Literature Circle Responses - Part II

Section A – Making observations

For the reading you've done from the beginning of your lit circle book up to Wednesday, 12/12, respond to the following prompts.

1.) Religion
2.) Bravery
3.) Hope

Section B – Asking questions

1. Small Questions: Write down any questions you have concerning the literal meaning of the text.

What was the reason that the boat sank?

2. Big Questions: Write an interpretative question. That’s a question that people could have different opinions about. These are often good questions for a seminar discussion or for a debate. You do not have to completely answer them; but at the very least jot down thoughts, reflections, and random notes.

How do you fell about Pi taking part in three different religions? Do you think that its a bad thing or a good thing?

What do you think that the significance of the tiger always being with Pi throught out the story is?

Section C – Quotation Analysis

1. What quote struck you as memorable or particularly interesting? Why? What point was the author making? What significance does it have to the meaning of the book?

The quote in the book that struck me as memorable or paticularly interesting is the on that is on page 4.

"If you come upon a sleeping three-toed sloth in the wild, two or three nudges should suffice to awaken it; it will look sleepily in every direction but yours. Why it should look about is uncertain since the sloth sees everything in a Magoo-like blur. As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound. BeeBe reported that firing guns next to sleeping or feeding sloths elicited little reaction."

The reason that this struck me as memorable is because it was funny and it tells about the sleeping traits that of the three-toed sloth. I think that the reason that the author put this part in the story is because he wanted to kind of show that Pi knew alot about animals, reason being is because he has a degree in Zoology.

2. What quote seems particularly relevant to one of the themes you identified above? What does it add to the theme overall? How does that theme enhance the meaning of the book overall?

The quote that I actually picked isn't really a quote. Its page 198 - 200.
Its the Different plans that he has. It goes with the bravery theme that i thought of.

Plan Number One: Puch Him off the Lifeboat,

Plan Number Two: Kill Him with the Six Morphine Syringes,

Plan Number Three: Attack Him with All Available Weaponry,

Plan Number Four: Choke Him,

Plan Number Five: Poison Him, Set Him on Fire, Electrocute Him,

Plan Number Six: Wage a war of Attrition,

This went well with the whole bravery theme mostly because as the list of plans go on they get more intense. As each plan gets worst he gets more brave. The difference is that plan one all he's thinking of is just pushing him off into the water. But once it gets to "Plan Number Five" then he gets more brave and thinks of easier ways of getting ride of the tiger.

Literature Circle: Life of Pi 1-22

Before I started to read this book I saw on the back that it was about a young boy that was trapped in a little row boat with a 400 pound tiger. But when I read the first few pages it started to talk about the three toed sloth and about his college Religious and Zoology study courses that he took. I was kinda confused but then as I read on it kinda made since. It seemeed like as Mamaji was teaching him to swim for a good reason. Mamaji was also an Olympic swimmer.

I'm confused about Chapter 4 why he's naming alot of fruit and a lot of animals; mainly on page 20.

Today

I finished the last touch ups that had to be made on the SLC student note thingy so now im done with that. Today our group sent an email to the lady that we interviewed apologizing for the last interview not going that well and that we have new question and would like to schedual another interview.

Interview w/ San Diego Coastkeepers

Well first of all the lady that we were going to interview was half an hour late. The lady was nice during the interview and gave us some good information, but since she didn't know much about farms we couldn't ask her much about them. During the interview we had to stop afew times to refresh the topic and get some new questions. But in all I think that the information that was relevent to our topic we could use and also use it to answer some of our questions.

Water Expert

Ann found us a expert that we will be able toask our questions. Ann said that she works down the street from the school and that shes a friend so we can just go down and get her. From what I know Austin is trying to set up a interview on next friday.

My comments on blogs!

I looked at RG's blog and Resource #8 was pretty cool i think becsuse he posted a picture that describes the kind of inovations that the incas had. The picture is showing that they had made raised beds for the plants so that it creates like a little valley for the water to go through. One of the other posts that RG put up was that really long maybe he could have just made a hyperlink so that it wouldn't take up so much space on the post.

I saw that william has alot of great links that go to good information but he hardly tells anything about them. I think that it would be better if he told something about then so that it would seem more interesting to the viewer.

Last I looked at Austins blog, one of the post that I think can use a little work on is the one that has the title San Diego Water Shed. I think that he should have also posted some information about the site and to also post the websites URL.

Expert Information

Well all that we need to do to get is get the questions done. The Expert Lady called me back to give me her e-mail address, so we need to get the questions done because she wants to see them in advance.

Call The Guy

I realized that I wouldn't be able to call the expert on our topic this weekend to set up a date so i'll just have to wait until Monday next week so that I can call them. Other than that I think that we are keeping up with our assignments.

What Im doing

For my art artifact for the aztecs I am going to do a drawing of a human sacrifice to the gods!!!
I hope that thats ok because no one asked me what i was doing so im doing this.

Website

This is another really good website to find information on the Aztec's
I like it because its easy to understand and gives alot of information and has alot of good pictures.
Its from a library!!!
The second link is for the the front page
http://library.thinkquest.org/16325/y-main.html
http://www.rock-hill.k12.sc.us/departments/research/ancient_aztecs.htm

Aztec Art

I think that these shows the different types of art that they made. The Statues that they made back then were ussually made out of Limestone. Both of these statues are gods. The one on the right is the Aztec Corn Goddess and the the statue on the right is goddess Cihuateoti.

Aztec info

The website that I said that I found is a very good source for finding informaiton on Aztec Art. But I'm wondering is I can still use it if I can't find some of the information on the site to make a cite. If not then no worries I have other sited that I have been using.

San Diego Water polution

I've found some web addreses that I have already shared with Raul. Most of the information that I have found is from the San Diego Watershed. Because we are only focusing on the differences in the quality fof the water we only need section 3 of the report.

http://www.projectcleanwater.org/pdf/wurmp/sdr_2006_annual_report.pdf

What I'm seeing is that the water quality in the San Diego river has increased alot from the report that they did in 2003. Just because the water quality has gotten better doesn't mean that there still isn't any pollution in it. A lot of the pollution that is in the San Diego river is sewage. Also alot of the city's storm drains flow into the river making it even more polluted.
Check back soon for more of what I found!!!

People on Bikes!!!

Last night on Friday I coming home from my youth group my dad and I were going up the hill by the Frisbee golf course and saw a bunch bicyclists riding down the hill. My dad was afraid that he was going to him one so he slowed down. One of the guys that was leading the group of 300-400 bikers stopped in front of our car. He started yelling at my dad to stop the car so he did. Them the guy started to yell to the other bikers to hurry up that he has the traffic stopped. Once he said that I saw two police cars with their lights flashing on the top of the hill where most of the bikers were. As my dad and I heard the sirens we looked at the guy. When he saw the cop cars he let us go.
When we got up to 30th and Upas Street by the Jack in the Box we heard sirens racing down 30th. We were stopped in the intersection because there was a back-up of cars. The cop cars raced in and out of the traffic going down to the Florida street turn on ramp. Once we saw them go by my dad and I looked up and saw a helicopter flashing its search light on the bicyclists that were fleeing the scene when they heard the sirens.
Almost all night long we saw bicyclists riding up and down our street trying to get away from the police. It was a crazy night!!!

Aztec Indian Information

This week I've been looking for some websites that give me some interesting information on the Aztec Indians. I have found a website about the Aztec Indians thats i think that others in my group will think that is interesting. The websites has many different articles containing information about the Culture, Religion, Civilization, Daily Life, History, and ancient Aztec Warriors.

I also found some cool pictures: