My Biography

Abby VanFossen is a student at William Mason High School and a competitive level 10 gymnast at Queen City Gymnastics. She has been attending Mason City Schools for 12 years and has continued to thrive in her schoolwork. In gymnastics she has attended Eastern Nationals as well as many state and nationwide competitions. She has a dog named Scout and a sister named Tori who has Celiac disease. She has made many sacrifices for her sister in order to adapt to Tori’s lifestyle. She is hardworking, loyal, and fun to be around.  

Summer Reading Assignment #4

I chose this book because it was recommended to me by a friend. Once I saw that it was on the school book list I had to read it. I didn't choose this book solely on my friends recommendation, I looked into it and it looked like something that I would read. I realized that the main characters in this book were average people and a lot of people in the world go through many of the same things that Eleanor and Park go through and some related to me. If I were to recommend this book to somebody, I would recommend it to teenage girls. This is because the main characters are about 16 years old and it is a lot like a chick-flick movie. This book is also really romantic and I wouldn't think most boys would like this kind of book and I wouldn't think many adults would want to read a book about teenage love. I really liked this book and I do recommend it to anyone who likes chick-flicks, romance, drama, and attitude. Eleanor has a lot of attitude and trust issues because of family problems and it is hard for her to fully trust Park. But other than that this book was very good and I never got bored of reading it.

Summer Reading Assignment #3

In the very beginning of the book Eleanor & Park, Eleanor had meet this Asian kid named Park on the bus and instantly they knew something was there between them but they both tried to push it aside and ignore it. In the following passage it was one of the main parts that specifically hooked me  to this book because all I wanted to do is find out how Eleanor and Park start falling for each other.

"A few other buses were already pulling away. Somebody ran down the steps next to Eleanor and accidentally kicked her bag. She pulled it out of the way and started to say sorry-but it was that stupid Asian kid, and he frowned when he saw that it was her. She frowned right back at him, and he ran ahead (page 12)."

I think the author Rainbow Rowell decided to put this particular scene in the book just to hook the readers. I definitely got hooked because it is pretty obvious that somewhere in the book Eleanor and Park fall in love-I just didn't know how or when. My motivation to keep reading this book was mostly from this section because it is that start of the author hinting at us that they have something for each other. 

Summer Reading Assignment 2

So far in the book Eleanor & Park the characters are starting to develop and I'm starting to realize who they are as people. Eleanor just wants to be normal, in a normal home with normal parents and no bullying.  Now that she has gotten to know Park, she thinks that all she wants is him. Eleanor believes she cannot live without Park, and without him, she wouldn't be able to endure all that she goes through. Park also thinks he cannot live without Eleanor, she makes him into a better person. When she gets bullied-he defends her. In the book, there was one time when Eleanor got bullied on the bus and as soon as all the kids got off the bus Park got into a fight with the kid who was bullying her and got suspended for a few days. The fight happened even though Eleanor told Park not to start anything and that she "didn't care." Even though Eleanor "didn't care", Park still felt obligated to protect her. They "need" each other. So far I have encountered a couple themes. The first, sometimes keeping secrets from your loved ones might be the only possibility. Eleanor has to keep Park a secret from her family otherwise she could get kicked out, or even worse, never see Park ever again. Park desperately wants to meet her family but she won't let him and he is struggling to figure out why. The next theme I've noticed, two people who love each other might not always get along. This theme has held true throughout the book because I have noticed that Eleanor and Park are constantly fighting. So far they have gotten over all of their fights and they still love each other through thick and thin. The author has set this book up in a way that is easy for the reader. The chapters rotate between the point of view of Park and Eleanor so that we as the audience can see both of their points of view of just about everything. I find this useful so that we aren't biased toward one of them-we can choose for ourselves who to believe in their arguments.  

Summer Reading Assignment #1

I started reading the book Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. There are 2 main characters-Eleanor and Park. Eleanor is a heavy red head who lives in a poor family. Her step dad mistreats her and she doesn't have enough money for "normal" clothes. She has to sleep in a room with her four little siblings and had to endure the never ending bulling on her bus and school. Park is also Eleanor's age and he lives in a normal house with his normal parents. Eleanor and Park meet on the bus on the way to school and almost instantly start falling for each other. The problem with their relationship though, is the fact that Eleanor hides all of the hardships about her life and all the problems she endures from Park. Way too many secrets are hidden from each other which will make their relationship hard. Eleanor's parents also don't know about their relationship and if they ever find out they could potentially kick her out once again. I predict that Eleanor and Park will get into a huge argument that they think they won't get over and eventually realize that that wasn't the worst of their problems and make up.  My only question is, will Eleanor and Park ever get over all the secrets when they find out?   I'm really excited to find out and so far this book is very very good.

