i*n*s*p*i*r*a*t*i*o*n
You can really find inspiration for your writing anywhere. Even from the simplest stories to the most complex stories. You can get them from your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles, and your cousins. You can get them from friends, a book you read, or something thats happening or has already happened in your life.
In my writing Do You Not Understand The Meaning Of No? I talk about how kids around my age are pressured into doing drugs, alcohol or just doing something that they straight up don’t want to use. I personally have not been offered either of them but I know people that have, they though have not fallen into peer pressure. But I did fall into peer pressure once. I got my insperation for this peice from something that had happened that day. It fit in with my homework, so I used homework as insperation.
Another way I got inspirtation for my writing is thinking about my dreams. I can use realistic dreams, or dreams that I know could never happen. I thought when I was writing September 1, Manchester New Hampshire that this dream of mine would never come true. I had to write about something that was really important to me, and I thought that getting tickets to this concert was the most important thing that could ever happen in my life. I thought to myself that none of this would ever happen, but it really did! I ended up getting a great story from just one dream, and getting concert tickets.
In Do You Not Understand The Meaning Of No I got some of my writing ideas from what my friends had to say. Ryley and Bella said some things that I thought were important. When they said there words, wheels started spinning in my head and I started to get more and more ideas to write about.
When I wrote My Own Town I got my ideas, well; clearly from my town. I used the things that I thought made my town where I live fun, and then I was able to create a town that I thought would be a great place to live. I talked about what the people where I live really are like, saying things like… “I mean come-on it has the normal main street, the rich part, the poor, the little stores, mean girls, mean boys, nice girls and nice boys.” Using your surroundings is a good way to get a great story.
Over Two Hundred Pages Of Words Put Into 50 is a writing I did about a book that I was reading at the time, and what other people thought about they’re books that they were reading. Sense this writing was done based on a book, you guessed it, I used my book to get ideas.
Writing this makes me feel like Scrooge is a list that I made about Christmas and why its not always good. I got the idea for number one by thinking about my family. I remembered the first time my parents told me that Santa wasn’t real, and I was devistated. So when they told my brother, I could only imagine how he felt. Thinking back on family moments are a good way of getting ideas too.
Scaredy Cat isn’y really based on a vacation, but it starts off talking about me going somewhere. I used Canobie Lake Park to get my ideas for being scared. I knew I was scared of BIG rides, and I knew that I had to write about why Romeo (from Romeo & Juiliet) was scared, and I had recently been too Canobie so I thought a good lead into my story about Romeo, would be to talk about being scared of a ride at Canobie.
One last way to get a good story is to use family genealogy. You never know what happened 100 years before you were born. I personally do not have any posts about my genealogy, but I’m sure if I knew more about my genealogy that I would have incorperated it into some of my writings.
So the seven great ways I have learned to get ideas for a great story are..
People Say That Gymnastics And Cheerleading Isn’t A Sport
Have you ever heard someone say that cheerleading and gymnastics wern’t a sport, and that only tough things like football and wrestiling are sports? Well I think that’s rediculous, but what does that have to do with The Chocolate War?
In The Chocolate War, there is a boy named Jerry. Hes so kind, athletic and I guess you could say rebelous. I could pick hundreds of more charactoristics about Jerry but these are the three that really stand out to me when I think of him.
Jerry is kind because there is this boy named Baily that goes to school with him. He’s like that boy that you would see in the movies that carries the backpack so high up on his back, the tan bermuda shorts, thick glasses, tall socks and converse shoes. Anyways Jerry stands up for him when Brother Leon is picking on him. If you ask for my opinion I would say that anyone who risk’s their reputation for someone else is kind.
Do You Not Understand The Meaning Of No?
So in life skills we learned about how peer pressure is something that happens everwhere you go. You could be peer pressured into cheating, doing drugs, drinking etc. Have you ever been peer pressured? I’m going to bet 99% of you have. You May not have known it was peer pressure but if someone still asking for you to do something, after you have said no, and you just give in, thats peer pressure. I can guess that an average person is peer pressured into doing something maybe once a day, or every other day.
So why do kids just give in once they have already stood their ground saying no? A good friend of mine; Bella said when I asked her the question.. Are kids pressured into doing things that they really don’t want to do? Explain. : “Yes its called peer pressure and sometimes people do it to impress other people. It’s ususally not something they’d really like to do. It’s kinda like in the movie, ‘Shes The Man’. ” I think Bella has a point. I myself can relate to this. Sometimes when I’m with all my friends, they all want to go walk way down the train tracks where we arn’t really supposed to be, and I know that its fun to do, but I guess I’m just a chicken and scared of getting in trouble. But I do it just to make my friends happy and so they don’t get mad at me.
My relationship to this problem goes along with what my friend Ryley said. ” Their friends may do it so they want to stick with them and not feel abandoned, lonley, or sad.” Ryley I believe is 100% correct. I think the reason that I usually go with them is because I don’t want them to get mad at me if I don’t go.
Teenager years are the hardest years in life. I know this because I am one, a young one, but I’m still a teenager, and peer pressure is EVERYWHERE you look. It’s like one of those annoying fly’s in the summer. It’s always there and it’s so hard to kill. Life without peer pressure would be so much easier, but then again, it makes life interesting.
Powerful
In second grade, my teacher scared me to death. She was always yelling and up in childrens face, frankly we were all scared of her. She scoled us when we did something the slightest bit wrong. So before I give you my opinion on this, do you think thats students learn more when they are afraid of their teachers?
