Create Your own adventure

Read the First Page: http://wearemarquette.blogspot.com/2013/06/choose-your-own-adventure-story.html

You decide to search for an alternate exit. You search behind the service counter for a flashlight, which will come in handy because the airport is in complete darkness. To your surprise, there is a flashlight behind the counter awaiting you.

You flick it on, and light pours from the head of the flashlight.

“Alphonso,” the man who was staring into the distance says.

You introduce yourself.  “And your name?” you point to the old grumpy man with the flashlight.

“Steven. I don’t want you usin’ my name no more than just the normal way; to get my attention. I don’t want nobody usin’ my name badly, or you’s are all gonna be on my list,” he threats in his annoyed voice. He then crosses his arms and turns away, then grunts.

“Okay then. Yours?” you point to the middle aged woman standing next to you.

“Melissa. Expert in medicine,” she holds out her hand to shake yours, and you do just so.

“I’m Corey. U.S. Air Force. I was on my trip home back to Florida from my grandmother’s house. My family was expecting me this weekend, and I was about to go on my trip home, until this whole city crashed. I wonder how far it went out. Is it just this area, do you know? Or is this a worldwide thing?” he asks you.

“I’m not sure,” you reply.  “But what I do know is that we need to find an alternate exit besides the one everyone is taking stat.”

“I think we should split into different groups. It will make this trip a whole lot easier,” Melissa tells everyone.  

“That sounds good, as long as I’m not with Mr. Ninja, here,” Steven points at Alphonso.

____________________________________________________________________________

Now it’s time for you to decide. Which group will you be in?

If you would like to be with Alphonso and Melissa, click here.

If you would like to be with Corey and Steven, click here.

If you would rather go alone, click here.

Medallion

Author's Note: Today the sun was shining when I walked out of my house today. It brought a smile to me and inspired to write a poem. I decided to do a cinquain  poem because I wanted to try and stretch my vocabulary a little. 


Sun

 Bliss, Scorching 

Coruscating in the sky 

Hope, Faith 
Medallion 

Pow

Author's Note: One of the things on the master rubric that I needed to check of  was to analyze a two nonfiction articles on the same topic and be able to understand what both perspectives are. I chose to do a piece that on electronic news paper article that I found about a first grade boy that got suspended for pointing his finger like a gun and saying 'pow' out at recess. 

On December 21st, 2012 a student attending first grade at Silver Spring Elementary School, was suspended for pointing his finger, as if it was a gun, while at recess and saying ‘pow’. The attorney for the family, Robin Ficker, is fighting hard against the school to get this matter completely removed from the boy’s school record. They will make an appeal in court on Wednesday for more time to continue to discuss this issue. I found this a rather interesting topic because this incident did not seem like an usual act for a grade school boy. Having a brother in third grade  who has fantasies involving guns, this was nothing alarming to me. However, there have been points in my life I have seen him get so involved in this fantasy that he feels he is actually living it. Therefore, I  could empathize both perspectives, the school and the family’s attorney, on this issue, so I decided to do a little research and look at two different perspectives.

A post by Alexandra Petri on the Washington Post suggested that students, more specifically the boy, should not be punished for these imaginary actions, that the parents and/or teachers should be. Her position being that students/children will only play or imagine violent things that they have heard or seen before. I agree with her perspective more because, you can’t hold a six year old accountable for imagining things at school that he does at home --  where he is not corrected. I feel that if anyone should be responsible for the inappropriate action, it should be the parent. Now, with that being said, I don’t feel that for the rest of his life his parents should be responsible, however, until this child can fully understand the impact of his actions and how much they can affect him in the long run, the parents should be taking the responsibility.

Another post I found that corresponds with this opinion was written by a man named Stogie. In his blog post he suggested that the schools is in the wrong in this scenario. That they completely over reacted to what this little boys intentions really were. That the school was trying to say that guns are ‘evil and terrible and that a child should never ever pretend to shoot a gun or should he be arrested as a potential terrorist.’ Now, although his exact wording is a little extreme, he is exactly right. It is not only the parents fault because they are allowing their child to be exposed to a violent environment, however it is also the schools responsibility because they told him that guns were wrong. When you harshly enforce certain rules of the school, the first thing that students are going to try to do is push the envelope and see what they can get away with and how long they can get away with it for. Let’s take swearing for example, the swearing at our school is not necessarily out – of – control but it is definitely bad. One of the reasons that may be is, because teachers so often call people out and make a big deal when people do swear. If teachers and adults with authority would not make such a big deal out of it , after a while, students would see that it is no longer bothering the teachers, and maybe the amount of swearing would go down.  I agree with what Stogie’s overall idea is, that the school was too harsh on him especially for being a first grader.