English 1b

Voice Assignment 5/13

 

 2. What effect does this structure and repetition in the first passage have on the reader?

 

The writer used short sentances and lots of easy adjectives to help the reader engage on how the classroom is. The writer doesn't say it directly, but we as readers can assume that the children are younger because of the immautrity of their actions.Using the syntax the writer used, like using many periods instead of just making a longer sentance with commas, it makes the scene seem more insane. If the writer used commas, the scene would still seem crazy, but not as crazy as using periods, because periods add a sence of urgency if used in quick, short sentances.

6. What is the tone of EACH passage?  How do you know?

The tone in the first passage at the beginning was wild and crazy. The children were out of control, and even their teacher could not control them. She was feeling stressed and decided to leave. The end of the passage was frightening and tense. There was a new teacher who would actually get the kids in trouble if they did not listen, unlike Miss Nelson, and the childeren where scared of her. They listened even on the first time she asked them to do something.

The tone in the second passage was intimidated. The main character had been best friend with a girl in the past, and now she changed and the main character did not know if she liked the change or not. She intimidates the main character because she wears smudgy make-up, tries to  smoke, and just acts totally different. The main character talks to herself in the passsage and tell herself to "be cool". She is kind of frightened by her even though they ussed to know eachother so well.

7. Characterize or explain the voice of your creative non-fiction piece so far.  How do you know? How would we know it is YOUR piece? What purposeful choices have you made to create voice? Is this a strength or weakness of your writing?

The voice in my non-fiction piece so far is astonished. I know this because in many parts of my story I say how stupid people can be and how I can't believe people could do these kind of things. I was just astonished. People would know that this is my piece because I use a variety of super short paragraphs/sentances and I also use all capital letters for some of my words to make an exclaimation more meaningful. I use a lot of voice in my passage to try to make the reader more engaged and to make the reader relate to how I feel. I believe the way I add voice in my writing makes my writing stronger so I would say it is a strength.

Blog Reflection

During this trimester I have not only grown as a blogger, but I have also grown as a reader and writer. I struggled with some things during this experience, but I also had strengths during certain times. The biggest thing I struggled with was time. I am a gymnast with a busy schedule and I don’t get home every night until 8. Also giving that I come home tired anyway, I struggle with getting my homework done in a timely manner. I figured out over time how to deal with this and work through it by planning ahead and managing my time. I also write down my assignments in my planner and if I have something that is due in a certain amount of days, I make sure to spread that assignment out and work a little bit at a time so I get it done. Throughout this trimester I have gotten better at getting my assignments done and managing my time.

            One of the strengths that I have is punctuation and sophisticated words. I am pretty good with punctuation and I know when to use it and when not to use it. I also really like using different words that people know but don’t usually use. I don’t like using small words unless it’s very necessary. I would usually consider myself a good writer, but I still have a lot of room to grow.

            The quality of my writing in my blog posts have grown throughout the trimester. I started out this trimester being kind of vague and I didn’t specify very much. In my very first blog post about my summer reading project, I pretty much just said it how it was and I didn’t really go into depth on anything. I didn’t give examples and it almost sounded like I was just answering questions off of a page. I highlighted examples on the blog post on how I just stated the obvious and told it how it was (First blog post). As I got better and better at writing blogs, I eventually learned how to incorporate more of my own voice and provide examples and opinions. In my blog post, Plans for Future Books, my voice was definitely incorporated much more than previously. In this blog post, I used examples and opinions on what I thought and why I thought it. I used statements like, “I was really surprised by…” and, “I really liked how…” which added extra voice and opinion. When voice, opinion and examples are given, it increases the quality of the writing. In my latest blog post, I highlighted the quality statements and examples. Even though I did use a quote in the first blog post, which is an example, I didn’t use quality interpretation. First of all, instead of using some sophisticated way to introduce the quote, I wrote, “It said …” when I could have used something like “The book stated…”. This would have added more quality to my writing. Even though I did not have a quote in my latest blog post, some of my other more recent blog posts that did have quotes, had more sophisticated vocabulary which also indicates better quality writing. The last indication of better quality writing was the fluency. In my Summer Reading Project, I wrote very choppy and the transitions were too sudden, but in my Plans for Future Books, I transitioned into different topics pretty smoothly. Overall, the quality of my writing has improved a lot since the beginning of this trimester.