3321: Dinner Party

My six guest included my mother, my husband Shawn, Hitler, Princess Diana, Jennifer, and Dr. Harris. My menu included stuffed chicken breast with ham, cheese, finely chopped bell pepper, and very little jalapeno. This was served with mashed potatoes, corn, ice tea, and peach cobbler for dessert. I picked my mother to cook, Dr. Harris to try this food, Jennifer to make this conversation interesting, Shawn because he loves to eat, Hitler because he would just hate to see the world this way, and Princess Diana because she was such a wonderful person.
Me: Welcome everyone.
Me: Your place mats have your names on them.
Me: My mother and I will be serving you today.
Me: Feel free to chit-chat while we finish getting everything together.
Mother: Is everyone hungry?
Shawn: I am.
Princess Diana: What are we having?
Mother: Stuffed chicken breast with ham and cheese.
Princess: Sounds good.
Hitler: I'm not.
Dr. Harris: Sure, I love to try new things.
Jennifer: I only want dessert.
Mother: I hope you all like this.
Mother: Are you sure you don't want to try this Hitler?
Hitler: No thanks.
Hitler: What a crazy world this turned out to be.
Shawn: I think it turned out good, everyone finally came together.
Jennifer: Me too, I love how we can all get along now.
Hitler: That's what's crazy about it.
Jennifer: I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's how it is now.
Dr. Harris: This food is great!
Princess: A little spicy, I must say.
Mother: I apologize, I really love spicy foods.
Shawn: I also learned to love it, after all these years you get use to it.
Jennifer: Is it time for dessert yet?
Mother: Almost.
Dr. Harris: Dessert sounds great!
Princess: I really shouldn't do dessert.
Shawn: Peach cobbler is my favorite.
Hitler: I really don't want to be here.
Mother: I'm glad you all enjoyed my meal. Hitler you are welcome to leave anytime.
Hitler: Thanks, I will because this does not fit my idea of a perfect world.

3344: Blog #10

My Amazing Trip

It was a nice, quiet, and dark night when I was having the best dream one can ever imagine when suddenly I was rudely awakened by the sound of my father and my uncles yelling. “It’s already 5:00” yells Uncle Carlos. “Hurry, Hurry, we should have been there by now! Can somebody please wake Shawn up, I don’t want him to miss this trip,” says father. I lied there waiting and thinking to myself; do I really want to go or should I just stay home? I soon found myself walking out the door with my father (Oscar), Alex (my brother), Uncle Carlos, and Uncle Steven. I never imagined I would be walking out the door to have the most amazing trip ever!
We left the house at 5:30am, which was late according to my father. We were on our way to a deep-sea fishing trip which had been planned for weeks now. This was my first time ever going fishing on a boat and I was really excited, but also afraid. I never did say I was afraid because they would make fun of me; I was already 14 years old. It was still dark outside and I could not see anything out of my father’s big, white, work truck. It seemed as if darkness went on forever. I looked out every window and there was no sign of life. At times I could not even see the road. There were no street lights, no buildings, just water. Inside the truck there was absolute silence, then suddenly a loud yell. “There it is! Turn around you just passed it.” Uncle Carlos almost made my dad crash. My heart starting pumping, my hands started sweating, and I even felt tears in my eyes. For a minute I wished my uncle had never seen the place. We pulled up to a little rundown shack. The man who came out of the place looked like an old pirate. “Your late” he says. My father blames everybody else, like usual. “Here are the keys and everything else you should need out there,” says the owner. Wait isn’t he going with us? I felt myself turn red. “No,” says my father. “Uncle Carlos use to own a boat when we were younger he knows what to do.” My day had just gotten worse. I really did trust my uncle with almost anything, but somehow with a boat and me in it was very difficult to do. We began packing all our things into the boat and before you know it off we were in the middle of the ocean. Now all I could see was the water that was in front of the boat, but I could hear much more. Everyone in the boat was talking like there was nothing to be afraid of; I could not help but listen to the sounds of the waves crashing into our boat. I waited for the water to tip us over, but my uncle said there was no way this could happen with waves this small. What was he talking about these waves were huge, or they seemed huge to me.