After some more research on the topic, I came to the conclusion that this little boy did nothing wrong in the end. I find it hard though to blame the parents for this because ever since the first couple of cartoons came out there has been violence on television; from Bugs Bunny to Transformers. Therefore, it is very difficult for parents to raise their children in an environment without any guns, especially a boy. That would mean no armed force games, no guns, no star wars, etc. In the end I feel as though the school was totally out of line with this first grade boy and was definitely too harsh on him.

Sources:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gXfk5CAimIkc-7JW3eiP__5Qu6pHMI_eIKQ1wsnzHDI/edit

Turkey Day

Author's Note: This piece was crafted around a focused stream of consciousness. The theme was Thanksgiving, I turned it into a piece that was about what we are  feeling around the holidays in general. In this piece I wanted the audience to recognize a mature voice and vocabulary.

The smell that has taken over the air is so great that it makes my mouth water as I walk through my grandparent’s home. Just the thought of having Thanksgiving, has put a smile on my face. I made sure that I had gotten plenty of sleep last night and woke up at the crack of dawn in order to prepare for the feast that is about to be enjoyed. I look around and notice everyone hard at work, grandma is finishing up the cranberry relish and I am setting out the glass china; the kind that only gets taken out at rare occasions. My grandfather is taking our ten pound turkey out of the oven, carefully not to spill the juice that has leaked out into the pan. Dad is taking the electric meat slicer out of the drawer, ready to tackle this beast. Leihan, my younger sister, is begging to open the sparkling grape juice early and my brother cannot sit still. I look around, happy, content with the joy within the family, now realizing that as we might all sit around the table, the smiles among everyone's faces will be swept away.

The holiday season is always the most difficult for everyone. We live in this utopic world for the rest of the year until we cannot keep it in anymore, the tears will start to flow and the sobs will get louder at the remembrance of my great grandfather, papa. He left us close to some 4 years ago now, to go to a better place, one without pain and suffering, where he can have no care in the world. You would think that we would be happy, take pleasure in the fact that we don't have to see him like that anymore; this is a bridge that we haven't crossed yet. Ever since the funeral I have trained myself to think about the happy time I had with him. The lessons he taught me, and the impact he has made on others. This ever-so-simple task has been simple for me, knowing that I have to be the shoulder that my sibling needs to cry on, it is the rest of the family that had been the bump I can't seem to climb over.

Every year as we sit down for the holidays, this is always the premature thought. I believe that as time goes on we will all slowly learn to cope with his loss and we will come closer and closer to crossing that bridge, but until then, the tears will continue to fall and the sobs will continue to get louder and louder.  

Teeth

Author's Note: This piece created by doing a guided stream of consciousness. How this works is, you gather students and have a leader that gives each person a part of speech. Someone gives the beginning sentence, you take that and run. But, not for too long, after a short period of time another person gives there word(s) based on the part of speech they had. I really enjoy this writing exercise because you never know what to expect. I worked on my idea development and staying in character.

Robert walked slowly into the dentist's office, scared and bewildered by all the ominous machinery. His whole body was shaking, teeth chattering. If this was the one fear that he had never gotten over as a child, this was it. He walked slowly keeping his hands on the wall to be sure the he did not fall right onto his face. As he made his way slowly but surely to the check - in desk, he tried to take deep breaths and remain calm. This seemed nearly impossible.

"Can I help you?" said the large secretary, unenthusiastically.
"Y-Y-Yes" said Robert, unsure if he was ready to do this, "I have an appointment with Dr. Canine."
"He'll be right with you, take a seat," she mumbled.

He crept into the waiting room, thinking he might lose his lunch while inhaling the smell. As he sat down in the chair, he noticed a plush dog in the corner and thought about the last time he was here, he had picked that very same dog up and underneath it was a puzzle. While he played with it, he was in his own little world. Then he heard his name and was brought back to reality. Still shaking he walked up to the lady and said, "I hope this doesn’t take long!"

"It should only take a few minutes dreary!" She said happily.

Like this was something to be happy about. As he sat down in the plastic covered, cold chair he noticed how colorful this experience could be. When the nurse came back in, I asked if I was going to be given a medication to help with the pain. She silently, walked out of the room and shook her head.

The next thing that I know I am in the middle of New York City, at the statue of liberty. Looking up at this gigantic statue that is standing, frozen, right in front of me. Many people as they stand in front of the statue look at the carving detail of her dress. As I stand in front of her, I notice the red flame of her torch. I am mesmerized.  Then, I am taken from that seen to a poor neighborhood, one that is dark and freighting.  There was soot on the housetops. It was a hideous and disgusting place to be!

As I was jumping back and forth between my dystopia and utopia vision of the world, I realized that it was taking a long time for them to fix my tooth. I quickly dismissed that thought in from my mind because, honestly, I was really enjoying this time.  I didn’t have to worry about being in the stinky, smelly dentist office, or working at the office. It was as if I had the imagination of a five year old.

