Tucker's English 1 blog

I think that one of my strengths is providing vivid imagery for the reader.  I think I have also gotten a lot better at analyzing different aspects of literature. I think that I have gotten better at this mostly due to Purple Hibiscus work but also due to the literary analysis we wrote on LOTF. I thought that I got a lot better at analyzing especially diction. I got better at thinking about why and how an author would use a certain word in a sentence and what affect that would create. I think my biggest weakness in writing so far is my diction. I do not have the best word choice and it makes my writing sound bad. One of my other weaknesses is my bad transitional phrases. It makes my writing sound kind of choppy and hard to follow. I will work on this by practicing them in casual forms of writing such as short blog posts just to gain experience.

Something I felt was a hit this year was my Purple Hibiscus projects. I felt like I had put a lot of effort into these projects and I think I did really well in them. I did really well I think especially in the bread and butters and in the appetizer. I thought I did well with going in depth and analyzing the different quotes a lot. I also thought the appetizer was really good because I did a political timeline and it took a lot more time than the other appetizer projects and I thought I did really well with it. I think I missed on part in the bread and butters and the same time that I did really well on them. I thought I didn't't always choose the best quotes and I chose very similar ones and it make some my analysis sound redundant. I thought my main miss was on the Poetry Test. I felt likeI was going to end up doing a lot better on that than I ended up actually doing. I think that was the thing I did worst in this school year in English.

Katherine-What were your favorite childhood shows and characters? Logan-What were the best movies you saw in the past year?

If my home was in danger the first thing I would save would definitely be my dog. She would definitely be worth going through some fire. My phone would be second but I would probably already have that on me. Dixie would make herself impossible to be saved because she hates being carried and she would try to squirm away. She would definitely be the first thing to cross my mind if there was a fire in my house and we needed to get out. It would be so sad if Dixie didn't make it out and I couldn't let that happen. She is so much fun and such a happy dog and she lightens up the mood of the house a lot of the time. She is a very smart dog but she would not be smart enough to escape something like a fire and that is why she would need to be saved. Dixie is a great dog that is definitely worth saving.

Purple Hibiscus before this section had been a book that looked into an abusive family life with that being the only action and little to no character development. In this last section, that has changed as we see a ton of character development, especially in the case of Kambili. We have never seen any rebellion out of Kambili towards her father until this section and it was huge for her character development. She also starts to talk more to Amaka and her cousins along with Ifeoma. Her character development in rebellion even pushed development of Papa. Papa had always said that he did what he did out of love or that he was burning his love into them. He believed that what he was doing was not wrong but it was even better for them. This time was the first time where he seems to believe that what he did was wrong. He thinks Nsukka air would be better for her for a little while because he realizes that what he did wasn't better for her but it really hurt her badly. Papa has developed

I am responding to a Newsday article written by Justin Haskins responding to the Las Vegas shooting and on the issue of gun control. Haskins makes the claim that strict gun laws will not work in this country as they already do not work. He also wants to explain why this will not work    " the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that supports enhancing gun-control laws, gave in its recent gun-control report card “F” grades (for having lax gun laws) to five of the six states that have the lowest homicide rates"(Haskins). Haskins points out here that there is correlation between having gun laws that aren't strict and having low homicide rates. He also points out that the six states of Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and West Virginia are the only states that have 50% of households that own firearms. He points out that  these states are among the top ranked for having the lowest homicide rates. He discusses how the statistics from cities that have very low