Dear Ms. Galang and 811,

I had pretty high expectations for the 8th grade in the beginning of the year, and I have to say it was just as amazing as I thought it would be. Although school is not always enjoyable, being in this amazing homeroom made it better. This has been one of the best years of my life and I have all of my classmates and teachers to thank for it. This has also been such a good year in ELA. We did so many fun units and I grew as a writer and reader so much.

One of my favorite units was poetry. I usually hate writing poetry, because I never know what to say, but writing in a response to a painting or photograph really helped. Coming up with a story to go along with a piece of art opened up a new door for me. It even helped when I wasn’t writing a poem in response to art. I could come up with a story for a poem and write it. I had never done that before this year, I always thought poetry was about expressing yourself, but now I realize it can be a creative outlet to write anything you can think of.

Another thing that I really liked doing was book clubs. I love being able to share ideas with other people, and working together to dive deep into the book and really figure out all the hidden topics. It helped to be able to bounce ideas off of each other in a small group. Reading To Kill a Mockingbird in book clubs for the banned books unit really stood out, because it has so many intertwined issues to discuss. Picking through and unraveling every little piece was really interesting and exciting.

I had fun all year in ELA and in all classes, thank you 811 for making this one of the best years of my life.

-Olivia

Sunset (Poetic response to photo below)

I come here every night

same place, to sit

on the same fence

yet there’s always a different sunset behind me

always beautifully breathtaking

So I go sit on the fence

at sunset

and make shadows

Reflection

This poem is about how nature is always changing, and always beautiful. The narrator is stuck in a routine sitting on the same fence in the same place every night, and she seeks comfort in knowing that the sunset is forever changing, and it will never be the same again.

Silence

Silence follows me

everywhere I go

I glance at people, mindlessly talking but

no noise comes out

words with no meaning

no thought
I don’t listen

to people who speak words of numbness

so silence surrounds me

everywhere

everywhere is silent

if you stop listening

Reflection

This poem is about the narrator, who doesn’t listen when people talk. They think that what other people say is insignificant, so they get lost in their own thoughts and their head in always in the clouds.

Sonnet

We sailed on the bay towards the island

The wind in our faces, blowing our hair

The boat began to scrape against the sand

No where I would’ve rather been but there

with you, in the best summer of my life

Loving every moment, but now its gone

Getting over you was my hardest strife

I think about you everyday at dawn,

and every sunset as I go to bed

Thoughts of the perfect summer and other

memories always in my head

Forevermore, one after another

I thought we were in love, but I guess not

Maybe I was wrong, now I’m overwrought

Reflection

I think the hardest part of the sonnet was making every line exactly ten syllables. I would think of a line, then realize it was only 8 or 11 syllables and have to change it. Having a specific rhyme scheme helped me a lot. I could find a word that had to do with my poem and then build the rest of the line around that. This also helped the story of the poem develope. Even after the first four lines, I had no idea what direction I was going in, but I kept writing and was able to make a story.

Heart Poem

Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

and before the street begins,

and there the grass grows soft and white,

and there the sun burns crimson bright,

and there the moon-bird rests from his flight

to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

and the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow

and watch where the chalk-white arrows go

to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

and we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,

the place where the sidewalk ends.

Reading Response

I chose this poem because when I was little I had the poem anthology from Shel Silverstein called “Where The Sidewalk Ends”, and I had it on audiobook. I used to listen to so many of his poems over and over again. I chose this one because I feel that I can relate to many of the themes he brings up in the poem.

One of the themes I relate to is the theme of pollution, and how dirty the world has become. The poem describes the place where the sidewalk ends as a very clean and fresh environment. Shel Silverstein uses phrases such as, “the grass grows soft and white,” and “peppermint wind” to paint the picture of the clean and fresh place. I hate how dirty the world has gotten, and how we have caused global warming and climate change, and lots of species to become extinct. It makes me sad that we as humans don’t clean up after ourselves, and most people don’t even care.

The second theme that I found in this poem that I relate to is described in the third stanza when She Silverstein says that the children will lead the way to the land with no pollution or and problems at all. He is implying that childhood is a very simple and happy time in a person’s life, because children are oblivious to a lot of the world”s problems.This lets them lead lives that are happy and free of responsibilities.

All in all, I chose this poem because I love Shel Silverstein and I can relate to it on many levels. I connect with theme of pollution and the idea that children live in a different world than the rest of us.

Teamwork and friendship is important in anyone's life, especially Percy Jackson's. In "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan, Percy relies on his friends and teamwork to keep him alive through multiple battles. Rick Riordan tries to help us imagine people working together as opposed to in competition with one another. 

Percy is a demigod. This means that he is half mortal, and half Greek God. He goes to camp in the summer for you trains to fight monsters, and goes to regular school during the year. He has to be very careful about monsters in the mortal world, and he hasn't had an encounter until the last day of school. He is in PE playing dodgeball, when all of a sudden the kids on the other team grow to 8 feet tall and start throwing have a bronze falls and encased fire. His friend to Tyson who is a cyclops even though Percy doesn't realize, diverts the attack while Percy runs to get his sword. Without Tyson Percy would've died. This tells us that you figuratively and literally shouldn't fight all your battles alone, and it's always good to have friends by your side. 

When Percy gets back to camp after this, he finds that the magical borders keeping monsters out have weakened, and there's only a few kids who stayed year-round to fight monsters. One of them is Clarisse, someone who doesn't like Percy, and he doesn't like her either. In spite of this, when Clarisse was knocked down in battle, instead of fighting the other monster, Percy dashes over to her and gets her out of the way before she is trampled. Clarisse would've died without Percy there to help. This shows teamwork is important even if you don't like your teammates. In the end, you all have one common goal, and you need each other to accomplish it. 

Percy has another friend, Grover, who is on a quest to find the missing God, Pan. Before he left, Grover made an empathy link between him and Percy, which means they can communicate through dreams. In a dream, Grover told Percy that he was is big trouble. He was completely trapped and probably going to die. Percy didn't hesitate to say that he would go save him as soon as he could. In that moment, Percy cared about Grover more than the weakened borders at camp. All he wanted to do was help his friend, even though he knew it would be nearly impossible. This shows how strong their friendship is and how much they mean to each other. 

This whole book is all about teamwork and helping each other out. Percy needs his friends, and his friends need him. Percy is the hero of the story, but he couldn't have done it with out help. 

Author’s Note

First Draft

There are millions of kids getting bullied in schools all across America, and other countries, too. Severe bullying can lead to depression, decrease in grades and concentration, self isolation, self harm, anxiety, suicide, and more. Lots of kids are bullied due to differences from other students, such as race, religion, or different disabilities. Some children get harassed because of disabilities, meaning they get threats, physically and verbally assaulted. This is a really big problem thats still goes on daily, and something needs to be done about it.