Journal 4: Reading response from Daniel Scheiderer

So far my active reading is going good.  Its gotten a lot better, at the beginning I wasn't really used to marking anything cause I like my book looking nice and I didn't really read the book either.  Since then I've actually started to read the book and I'm really starting to enjoy it! Things that I'm struggling with would mostly be just either reading the book sometimes or marking it up, also I either don't know what I should mark up but I am getting better at it as I go. Somethings that are going well would be that I do enjoy the book, I think it is a great book and has great detail in the text, also something I'm doing good at is finding the important things in the text and mark them.  Something I marked today in The House on Mango Street would be on page 28, The very first sentence "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared" I highlighted this because Sandra Cisneros is showing us and telling us that people think that where she lives everything is bad because things are run down, but those people haven't seen the true neighborhood and all the good things that come from it, people are judging a book by its cover.

So far I'm enjoying both books I think I like I would pick The House on Mango Street over A Long Way Gone just a little bit.  I love both books so far and they both go in to great detail abouth things, but I feel like that I can relate to Cisneros, not because of her neighborhood or anything like that but about the people she is around and how she describes them and I think that everyone is around those types of people, and I honestly cant relate to Ishmael Beah writing because no one can go through that type of pain and trouble he went through. 

Journal Four: Morgan Kiehl


Active reading for me as a reader has helped me a TON my mind is more than happy to wander off while I am reading rather than pay attention to the words in front of my nose, so active reading has really helped me keep focused on the books we have been reading and discussing in class ! 
I really struggle with following the book The House on Mango street , the authors writing style is more difficult for me to follow compared to A Long Way Gone , where in this book I enjoy reading the book and can keep focused and actively read effortlessly. Something I marked in The house on Mango Street in my active reading would be From Pg. 28 the very first line and how it shows so much neighbor hood pride and how they feel they are different than others perceive them.

At the moment I definitely prefer the book  A Long Way Gone. I love the personal feel the author gives you of the characters and their day to day lives and their struggle and pain, and how much emotion the book truly gives the reader. A common theme for this book would be Hope and Perseverance, I really think that hope and perseverance is the only thing keeping the boys moving and alive through out this book and in their journeys.

Journal 4 from Noel

1) I think for the most part my active reading is doing well. A lot better than I would have done in high school. The part I struggle with the most is writing in the margins. I just have more of a struggle with knowing what to write in the margins and what parts I should put down as important. It isn't because I don't want to write in my book but more of I am not sure what to write or what is important in the chapter. I am doing well at highlighting parts that are well written and parts that are descriptive. Throughout my book I underline and highlight parts I find interesting or I think was a great way of writing. Something I marked in The House on Mango Street was from the chapter "There was an old woman she had so many children she didn't know what to do", I marked " Just stopped looking out when little Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn't even stop Refugia from getting her head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an "oh". I marked this because it was weird, not because of what it was saying but because the sentence was so long. There were commas but the sentence kept going on and on to me and it felt weird. Also I liked it because there was many different things going on and the way she described them was detailed but had imagination in it as well. The part about the falling star and exploding just really made the scene clear to me and it was a creative way to put it.

2) I prefer A Long Way Gone, out of the two that we are reading. I have always liked this book and it was one of my favorite books in high school. It is nice being able to read a book you read and liked so well. It is a very sad and intense story, I think one of the reasons I like it so much is you feel as if you are there with him feeling the moment of panic, feeling the pain of losing friends and family. A theme I think can relate to this book is moving forward and not looking back is what will keep you going. Throughout this book Ishmael has had to go through so many difficult and horrible things that no one could ever imagine. His life will never be the same again, and the only way for him to keep his life some what together is to push on and not linger in the past. Sadly there is no way for him to have his family back together, there is no way to undo what the rebels have done. Moving forward and hoping for a new day is the best he can do right now.

Journal 4: Cameron Koonce



                                        Reading Response: A House On Mango Street
 
     The active reading so far is going OK sometimes i actively read and mark certain sentences in the books sometimes i just read and don't mark things down. Like for example I have the whole first paragraph on page twenty-eight highlighted which reads " Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous. They think we will attack the with shiny knives. They are Stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake".  This passage stood out to me because when you go to big city's you never really know if it is a bad neighbor hood or not and  then you have to worry about wearing the wrong color because you never know if that neighbor hood is gang affiliated and me personally i don't try and find out. But then it also made me think about Marion and I just want to say there is nothing scary about it at all just like in the book, same thing happens here people that are from towns even smaller than Marion always get scared like " oh my goodness this town is to rough and tough for me" but it's really not.

