the story good enough. Also I think it is bad writing and confessing for a reader when one paragraph is talking about one time than the next paragraph is talking about another time. In my book there are a few places where it does do that I think authors should put a full line with nothing there or put a star or something to show that they are in a different scene. Here is one from my book were they change the scene:

““Then what in the world happened to Roberta?”

Two days later Aunt Mel’s question was answered when a botanist from the university drove in from the Thicket at a speed high enough to raise the dust cloud that wouldn’t settle for an hour.”-Joan Lowery Nixon

A writer needs to have good writing skills for people to read their book. But authors can do anything they want to do because there is no rules in writing books they can use any word to make a good story. Ever since people were small and in school you learn how to write that is how writers get there techniques is from in school.

Characters and Conflicts- Week 2 May 14, 2010

Characters in a book is something that is in every book, they have to be described good for the reader to understand the people. In a book there is normally a main character and then a few other characters too. Not all characters have to be liked though, authors normally put a character that no one will like because the character is always doing bad things so the good person. That is were characters and conflicts come in together. Characters always have a fight whether it is a physically or verbally  fight. There are many types of conflicts, there is people vs. people, people vs. nature, people vs. society, and people vs. themselves. In a book there are more than one conflict that happens, usually the conflicts get bigger the more time you get into the book.

In my book so far things have slowed down a bit compared to at the beginning of the book. The few chapters that I read this time was mostly about trying to find out who took Sara and trying to organize everything about her and get all the stories straight. A guy was down at the Thicket and found Sara’s body in a pond. The guy brought her back and took her to Sheriff Novell. The stories people think why this may have had happen was she left the house some how and then she went to go meet someone at the Thicket, but the person that she was meeting up with murdered her and left her in the pond. They are having a funeral for her and her mom came in for it.

In my book there is only an internal conflict because Lauren which is Sara’s step sister is having a hard time  getting used of the point that her step sister just  disappeared. There is no one really yet that she is fighting with other than her self. There is always things going through her head, lot of questions that can’t be answered yet or they will never find the answer to. Authors try and make the conflicts grow and change because they like it to start off slow and get better and better the more you get in to the book.

In my book my character has really changed from the beginning, she really didn’t like Sara because Sara was really cool at school and Lauren wasn’t, Lauren was always scared and worried of a lot. Now in the book she really cares about Sara because she is gone forever and she will never come back and Lauren feels like it is was all her fault  that this happened because she was at the Sèance with her. Now Lauren always worries her self and isn’t that scared of everything because she has been through a lot of bad things since this had happened. But now she isn’t really self confident as much like she used to be.

In my book there really isn’t many people that seem to be the bad guy the only guy I don’t like is the sheriff  because he isn’t all that scared of what had happened to a teenager.  They put characters in a book that people won’t like so that the conflict will seem more interesting and you will get more into the good character.

Now that I am more into the middle of the book the author has slowed down on discribing how they look, the authors do that because now the readers have there first imprestion on them.

Beginnings In A Novel- The Sèance May 7, 2010

The book that I am reading is The Sèance, it is a mystery book. So far I have only read 42 pages which is 3 chapters. The book is briefly about these girls who have a Sèance which is a thing that you can talk to the dead, and a girl disappears out of no where during it and find out she was killed some how but no one knows who killed her.

This book is tooken place in a small town because it tells you at the beginning that there school doesn’t have very many people and that this girl moves from a big city to there in a small town.

There are many different characters in this book, but it has one main character so you only hear from one side of the story, the main character tells a bit about herself as well as the other people who are with her.  Most of the descriptions that sh is telling are how old they are, how they act, and how they look. Lauren which is the main character is a nice average person that wishes she was popular like her step sister, but still has a few friends. She also lives with her auntie because her parents died. This character to me is a very a well known normal person, it isn’t like a girl who is magical and stuff she is actually someone who you could believe as a real person.

At the beginnineg of the book it mostly is getting ready for what is about to happen in the book like the whole point of the book is the Sèance. So they start off by trying to get people to go to it and talk about who hates who.  Than by about page 28 they are at the sèance and the mystery part of the book starts happening.

