After rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by Jk Rowling for the gazilionth time i realized one thing Jk Rowling does really well is with answering all problems. any former confusion or doubts in the past books are answered in her final piece of beauty.

One example is Severus Snape who says "i hate Potter" and makes it very clear that he'd be better of without potter. then you begin to see the true Severus Snape, the one who killed Dumbldore on Dumbldores orders and who has been trying to protect harry his entire life.  mrs Rowling shows this in a compelling and romantic way that moves us all. Severuses true love for lily. she shows the bond between lily potter and Snape and it truly leaves us loving Snape and understanding him.

Another example is Voldamort. he seems so strong and powerful but is yet scared. when harry dies and sees Voldamort there he sees an " childlike creature" in incredible pain scared of the outside. she also shows this with descriptions like "fright ran across his face" and " for the first time voldamort was scared" she leaves with and idea of understanding. understanding the motives behind such evil.

all in all after reading the grand finally i realized the great thing about harry potter is you are left with no question unanswered. we should all aim to write more like this.

tabo ceman blog 12/11/13

In the book Catching Fire by Sussan Cohen, I find that there is one great flaw. The missing POV. The book catching fire catches eyes right and left. With its famous author and even more famous prequel. The one main flaw in this great book is the missing POV.

In the book, the main POV is from Katniss, as she is the main character. This may be an author’s choice and it does fine in depicting the needs and wants of the rebelling group, but it does not show presidents snows views. This flaw makes it hard to understand all the characters in a substantial way. Why kill Katniss? Why not Peeta? These questions could easily be answered with some like a chapter intro that is in snows view. One book that does this marvelously is Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. Each chapter has an intro that is in col. Graff’s POV. This strategy helps depict a larger and better picture then the one we see. Another example is the movie, which has many scenes with president snow talking and explaining his motives.

All in all this great book in a personal opinion could have been better with a little more explanation and expansive background on its characters.

question at what point do you see yourself resisting the book? why?

In the book, or comic book; V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, I found myself resisting the story plot when V sends Evey through the journey he went through. This part of the book sent chills down my spine because the journey is just horrific. I think it shows that as a person im not used to seeing such cruel treatment, or such vile behavior.

In his journey V, is locked in a cell as a test subject and is tortured. He is water boarded, beaten and even used as a test subject. When Evey asks him to help save her he makes her go through this treatment. The vile treatment is so horrible that Evey, without knowledge that it is V torturing her, is about to give his location, until she receives a letter from another cellmate, telling her to stay strong and to carry on.  This was such a cruel thing to do that I truly wished to put the book down. It was both to graphic and to intense. what made me continue reading was the strength i saw in evey. It carried through the gruesome scene and to something more romantic in the story. While V was imprisoned he escaped in a fire and completley burned his skin off. For Eveys escape he just opens her cell door and lets her figure things out on her own. This shows how even V someone with such a strong wish for change has limits.

All in all it shows how something like this is sudden and startling for me. i think this because as a US citizen in the 21 century such cruelty is uncommon and it shows us that we are lucky for this. I hope that I stay like this for the rest of my life and that never will something so gruesome not affect me.

Thinking about movies. tabo ceman

Recently watching the movie V for Vendetta based of the comic by alan moore, I discovered what the perfect teens should be. In this book the only thing that Is left of the world is England. The English are run by facism and curfews are one of the many limitations people have .  Teens in this world are well behaved, speak proper English and are all white. These teens also have perfect or model families. The live in 2 story houses with a dog or cat, smaller siblings and both mom and dad. They watch tv do homework and live perfect lives. This is not an image of what our world resembles. In our world not one person is the same. At our school alone the diversity alone is incredible. Problems are everywhere and perfection is impossible. Also not everyone has a pet. This movie makes a stereotype of what a perfect teen and family should be. This is done to show that utopian societys are impossible and not so great. The movie and book show this through the character V, who names flaws in this facist government and breaks it down trying to create a world more like ours.

letter to ms burner

Dear Ms Berner,                                                                                                11/11/13

Hi my name is Tabo Ceman, I am an 8^th grader at your school. While I wish I were writing to you on brighter terms, I find that it is important to attempt to persuade you away from banning books in the 6^th grade library. I think instead; to read books that are  vulgar, violent or include drug use, we should have parent’s and teacher permission necessary .