     The book i like to read the most is A Long Way Gone. The reason why I pick this book is because it is based upon real life and if you think about it the book has a lot of history because Beah had to go through all the heart of poverty and war. I know I will never be able to even relate or compare this book to my life in any type of  way because as I was growing up i was a only child and my mom was a single parent and i got whatever it was that I wanted and never really had to struggle.
    

Journal 4 from Bonnie Welsh

I feel that my active reading is going pretty good. I am struggling with I feel is I get a little highlighter "happy", I feel that I hightlight everything in the chapter. At the same time I think it helps me get a pretty understanding of what is happening. What I marked in our reading in The House on Mango Street is in the chapter "There Was an Old Women She Had So Many Children She Didn't Know What to Do" on page 29 Cisneros said " They are without respect for all things living, including themselves." I chose this becuase it really shows you know she had to live, also how some people even now does the same thing. I feel like there are some kids out there now that just don't care and tey should respect other people expecally their parents and people older then them and themselves!
Right now I prefer A Long Way Gone  because I like a story where it is the same person going on with their jounrey. In A Long Way Gone it is Ishmael in his jounrey in the war and how he survived. But in A House on Mango Street it it just Sandra teeling bits and peices of her childhood. A theme that i think is good in A Long Way Gone is for your family you keep fighting until you are back with them. For my family is the most important thing to me so if I was not with them in the middle of the war, that would be my only mission to find them and stay alive.

Journal 4: Reading Response from Paul Winters

My active reading is going rather well so far. It was weird at first actually writing in the book and getting in there. I did like really diving into the writing and looking closer at the parts I liked or found interesting. I struggle with getting into the house on mango street and active reading with it since the stories are so short and many sentences fragmented it can be hard to process sometimes and make good active reading remarks to it. I mostly have questions about things and write them down but it leaves me feeling like I don't even understand what is going on. Something I marked in the reading for today was on at the end of Pg. 30. "....Nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an 'oh'" I highlighted this part because I thought the wording and visual was really good for the sensory detail.

Right now, I prefer A Long Way Gone over  A House on Mango Street. I feel I can get into and relate a lot more to Beah's story rather than Cisneros. Yes, Cisneros is interesting but her stories are so short and random it leaves me wondering what the point was and by the time I start mentally getting warmed up the story is over and it is on to the next random part. Whereas in Beah's story the detail and sensory factor is there and it is a length and style that is easy to flow with and I don't have to be fragmented all the time and wonder what he is talking about. The theme of A Long Way Gone of persevering and pushing through the tough times, and making sure we enjoy every moment while it lasts; because we never know when it is going to be taken away from us, speaks to me a lot more than the stories in The House on Mango Street.

Journal Two: Hans

Hans, Ananya

hans.34@buckeyemail.osu.edu

JOURNAL #2: Our First Blog

     Greetings, my name is Ananya Hans. I was born in Chandigarh, Punjabi, India. I first moved to the United States of America back in 2001 to Stark-ville, Mississippi. I lived there for 2 years before settling in New Orleans, Louisiana, [pre-Katrina and post-Katrina]. I attended elementary and middle school there. After that I moved to Columbus, Ohio. I attended end of middle school and high school there. A fun fact about me is that I love to scuba dive. I got into diving because one of my good friends Kirsten Showe did her high school Capstone Project on achieving Dive Master. That got me interested in recreational diving, so I got my open water certification. I have also achieved my Advanced Open Water Certification and currently working towards my Rescue Diver. My major is undecided but I am strongly thinking about Marine Biology.

     So far I have read Chapter 1 in A Long Way Gone. One theme that strongly stood out to me was family. Family is very important to your life. As seen in A Long Way Gone, Ismail, his brother and father walked to Mattru Jong and to visit to their grandmother and get her blessings and then walked to Kamator for their talent show to rap. Sadly, we learned that towards the end of the chapter that the rebels attack and destroy Ismail’s hometown of Kabati.

This is when my family went to visit my sister at her Summer Camp.