The book is well writen because it tells about what is happening when they are talking or what is happen when they are just standing there, than you can feel like you are in the story and you are one of the characters. The only part I don’t like about it is you only hear one part of the story, because the main girl is thinking one thing and that is all you know, you don’t get to know what other people are thinking about the same subject.

My predictions for this book is they are going to have another sèance to ask the dead who took Sara and other girl is going to be tooken away and murdered. Than they will find out after a while that Sara was murdered and same with the other girl. Everyone is going to worry and be scared who murdered Sara and the other girl. Hopefully and eventually they will find out who did this to Sara and the other girl.

The beginning is the time the catch and keep your readers. A beginning of a story is very important, if you don’t get you readers eye at the beginning they are not going to read the rest of your story, even if the middle of the story or the end of the story is really good they will never know.

My future April 27, 2010

It is quite important to think about the future now, because if you want to think about goals that you have, most goals need money to happen so you need to think about what kind of job you are interested in that will make enough money to make the goals happen. Than for the job you need specific high school classes to get into the college or university.

When we were doing these assignments I learned about jobs that I may what to do, a lot of the jobs that came up on my test results were things I either have never heard about, never really thought about doing before or I don’t see myself doing. Like a diving Instructor or an outdoor guide, I love to be outdoors, I like to teach people new things and I like to be active. I also like new technology and working on computers so some of the other jobs were like a computer programmer, or web developer. Things that I’m not interested in is stuff like talking and going up in front of a whole lot of people because I am really shy, also building things with my hands. I have always wanted to be a photographer, it was on the list of jobs I should do but it was down at about my 25^th choice.

One of my goals I want to do in the future is go to the other side of the world, I would either want to go to China or India because they are the fast growing countries right now so they will have a lot of new buildings and technology, I like new things that are currently coming out or things that are new, I don’t like old buildings to see and old things to use.

I also want to have enough money to afford a good boat, ski-doo, camper, quad and things for my kids to be outside and have fun with. I need to have a pretty good job to have those things so in high school I will go in more advance classes than easy classes. To have a good job that will make me enough money to afford all those things I will need to move and live in an urban place. I want to have a normal family life, so I need to try and control a family and a job, and I won’t want to work on weekends, holidays or any other odd hours.

There are many reasons why you need to think of the future now because if you just wait and in grade 12 decide you want to go to college or university you are going to have a hard time. That is one big thing that I learned, but it make sense to think about things before it’s too late.

Graphs April 11, 2010

-People 18 years and older Female like to watch the most TV

-The ages between 2 to 11 watch more TV everywhere except in Nova Scotia.

- Ages 18 and Over for male watch less TV than People 18 and Over for Females.

-18 and over for males watch more tv than ages 2 to 11.

-In Quebec Anglophones 1 ages 18 and over Female watch the most TV

- I noticed that In Quebec Anglophones 1 woman 18 years or older watch the most TV so that may mean they have more TV channels or better TV channels.

-I noticed that teens watch the most TV all around Canada, so that means that teens are probally outside or doing other things than watching TV.

-I noticed that male 18 years or older watch less TV than women 18 years or older, that means that men have more things to do than women in there day.

Pacific Garbage Patch March 18, 2010

The Pacific Garbage Patch is one of the huge issues with water and animals. The Pacific garbage patch is a big huge spot in the ocean that all the currents meet. All the garbage collected their and stays there in the Pacific Ocean. Some people say it is bigger than the state of Texas in the United States. The Pacific garbage patch is located in between North America and Asia. The patch is pretty much full of just plastic and plastic does not disintegrate away so it just goes into really small chunks after time. The problem with the little plastic pieces is that the fish and birds are eating because they think it is food for them. Not that the plastic will hurt them when they eat it but when they do eat they are full of eating but there is no nutrient in it so they die from not eating real food. They think that it is a fish or something so they eat it.

I think that it is really gross they have this and it is really scary that it has grown over half in five years. That just shows that every year the world is using more garbage and are more care less.

