Holes By Louis Sachar

Puritans and reformers of seventeenth century England have been given a bad name for their part in history. This is primarily because they were working against the grain and trying to create change in world that saw change as a threat. The time period was turbulent and there was bound to be resistance in a world that was dominated by Catholics and those that had reformed to abide by their King’s law. The puritans of the time were considered extreme and rubbed people the wrong way because they wanted a world that abided by their morals and ethical codes. For this, they took the blame for the misery that many suffered during this age, but as we see in Fire from Heaven, this is not a fair assessment. The Puritans of this time wanted to improve the lives of the people and society as a whole through morality and purity.

During Mr. Rosenberg’s leave we learned different dramatic elements such as script analysis, stasis and intrusion, dramatic conflict, etc. This helps us to understand the different elements so one day when we have to apply the elements we will already be mindful of them. Additionally, we also learned about the beginning of theater dating back to ancient Greece and their different ways of displaying theater.

In the Film Holes different filmic conventions are used to portray characters and construct atmosphere. The film is about a young boy named Stanley Yelnats who follows a journey like his great great great grandfather did. He was sent to Camp Green Lakes for a crime that he did not commit and when he arrived at camp he uncovered some of his family secrets. Techniques such as camera angles, sound effects and color constructs the characters and atmosphere in the film which creates the mood.These film codes are very important in the film as they help the viewer understand the story and conventions better.

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli is about a nine year old boy named David Limpert, who is a loner. His mother died in an accident when a janitor didn’t put up a wet floor sign. She fell down the stairs head first, and never woke up. Before the accident, David and his mother had made plans to watch the sunrise the next morning, but they never got to do that. David swore that he would never look at the sunrise again. He also swore to never break a rule again.

Billie Jo Kelby is not a boy. She’s a girl; a wiry, thin, redheaded girl that looks more like her father than her mother. She lives on the Great Plains in 1935, during the great drought known as the Dust Bowl. She lives with her pregnant mother and her father, and life seems good, or as good as it will get in her dusty world.

Have you ever been falsely accused of something you didn't do? Well, this happens in the realistic fiction book, Holes by Louis Sachar. I strongly believe that you should read this well developed book, for it has fascinating characters, the great message, and the astounding plot. The 14 year old and main protagonist of the story named Stanley Yelnats goes through a series of unfortunate events that leads him into an abusive camp. He is overweight, lonely in school, and gets bullied frequently. In the camp, the requirement every day is to dig a hole five feet deep, and five feet across in every direction. Because of the many kids in the camp, the landscape is full of holes, and looks dry and beat up. Stanley eventually finds out there is more

Jimmy Cross, a college student, is carrying a great burden being the lieutenant of his group of soldiers. A chapter from The Things They Carried titled “In the Field” states, “Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it … he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps … because it seemed preferable to letting the draft take him” (160). The use of the word “never” to describe Cross’s want for being a lieutenant displays that at no point in his life had he ever desired to lead a band of men in the war. Even though Cross in no way wanted to direct this group of men, it seemed like a better option than being drafted in the war. To him, being drafted in the war sounded even less desirable than

America’s answer for dealing with crime prevention is locking up adult offenders in correctional facilities with little rehabilitation for reentry into society. American response for crime prevention for juvenile’s offenders is the same strategy used against adult offenders taken juvenile offenders miles away from their environment and placed in adult like prisons.

Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger. This story follows a young boy, who through hard work, determination, self-reliance, honesty and good character went from a homeless black-boot to a respectable, high paying job.  This story is filled with examples of what life was like in New York City, telling the us what he would find and experience in it. In Ragged Dick, This was a time of progress, change and falsehood in American History. This is when people really started to chase the illusive American dream, and Alger is trying to capture this rags-to-riches vision. The fact that the book takes place in New York is not enough to understand the full extent of this book. At this time many Americans were going through one of the hardest times in