The sun began to rise a little after we got in the water; this was great news for me. For my father and uncles this was not too good. It seemed like my brother would only go to these trips to eat. He just sits around everywhere eating all the snacks my mother packed for us. I could not even think of eating yet. After be able to see a little more I asked my father if he could help me throw out a line. His face lit up and both my uncles smiled. “You have just become a man,” they said. I just smiled. Why do they say that? I asked my brother. “When you learn to fish in the ocean, you can fish anywhere. To them knowing how to fish makes you a real man,” Alex says while rolling his eyes. I threw out my line and just sat there waiting. How can they find this so interesting, I thought. I was about to see why. My father jumped all of a sudden and yelled, “help.” My uncle Carlos jumped out of his chair and ran over to my dad. They both pulled on the pole as my uncle Steven pulled the fishing line with both hands. I slowly got up from my chair and started to make my way over to them. What is it? Nobody answered. All I could hear at this time was the sounds coming from them as they tugged and pulled to get this thing out of the water. I got closer to the edge of the boat and looked into the water. There it was, a huge fish splashing all over the place. It pulled one way, then the other; it would swim back and forth. It took all three men to finally pull it out. As they brought it closer to the boat my uncle Steven yells, “give me a knife, I need to cut this line!” Cut the line, I yelled, wouldn’t that let the fish go? My brother runs the knife over and we all watch the fish swim away. What was that all about? My father turns to me and says, “not all fish are good, like not all dolphins save people.” All dolphins! How many different types are there? They all laughed. “There are 32 types,” he says. “I can’t tell you about all of them, but I can tell you to make sure you are swimming with the bottlenose if ever in that situation.” “If you get a chance, always look at their nose,” says Uncle Carlos. “This will tell you what type of dolphin it is.” I just laughed. How can you have time to look at their nose if you happen to fall in unexpectedly? I was soon to answer my own question.

As the day went on fish began to fill our tanks. I was just beginning to feel safe on the boat when suddenly, as I walked over to get bait, I slipped on some water and fell overboard. I began to panic. My arms and legs would not stop moving and I just began to yell. I could hear everyone yelling “don’t move, stay still, and calm down!” How can I calm down? I was about to cry when I focused on the swimming object and clearly saw his nose, it was a bottlenose dolphin. I stayed still just waiting to see what would happen next, suddenly he swam under me and began to push me closer to the boat. I had never felt so afraid in my life, but at the same time so safe. The dolphin swam as fast as he could to get me to the boat. I hadn’t realized how far away from the boat I was. The dolphin pushed me up just enough for my father to pull me back onto the boat. As I stood there in shock, I took a good look at him and thought to myself; dolphins are the best ocean creatures one could ever ask for. He made a high pitched sound and was back on his way. I was so glad to have been in the water with him and not any other ocean creature. My father decided to call this a day when he saw how soaked I was.

As we got back home we couldn’t wait to tell everyone what happened. Everyone was waiting for us to get home so they could see all the fish we caught. My mother ran out when she heard our truck pull up. “How was your first fishing trip” she asked me. I smiled and said I had the best time of my life. My brother thought the whole thing was very funny and called our trip “a swim with dolphins.” As we sat there and told her everything she began to cry. I asked her why she was crying and she said she could just imagine how scared I was. My father grinned and told her how excited I was when I got back on the boat. I was glad I had a chance to live this experience and see for myself the wonderful ocean creatures and their personalities. My mother cooked us a good hot meal and we were ready for bed. When I got to my room I went straight to bed I began to think, what if I had never gone to this trip? I would have missed the best experience one could ever have. I must say this trip turned out to be the most amazing trip I could ever imagine.

3321: Blog #9

Historical fiction is a story that has the setting or the scene in the past. This story may have some real people or places, but the main characters and story are fictional. Historical fiction must have a credible plot, historical authenticity, realistic setting, and most importantly the language and the setting must fit with the time period.