Book banning is like a screen; covering children's eyes from information that may very well be of use to them in the present or future. Writer Sherman Alexie wrote in his article,Why The Best Kids Books Are Written In Blood, about how books helped him fight the problems in his life. “They taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life”. Moreover, this is one reason why we should not ban books because we cannot take away a child’s only way of fighting his problems. In addition, if his parents are the problem then the kid should be able to speak to his teacher about reading the book and find his courage that way.

           

Another reason why I think book banning is not appropriate in our school is because, banning books is based off what some people think books should resemble. For example as Sherman Alexie, spat out; referring to book banning groups in his article. “ They are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be”. One example was shown in an ABC news coverage in Montgomery, Texas. Where Diana Verm was given the classic Fahrenheit 451 as an assignment. After reading about the burning of the Bible, she complained and was given a new assignment. Alton Verm; her father wouldn’t leave it at that and wanted to ban the book from the entire school saying “I think there is no reason anyone should want to read this”.  Mr. Verm based his need to ban the book of what he thinks proper literature should be. I think this is wrong because literature is never the same. It must change as time does. The problems in life change, consequently so does literature. This is one reason why I think book banning should not take place in our 6^th grade libraries.

I think parents and teachers should be in charge of what their kids read because they are the ones in charge of how  kids are growing.  If a parent or teacher does not like the idea of their child being exposed to sex, drugs or violence then, we cannot stop them, but once a parent or teacher sees it as their job to take away powerful learning tools from others, then it becomes a problem. As Bill Moyers says, “censorship is the enemy of truth. Even within a lie, lies can be exposed censorship can prevent us from knowing the difference.” A parent is allowed to, with the consult of a teacher sensor their children’s knowledge as they think it is best but they should not sensor what another child needs.

Meghan Cox Gurdon on the other hand believes that books nowadays are “dark” and “smut” as she describes novels in the article Darkness to Visible. She believes that books nowadays are horrible and that they may give children dangerous thoughts and ideas. I say that there are dark books. But if parents and teachers are the ones in charge of what his/her child reads then together they can take care of explaining and helping the child understand the morals of the literature. If the parents are as the article, The Banned Books We Have Loved, describes “seemingly afraid or unwilling to have conversations with their children about what they are reading” unable to help their children, unable to deter dangerous thoughts. Then the child should talk to his teacher, and the teacher should speak to the child and parents about the future of the child’s reading curriculum. This is why I believe that even though, books are dark, they can still be and should be read, even in the 6^th grade library.

All in all book banning should not even be considered for the 6^th grade library, or any library, because it blinds children from learning about the outside world and stops them expanding their knowledge. “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.”-Abraham Lincoln. So how can we learn what we want to know while banning books?

Thank you for your time

Yours truly,

Tabo Luka Ceman

811

yes or no death penalty

tabo ceman
YES

Why? lemme tell you. to be given the death penalty one must have done something so bad that even in the 21 century we want to kill him/her. death is something that frightens some and intrests others but to me its just leaving. so think of it like this your guest does something horrible at your house, you penalize him/her by making them leave. the death penalty is something like that to me. if youve done something so horrific being asked to leave in a quick fashion of injecting poison in you're body seems not so bad. Is it un human i dont think so. when someone does something so bad you want them to leave theyve deserved it, they knew the consequences and continued any way and so we punish them. this is why i dont think its inhumane. now say the case is the assailant is "special" or has said deseases that made him commit such a thing then i think they can be excused from death.
all in all when you've hurt the planet enough for its inhabitants to want you to leave i think you should pack your bags and prepare for then next life {if there is one}.

reading response 2                                                                                              Tabo Ceman

In the book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by JK Rowling, is the final installment in the Harry Potter series. This is where it all ends, where Harry goes after the Horcrux’s (part of Voldamort’s soul) and kills Voldamort. JK Rowling, shows how people solving issues shows what kind of person they are. She shows this in the ways Harry solves problems, the way Voldamort solves problems and how Hermione solves problems. She shows how the way you think describes you.