The main character's name is Stanley Yelnats. At first, you see stanley as an alright kid who has made a bad decision stealing. “ I stole some sneakers” (pg 22). Throughout the rest of the story you find that stanley is nice and always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time all thanks to his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather” (Pg 7). At school before camp Green Lake he was bullied and treated bad. “he didn’t have any friends at home, he was overweight” (pg 7). At camp Green Lake Stanley made a new friend, his best friend “Zero”. He get’s along great with Zero and teaches him how to read. “I’ll try

Steven Whitacre experienced a very traumatic childhood of abuse from his father which led to a very difficult adulthood. In his book “My Fathers Prostitute”, he talks about his life, starting out when his father first abused him to more recent times in adulthood to where he finally sought help and started to move on in his life started to live the life he should and deserves. This book really opened my eyes on what all goes on in this world that I would have never guessed. “Every eight minutes, a child is sexually assaulted in the U.S., and 93% know the perpetrator” (“Adult Survivors of Childhood”). To me this statistic seems insane and I cannot ever imagine being sexually assaulted by anyone let alone one of my parents that I am supposed to trust and love. When you really think about it, that how every eight minutes a child is getting sexually assaulted it is astonishing. It makes me wonder how many people I know that I have been sexually assaulted but don’t tell anyone. I assume there are many different cases of sexual assault and how there are different levels of how traumatic they are to the individual someone came upon. With some people, the sexual assault only happened once, and with others like the author of My Fathers Prostitute it happens during their entire childhood to impact the individual even more. I am not saying that the individuals who have only been sexually assaulted once came out un hurt or traumatized, but I would just imagine that it would not leave

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond gives you an in depth look at societies you may or may not be familiar with and shows you the secrets to their success or failure using his personal 5-point framework. I enjoyed this book and thought he made a lot of good points and had convincing evidence to back it up. While reading you could really tell he knew a lot about the areas he discussed because of the depth he went into with details and descriptions. One complaint I would have about the book is the length he went to in the detailed descriptions, at some points I felt he went too far and got a little wordy and with as much as he gave you are left with almost no questions or curiosity. There were a few terms he uses in the book like

1. One of the main characters in the book Black and Blue is a woman named Frannie Benedetto. Some of the roles that Frannie had were being a wife, a mother, a Catholic, and a nurse. Her role as a wife was very challenging, due to the fact that she was in an abusive relationship and was married to a New York City Police Officer. Frannie had been married to her husband Bobby Benedetto for almost twenty years. Her entire relationship with her husband has been traumatizing. Numerous times Frannie had been physically assault, raped, and belittled. Bobby physically assaulted Frannie when she was nineteen years old for the first time in their relationship. Frannie recalls many times that Bobby came home drunk and would rape her. Bobby belittled his wife by accusing her of sleeping with the doctors she worked with and by making her feel like she had deserved to get beaten up by him. One of the major reasons that Frannie stayed in the relationship with Bobby was because of their son.

In his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” Hector Tobar recounts the story of 33 miners who spent 69 days trapped more than 2000 feet underground in the Chile’s San Jose mines following the collapse of the mine in 2010. According to Tobar (2015), the disaster began on a day shift around noon when miners working deep inside the mountain excavating minerals started feeling vibrations. A sudden massive explosion then followed and the passageways of the mines filled with dust clouds. Upon settling of the dust, the men discovered that the source of the explosion was a single stone that had broken off from the rest of the mountain and caused a chain reaction leading to

When we think back on the mistakes we have made in life did any of them have a good outcome? For young Stanley Yelnats in Holes by Louis Sachar, a mistake turned his life around. The mistake put him in a bad place, but by the end of the story he had actually ended up with many good outcomes. Stanley benefitted from many things from the mistake made by Hector Zeroni. Stanley made a friend, received/ found a treasure, and also bettered himself as a person. Even though he got pulled into a mess he did not let it destroy him as a person. He strived to better himself and those around him. In the beginning of the story Stanley is a timid, bigger built, loving, and caring boy; but as the story progresses he begins to change. Stanley’s personality