In the classroom we can use historical fiction to teach about a specific time in the past or a specific situation from the past. For example the book we got was set after World War II. This fit perfect with the story because it talked about people not having money and how things had to be traded for necessities. It really taught us something about that time period that we really didn't know. We knew that there was no money, but we did not know how things were being purchased at this time.

3344: Blog #9

Part I:

How to Identify Different Types of Dolphins

Into: How do we know which dolphins are ok to be in water with? Do all dolphins like save humans when in trouble? I will tell you which dolphins are safe to be around and how to identify them.

How To: Give steps on what to look for when observing different dolphins and how you should react when confronted by them. I will tell which feature to look at first (the most obvious) and then continue on to the next.

Conclusion: Have closure to this activity and make sure that all steps have a smooth transition. Repeat what the reader was supposed to learn from this "how to" and make sure it shows closure.

Part II:

I really like Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. I think I would use this book in my classroom to introduce children to poetry and rhyme . This book is also good to teach children they should always listen to their mother. In this book the fish tells them they should not let the cat come in the house but they did not listen and because of this the cat made a mess. It is entertaining and they would not even realize it is a poem. This poem would also help teach rhyme. Children would really like all the activity going on throughout the story and the illustration would really help them enjoy reading the book. This would not only encourage reading, but also give children the positive side of poetry instead of them thinking that poetry is long, hard to understand, and boring like most people think.

3321: Blog #9

Contemporary fiction implies that everything in a realistic story is consistent with the lives of real people in our contemporary world, super natural does not exist, and the story does not need to always be true. Contemporary realistic fiction can be used in a classroom to help children through certain issues that they may be going through at home. These stories can also be used to teach multicultural topics, controversial issues, and people. We should always take into consideration the age group that we will use these stories for. Especially when using these stories to teach controversial issues, we must really make sure that the stories are age appropriate.

3344: Blog #8

Narrative writing has plots and characters and is used for telling a story. It must tell the sequence of events over a period of time. The most important part of narrative writing is for it to have a beginning, middle, and end.
The beginning part must give an introduction to the story, must have an interesting statement that will have the reader interested in reading this story, and it must also have detail, excitement, or mystery. This is where we must have a "grabber" sentence.
The middle must clearly and completely describe the events. This part must have the majority of detail and must keep the sequence of events in order.
The end must tell the reader the closure to this story. It will also tell the reader what he/she just read. To me this part has to let the reader know that reading this story was worth it.

Writers Workshop was very interesting. I really liked hearing the comments from my group and also giving them some feedback on their work. This was very helpful and also pretty fun to hear some of the things that were being said.
When doing a writers workshop one must first get in a group of 4-5 people. Then the first person will begin to read his/her piece, the others will sit and listen. After the first person is done reading their paper, the other members will begin to comment. This is known as the sandwich theory. During the comments the group members will say what they liked about it, ask questions, give suggestions, and give positive comments. There will be no editing during this time. We may however suggest new word choice, character suggestions, and help with the development of events. During the comments and suggestion, the person reading their paper should take notes on some of these suggestions.
Then the next person in the group reads their paper and the steps will repeat until everyone has had their chance to read their papers. After everyone has read and heard their comments and suggestions, the group members will individually rewrite their papers. The comments and suggestions should help the others when revising their paper.
The last step when writing a paper should be the editing. This is the same during a writers workshop. We must not do the editing until we have gone through commenting on everyone in our group and have revised our paper using some of the comments and suggestions from our group members.

3321: Swimming with a dolphin

Oh dear, Oh my!
I thought I was about to cry.
"Stay still," I hear them yell.
I just remember turning pale.
All I saw was one big fin,
Could it be a dolphin?
He swam up close and with his nose,
He pushed me up by my toes.
All he wanted was to play,
I thought I was going to be his prey.
He swam and swam, oh so fast,
I knew I would be safe at last.
Thank you, thank you, I said to him,
I swear, I swear, I'll learn to swim!