Personally I have two thoughts on this. I think that if the child is scared to death of their teacher, then they could either strive to do their very best or they could not even try. I think that some students would strive to do their very best because they are even more scared of how the teacher would react if they were to not being doing what they are told. But then again, the child may not even try because they are too scared to even mess up. They wouldn’t want to mess up because that would just make the teacher mad, and thats what kids are scared of.
I also think this depends on the age of a child. If the student is older then they may not even try because they feel just as powerful as the teacher. The older someone gets the stronger and more powerful they feel. But in other cases if the student is young, they will probably try their hardest just to impress the teacher.
So in conclusion I dont think that having a teacher that you are scared of helps you learn quicker. It doesn’t matter in my opinion.
Migrating North
Imagine if you were black back in the 1930′s and white people did not approve of you. If they tried to embarrass you as much as they could. Wouldn’t that just get worse and worse. Well this did happen so black people migrated north to Harlem New York.
The Harlem Renaissance was a time when a lot of black people moved to Harlem New York for a opportunity to get new and improved jobs. When living here black people created music, poems and writings and eventually white people started seeing the true them and not for just the color of their skin. Then their stuff started getting published and they started to slowly earn more respect.
During the Harlem Renaissance there was a lot of violence. But is that expected? I think it is because if i was black during this time, I for sure would not deal with people treating me like that for too long. They deserved it. I think it was a good thing they fought back because people really shouldn’t just be walked over. This still happens now, not with racism but in our everyday life, people are being made fun of, and people don’t stand up for themselves when they should.
Weed or friends?
Have you ever felt pressured to do something that you really just don’t want to do? Have you ever been asked a cigarette or a to take a hit of weed? In the book falling, you would be the outcast if you hadn’t been asked.
In some towns its very common for kids even the age of 8 or 9 to be asked to drink, or smoke or even join gangs. Falling shows what kids my age and younger can deal with in their every day life.
Another theme in Falling is online chatting. We all know its out there, we all know someone who does it, and we all probably have done it in our life. It’s dangerous but Falling doesn’t emply that it is. Why would books talk about dangerous things such as weed and online chatting?
*1925*
Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen is a poem that you really have to read over and over again to actually understand it. Well at least in my case. Like what does “And did He stoop to quibble could tell why” mean? And what about “Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus” mean? What about “If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus” mean?
This poem is about how people believe that God is always supposed to do the right thing, but sometimes things just don’t go the right way. Most things he does are right, but then there are two lines at the end of “Yet Do I Marvel” that are very significant.
“Yet Do I Marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!” When Cullen says this, he is surprised that God would let him be a poet even though he is black. Is it the right thing to do? His poems wont be published, so why would he do that?
Overall I still don’t really get this poem, but for what I do understand, it does have a good point.
Now That’s Dynamic
My overall experince with this dynmaic treeo project was pretty good. I got partnered with a good group, which I am thankfull for because if I had been in a group with people that I dont really know, then I think it would have made it hard for me to do work good.
Shannah and Nikki were good team to work with because even though we did laugh a lot, the amount of work we got done in the short amount of time we had I think was amazing. We all had busy scheduals those two weeks, and we all only had two free days, which that god were the same days.
I think that this project is fun, reasonable, and easy to do, but the grading for it was very picky. We had 5 examples, but you gave us a 0 for it.
This project was fun because it allowed us to do bassicly anything we wanted to do as long as it was dynamic and followed the rubric; which bassicly was to just contain rock information. The only thing hard about this project was that we recorded it on iMovie on my laptop, but once we were done making the actuall video, we had no idea how save it so we could get it onto a pc. When we got in finally to work on a PC we had to open it through itunes and then it kept skipping what seemed like the most important parts.
Overall I think this project was easy, but the grading was way to picky.
Our Masks Are Sometimes Fake
A school hallway is the perfect place to find people hiding behind a smile, but they really deep down may be trying to cover the tears. Middle school is a tough place, exspecially eighth grade. All the younger kids look up to you, and you feel like you have to act so much older then your supposed to be. There is pressure with drugs, and alcohol and sometimes this may just break down some students and they have to just act as if nothing is happening.
This is how my life right now relates to “We Wear The Mask.” I’m in eight grade and I won’t even lie, I have been asked if I want drugs, or alcohol, I have always said no of cource, but there I know are some kids out there that may just crack under pressure and become someone they don’t want to be. Kids are too scared to just stick up for themselves and let people know how they are really feeling.
In “We Wear The Mask” the slaves or “negros” as they were often refered to as, had to hide their emotions unless they wanted to just be teased and taunted. That is why I believe that this poem is so well known and still important in life now.
September 1, Manchester New Hampshire
Importance is different in everyone else’s life. What’s important for you, may be not at all important for me. And what’s important for me may not be important at all for you. I have a feeling that this is what my writing is going to be like. You are going to think that I am just another one of those crazy 14 year olds that obsesses over this new up rising, good looking, young, pop star. I am just like that.
Two words: Justin Bieber. March 1 1993, Canada was blessed with what was soon to be known as a AMAZING pop star. When I say amazing, I mean it 100%. Justin Bieber started his career or should I say he started getting recognized through YouTube.
So your probably thinking, “Why is she talking about Justin Bieber for a homework assignment on something important?” This is very important because Justin is now on his first tour, well he is starting it in June. Sense he is not comming to my hometown, I think it is 100% important that I go because I promise you that I am his biggest fan. It is so important that I go to at least one of his tour concerts because I have only seen him in concert once.
I am pretty sure that I would do just about anything you can even think of just to see Justin Bieber in concert again, or breath the same air as him. If I just saw him one more time, there would be no more important things needed in my life time, until he roles around again to Boston.
*picture taken of Justin in December at a concert. Photographed by me.*
