Table of Contents

Letter of Introduction
A Life Well Lived
Vacation
Failure
Damage
A Love Poem
A Day In the Life

Letter of Introduction

Hello, my name’s Kenzie Tyler. I’m fourteen years old. I live in Carbondale, Illinois. I currently attend Carbondale Community High School. I am a freshman this year and I love school. I was looking forward to continuing my school carrier here, unfortunately, I am moving this summer.

My favorite poem was my “beasts” poem. This poem is descriptive and there seems to be imagery if you close your eyes and think. When I did this I thought this was one of my best poems.

My least favorite is my “falling” poem. I feel like this poem could gave been a little more descriptive. It’s not out there and it could focus on more than one thing, I like it, but it wasn’t one of my best ones.

In this poem unit, I learned that not all poems have a specific format. Some of the poems don’t even rhyme. There are a wide variety of poems in this world, all very different and unique.

I learned that I’m not that best at writing poems. I can write good ones, but they aren’t extremely good in my mind. I also learned that I’m one person who can’t completely understand how the poems should be written. There are man different styles to choose from and it’s hard to pick just one to write from.

"A Life Well LIved" Poem #8

Honor, loved, woman,

Amazing . She was

All of these.  I loved

Her and so did many

Other people. She

Was a very well

Raised woman.

Unfortunately,

As time went

On, she did too.

Illnesses caused her

Life to be taken.

Away and gone

But the memories

Will never fade.  

Vacation#7

                                                   It was warm, perfect.

                                                             Warm sand sliding

                                                   Between my toes.

                                                            Warm water,

                                                   Splashing up on

                                                            My legs.

                                                   Perfect. Yes,

                                                           This place was.

                                                  With the boat’s

                                                           Last call, I jumped

                                                   In one last time.

Failure#6

                                                            It didn’t work, incapable.

                                                                     We tried, hard, but everytime

                                                            Was such a let down.

                                                                     Unexplainable,

                                                             Unchangeable.

                                                                    This problem wasn’t

                                                             Going to be fixed.

                                                                    Done, with trying.

Damage#5

    

                                                             Wrecked, damaged, and

                                                             Ruined. It stormed in,

                                                             Tearing everything it’s

                                                             Paws touched. Fearless,

                                                             It didn’t care who or

                                                            What it hurt. It was

                                                            Fearless. While we

                                                            Were full of fear.  

"A Love" Poem #3

                                                                We first started out in

                                                                      May. Through the troubles

                                                                And disappointments

                                                                     We still found love.

                                                                Through all of this

                                                                      I still love you, I

                                                                Know, you still

                                                                     Love me.  

"A Day In the Life" Poem (#1)

The years go by.

I wake in the mornings.

I get dressed, make up on.

I force those smiles on my face.

I arrive at school, see all my

Friends. I’m feeling better.

Happiness shows but soon

Happiness fades. Everything

Must come to an end. 

Hunger Games

My book represents a dystopian society. It represents a dystopia because in reality we have different districts but we are allowed to go and visit anyone in the other districts surrounding us. If you have a television you can watch it whenever you want not just when you are allowed by the Capital. We don’t have to worry about being chosen to go and fight for your life. In reality you cannot be hung in public for doing something little. In reality a lot of people go hunting for fun and for food. In District 12 you can’t go outside of the “electric” fence.

In this book the Capital represents Hollywood. In Hollywood, they try to control everyone. They want to control how you act, how you look, what you wear, what you think, and more. The Capital is trying to take over, control you, and decide what is going to happen and how it is going to work. They want to make sure they are in control and they want you and everyone in the districts to know that. Hollywood is trying to control us; they want to make sure we are like the famous people. In reality Hollywood is just like the Capital in many different ways.

When Katness volunteers for her sister she is now the one going to fight for her life in the Games. It is ironic Katness comes out the winner because she has no back ground training. She has not been trained to fight for her life in the arena. She goes in only knowing some things. Most of the tributes have been trained and been practicing their whole life. It shows the wealthy and more prepared people don’t always come out on top. It is possible to come out a winner even though she has always struggled.

The Hunger Games alludes to Ancient Roman history. They are fought in an arena. This is very similar to the Colosseum in Rome. The gladiators would fight to the death for the entertainment of the Romans. The tributes were forced to fight to the death for entertainment for the Capital and the 12 different districts. Both the gladiators and the tributes had to fight for their lives. They only did this to amuse people.

Stop Bullying

In the article I just read a little boy was a bully. He liked to bully anyone and everyone. He didn’t care who they were. He acted as if he had never felt bad for bullying all those kids. Some of the children’s parents would call the school so they could have their kid moved away from him or they would report what he did to their kids. He didn’t really care that these kids felt like that. It didn’t matter to him. He liked bullying and he wanted to keep doing it.