Do you think this is fair? How can we prevent this from getting bigger?

Clean water March 10, 2010

Clean water is water with no chemicals or dirt in it, all it is, is pure water. Clean water is a short of supply in the world; there are many houses and countries that do not have access to clean water. It is also impossible for a human eye to see if it is clean water or not. Many people that when water is clear it is clean because they is no dirt in it but clear water can have chemicals in it that are clear and very small. There could be the clearest water in the world but really it could be one of the dirtiest and very unhealthy water.

Access for clean water is really hard for some people around the world but then there are others who have clean water all the time. 70% of the world is covered by water, from ocean, precipitation, ground water and surface water. But the problem is to get clean water from those surfaces are a lot of money, around $200 billion it takes to keep clean water running. I think it isn’t fair when there is enough clean water for everyone but some people have more than they need and others have either no clean water at all or very little of water. In really poor countries people have to work to get water they can’t just turn on their tap and get water. Like in Africa only forty-six percent of people have safe drinking water and 7% of clean water is in Canada. There is a shortage of clean water around the world for some people and it is a big issue that some people don’t consider.

Spam Problems March 6, 2010

Experts from BitDefender were studying spam emails and comments that people get. They wanted to see why and what they like to say to people to try and get them to do what they want people to do. Spam is normally saying nice things because they want you to buy their product or want to mess up your computer by giving you a virus. Spam emails are used for other things but those are the main uses.

The experts found out that the most word used in spam is ‘Please’. They would use the word please a lot because they want to be nice to get you to where they want you. If they were being mean in the spam emails than why would someone want to go do what they want if they are being mean.

Another word that is in spam is ‘email’, they would say email because they are saying like you can email us or when it is on websites they may say you have a email waiting for you but really they are giving you a virus when you click their or making you go to some random site.

Another word that they use is click, they have click in a lot of spam because they would say click here and you will get your prize or click here and you will see something amazing.

In Mr. Fisher’s class one day we were talking about spam comments that we get in our comment box on our blog or in our junk box on emails. He said that they are some people in the class that thought it was a normal comment so approved it onto their blog, the comment would be saying nice blog you did a really good job on it and on and on. To see if it is spam or not you have to look at who it was from. If it was from a company than it is probably spam. Not only do you get a lot of spam for comments but people also get them in their inbox for emails. Mostly your inbox will look at it and then put it in your junk emails so that you don’t look at them because they are a waste of time and the time to see or they are bad to see.

People normally get spam from places they went on the internet and the people that own the website take your IP address on your computer and send you an email to your computer or the people that are making spam look through the internet and find people that may be interested in their topic and give them a comment or email.

This is a picture that shows words used in spam messages the big words are the words that are used the most in spam and the small words are the words that they don’t use very often

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Here is a website telling you what spam is, why it is bad and why there is spam.

Heroes February 3, 2010

To me a hero is a person that is whiling to risk their life for someone else. Some people many think that is hero is a person that they look up to and they always help them like a little kid saying my mom is my hero. What that really is, is being a role model. Many people have a real role model but not a hero. Hero sometimes die from trying to be a hero others life from being a hero. An example of an everyday hero is firefighters; they are heroes because they go in a burning building to go get people out of a fire. They may come back out alive or maybe even dead. But they are still risking their life to try and save a life or lives. A single hero is like Rosa Parks for helping pretty much everyone in the world because of racism. It may have made some people mad but she is good for standing up for the black people, because they had it harder than the white people.

Rosa Parks was a girl that stood up to racism. She discovered how bad racism was when she was going on the bus and the bus river said that the black people had to sit at the back and she sat up front. The bus driver yelled at her to get to the back and she didn’t than the bus driver called the cops. Rosa Park’s went to jail and then she went to get a drink. The guard said that only white people could get a drink so she wasn’t allowed to get one. She got out and after a while the rules change that white and black people were the same.  Rosa Parks changed racism and helped a lot of people. She is a hero because she changed the way people lived by making black and white people pretty much the same. She went to jail just to change racism. So she risked her life by going to jail to help black and white people the same.