After, what seemed to be forever, I woke up. I was covered up with a blanket and had a pillow under my head. The inside of my mouth only hurt a little, but other than that there was no sign that I had ever been in at the dentist. As I lifted my head off of the pillow, I lay my feet on the floor and jumped; WOW! was the floor cold. I was fully awake now and went to the sink to wipe off my face, my normal routine after I wake up because of how much I drool, except when I brought my the water up to my face, I noticed that there was not drool on my face. I turned and looked at the pillow and there was none on my pillow either. It was a miracle; the dentist had fixed my drooling problem! Was so happy, I ripped the bib off of my neck, grabbed a 100 dollar bill out of my pocket, slammed it on the counter and ran out of the office feeling happy that I had over - come my fear and went to the dentist

Cake

Author's Note: This piece was originally a stream of consciousness that I turned into a writing piece. The word that we started with is 'sugar' In this piece I strived to paint a picture for my audience. I want you to feel like you are there. 

All the lights were out and all eyes were on me. Some people were singing just because they had to and others with a warm smile on their face. I touched my hands to my face and felt the hot skin of my cheeks because I had been blushing so deep. I was in shock by how much cake there was and how tasty it looks. I had to resist putting just one finger in and tasting the sugary subsists that seemed so appealing at the time. After the soft tune had ended I made a quick wish, one that was so brief that I couldn't remember and took the biggest breathe I could before the wax would melt onto the cake. I let all out and in one poof the flames had vanished and we were in total darkness. Someone that I could not see through all the people flipped the switch and the room went from complete darkness to what seemed as the light of day.

As soon as I could set my eyes on my cake again, I saw that someone had put a finger print in it and that it was not me. As soon as my dad had seen the missing frosting he turned and looked at me. I swore to him that I did not do it, believe me he did not. He gave me the look, the kind of look like, I know what you did. After looking around for the culprit, I laid eyes on my sister. She had her finger in her mouth and I know at that moment it was her. I pointed to her and said, "Daddy, daddy, Leihan did it." Still, he did not believe me but at least I knew that the mystery was solved.

He took out what seemed to be a gigantic knife, touched the tip to my cake and sliced through the sugary cake. I made sure that everybody had got a piece of cake before I took my first bit. After that, there was no stopping me; I devoured that piece of cake in about 3 minutes flat. When I finished, I didn't even bother to throw my plate in the garbage before I plopped down on the couch.  I felt as though I might explode.

Everyone was in the kitchen laughing, and chatting for a few minutes before anyone besides my sister noticed that I was not there. My father called out my name and asked where I was, but before a single word could escape my lips, he laid his eyes and expressed his concern on my laying on the couch. I told him why, he smiled and completely understood. He grabbed a blanket, covered me, tucked me in, and turned on Disney for me. Within 5 minutes I fell asleep, and that would be my last memory of my sixth birthday party.

Hunger Games ~ Which is Better?

Authors Note: In this piece, I was trying to get my opinion across in a professional way. I tried to focus on my voice and vocabulary. With this piece I was trying to accomplish a compare and contrast type of format.

In the history of movie making, has there ever been a movie that has been better as a book? In all the books that I have read and then saw the movie, the book has always better.When directors make a movie based on a book, they should have to use the book more than just a guideline to what they are putting in the movie. When I saw the movie, there were many parts in the book that the director cut out in the movie. I was disappointed in this decision.

There were some things in the movie that matched the book almost perfectly. For example, in the beginning, when Effie and the others from the capital came to District 12, and chose the tributes. That whole scenario was perfect, down to what she was wearing and how her hair was done. Another subject that  was especially accurate in detail is how well Gary was able to match the characters' descriptions with the actual person playing the role. The last thing that  was up to par was the way that the movie was as engaging to the audience as the book. I was really happy about this because I had pretty high expectations of the movie, this one was fulfilled.

One of the most disappointing things that I felt when I saw the movie was the lack of small detail that he left out, For instance, when Katniss was presented to the sponsors, in the book she expressed herself by leaving her hair a braid down her back. In the movie she had her hair done very fancy. Another seemly small detail that Gary left out of the movie was in the end when Katniss and Peeta were going to eat the berries. In the book they actually put the berries in their mouth and after the game-keeper announced that they were both the winners of the game, they spit them out. In the movie, they only counted to three and were just about to consume them when the game-keeper had made the announcement. It is very disappointing that these are only two of the very many mistakes that Gary made when directing this movie.

Most of the time, when directors take out some of the small detail that could have been added easily, they are doing it for the sake of time. They don't want the movie to be too long.This is an unacceptable reason to edit out small detail. I know that I would rather watch a longer movie and have the movie be completely accurate to the book then watch a shorter, less detailed, inaccurate version of the book.