I think it was a really good thing that he got a “taste” of what it felt like for someone to make fun of you and call you names. It wasn’t good kids were bullying people, but if they wouldn’t have mocked him he would probably still be a bully to this day. I think children should never be bullied and we, as children and teenagers, should stop it. This bullying experience didn’t lead to death or attempted suicide but there are kids all over this world who are about to take their life because they are tired of getting bullied. There are a lot of kids and teens have already taken their life because of bullying. This is an awful thing. No one should feel that bad they have to kill themselves or even attempt suicide.

How do you feel about bullying?
http://www.tolerance.org/blog/when-bully-gets-bullied
This is the article I read.

Change

In this novel, the conflict causes the main character to change. In this book Tyler changes a lot, from start to finish. At the beginning of this book he is very unhappy. He has one friend. People are always making fun of him, calling him names, pushing him in the halls, laughing at him, beating him up and no one tries to be his friend or even help besides Yoda. Tyler always talked about death and suicide. “Before we left, I found one of the doctors who had helped me and quietly asked him to slit my throat.” (Anderson 20) He began to change when his mother made him go to Bethany’s house to apologize and give her cake. “You made a sucking up cake?” (Anderson 31)

Closer to the end of the book Tyler still wasn’t good, actually he was worse. He had almost committed suicide. “I licked the barrel and closed my eyes.” (Anderson 211) Tyler had actually almost killed himself. He had been through a lot. From the Millbury’s, school, home, friends, the police, and something he didn’t do, there was a lot going on. By the end of the book he was not a suspect anymore and went back to classes and everything was starting to be okay. Tyler and his dad ate breakfast alone and together. They had a father son bonding moment. “I put my arms around him.” (Anderson 248)

ImageChef

This mosaic is in the shape of a skull because Tyler was not happy and thought about death a lot. The quote says “I cried like maybe it might help something.” I thought Tyler really wanted to cry a lot, and I felt this did a really good job of explaining him. Tyler said that on page 133 in the book Twisted. I thought that was a good sentence to describe him because he was said a lot and he didn’t really have a lot going for him. He only had one friend, lost a girl he loved, was blamed for things he didn’t do, fought with his dad a lot, and got pushed around in the halls, why would he not cry?

This is another mosaic in the shape of a broken heart. I feel like the theme of this book is about the troubles he has in life. To me it seems like no matter what he does or how different he acts he still ends up heartbroken. He has to tell himself everything is fine and it will be great. What is sad is he knows deep down, right now, it isn’t and it probably won’t be for a while. I feel like this is a really good quote to inform people on the theme of this book, Twisted.

Stop Bullying (#1)

A few days ago we had a guest speaker, Josh Gunderson. He talked about many important things, although, one thing really spoke to me, bulling. He told us about these teenagers that had taken their own life because of bullying. When he told us the story about a girl who had taken her own because some popular girl had gotten mad over a guy. This girl was a new student; one of the popular guys asked her out, that’s when the bullying began. The group of popular girls did nothing but bully her. One day after school the young lady went home and ended her life, because of bullying.
           
Things like this happen more often than they should. We are now reading a book called Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. In this book there is a “nerd boy” who doesn’t feel good about himself and is always talking about death. In this book he deals with people blaming him for posting inappropriate pictures to this website. Since Tyler has had trouble in the past all fingers are pointed to him. I believe this is not right. I believe if there is evidence that tells he didn’t do it, until they get evidence he did do it, they can’t blame him.

Clothing Optional (#2)

 I personally like schools have dress codes. If we didn’t, who knows how people would dress for school. If we didn’t have a dress codes girls would probably dress in belly shirts and short skirts or barley even have anything on. Most guys would probably walk around with their pants almost around their knees. When a girl wears pretty much nothing she shouldn’t get mad because some guy whistled or said something to her. If you don’t want guys doing that then put on some clothes so they won’t. Some girls get mad when guys don’t do that, but when a guy does it and she doesn’t like him she gets mad. That’s not right.

There was this girl I knew a few years back and she would always wear really low cut t-shirts and short shorts, short skirts, ect. When these guys wouldn’t say anything to her she would get mad. One day a guy said something to her, she thought he was ugly, so she called him a pig and walked away. You can’t get mad at someone who says something and then get mad because someone didn’t say something. It’s not right, at all. I do think sexual harassment works two ways. A girl can’t walk up and say something dirty to a guy and get away with it. A guy can’t walk up to a girl, say something dirty, and get away with it. It does work both ways, we normally just see it as guys saying it to girls.
What do you think about school appropriate clothing?


School appropriate: (Left Side)
Not School appropriate: (Right Side)