            One example of this is Hermione. On page 210 Harry, Ron and Hermione converse on how to kill the Horcrux. Harry and Ron just spill out ideas but Hermione try’s to solve the problem as she would usually; relying on a book. “There’s nothing in here” she says refering to the book. This shows how reliant she is on books. It shows how she’s a studious person who doesn’t think outside the box.  This is one way rowling shows how the way people solve problems shows what kind of people they are.

            Another way Rowling shows this is in Voldamort. Voldamort solves his problems by killing people in anger. “The green light flashed and the crippled goblin fell” pg 709. After he figures out Harry, knows about his secret horcrux’s he kills the goblin’s who were supposed to protect them. This shows how evil Voldamort is and how angry he is on the inside. The way he reacts to issues shows how he is and how different he is from other characters, like Hermione. Rowling uses this way of writing to show how different everyone is.

            My final example is Harry. Harry is a person so selfless that he lets himself die for the greater good. This is shown the way he responds to Voldamort attacking Hogwarts. “ He saw the lips move and the green light, then he fell” this is when Harry goes up to Voldamort and lets himself get killed, so Voldamort will die and there will be no more death. This shows how pure hearted Harry is and how Rowling uses character problem solving to show her characters personality.

            Rowling is an amazing writer. One of her great abilities is to create deep characters and she does this by making them so different from each other. One way she does this is by showing how characters solve problems. All in all this is an important factor of Rowling’s writing.

 

9-25-13            faithful elephants essay                                                T.L.C

One interesting theme in the short story "Faithful Elephants" by Yukio Tsuchia is that war destroys beings you would not expect it to. "Faithful Elephants" is a story that depicts WWII at the Ueno zoo in Japan. In this unfortunately true tale there is a zookeeper forced to kill his three loving elephants Tonky, Wanly and John. This story shows and teaches us to be strong in these situations unlike the zookeeper.

One example that war steals away things you would not expect it to is the tragic execution of the dangerous animals at the Ueno zoo. This occurs because the animals, if freed by the constant bombings could instill even more havoc and chaos then there is already. “All the Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Bears, and big Snakes were poisoned to death”. Who would have foreseen, that all the animals be killed even though they have nothing to do with the war? War for those in America is often fought off in some distant land; consequently, we have no vision of war and could never imagine that war can kill so many innocent animals. We still need to realize though, that war does kill beings and not just those on the battlegrounds.

            Another example of the appalling unknown effects of war is the manner the zookeeper was affected. “The elephants trainer loved them as if they were his own children. He could only walk in front of the cage saying “ you poor, poor, poor pitiful elephants”. This war made him kill “his own children” and it made him become a killer, even though he was just an innocent zookeeper. Even though he did not want to kill the poor creatures, he had no choice because it was the imperial armies order. This depicts how war affects a man who works with animals that he loves, and involves him in this war making him a killer too.

            As Martin Luther King jr once said” change does not roll in on wheels of inevitability but it comes through the continuous struggle, and so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent”

This is what Yukio Tsuchia wants to teach us. That change can come only if you fight for what you believe in, as the zookeeper should have. She shows us how the weak zookeeper did not fight for the lives of his children but bent his back to the imperial army. Therefore, we must not bend our back to the forces of war but must try to prevent them.

reading response 1

by Tabo Ceman

While reading the interesting book the chocolate war  by Robert Cormier I have come across a theme that appears repeatedly. Rebellion. This theme appears when Goober is doing his first assignment and again appears through the Vigals {a secret society within the school} as they rebel against the school.

This theme of rebellion is first shown in the book when Goober is ordered to unscrew all the bolts in one room and he given help by rebelious Vigals going against Archie {chief Vigal}. This group of reblllious vigals help Goober turn a job that is 9 hours long into three hours. They also help Goober become stronger, because everyone expects him to ail and he succeeds. This shows how inide a very secret almost cult like society there can be disagreement to lead to a very small rebellious act.

 From the minute the Vigals are introduced you can tell they are a group or smart teens who go against school rules to control the school and its teachers. Archie sends kids to desecrate the Trinity school building and beat children who rebel against him and his vigals to a pulp. For example he sends Goober to dismantle a classroom or he sends obie to recruit new Vigals for the job.

All in all the Trinity school is a place filled with rebellious students who have no respect for school rules or its own cults rules.