What's 811 Reading? discussion
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In Daniel Keyes' science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon, the biggest conflict in this book is Charlie wanting to be accepted for being normal and his self image. Charlie is a 32 yeear-old male who is mentally retarded and wants to be as normal and as smart as other people. Charlie struggled to make friends because of his self image and being mentally retarded. He wants to become a genius by raising his IQ. Before becoming normal, teens would pick on him and beat him up. Because of this, he wants to become a normal person and hope other people would accept him. Charlie stated,"Why cant I be lyke other peepel? I want to be a normal pirson and become as smart as othir people so they can acept me for who I am and I wil start making frends." This quote shows Charlie wants people to accept him the way he looks and act because he really wants to become a smart and a normal person, so he can start to make friends. Therefore, this why I think this is the biggest conflict of this book.
Knots in My Yo-Yo String
In Jerry Spinelli's autobiography nonfiction novel, Knots in My Yo-yo String, the important conflict is that his childhood was a hard life because he is a trouble maker. When Jerry was talking about how much he loves wars in comic books, he actually set up a pretend game of war without violence in it. He actually threw a stone on one of his best friends and was hurt. The text states, " He screamed.n He wouldn't stop screaming. Blood streamed down his face " (11). After he had dis that he was punish with his parents. This quote states that Jerry wasn't thinking about his action and was punish for the accident. This proves Jerry's important conflict because he could had hurt his best friend really bad or can got into a serious injury. Therefore, Jerry was a trouble maker because he doesn't think of his actions before doing.
In Daniel Keyes science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon, an important conflict is when Charlie is arguing with Alice. Alice is a girl who works at Beekman College for retarded adults. Charlie is smart and he is improving, he can write perfectly, his IQ went from a 70 to a 185. He moved to New York. He then finds his father but the father doesn't know it's him. It's weird how he tries to say hi but doesn't. He then has a lot of flashbacks about his childhood. It’s very understanding and how he felt like. When he goes to Beekman College he talks to Alice, and they argue. She states, "All right. You want to know? You're different. You've changed. And I'm not talking about your I.Q. It's your attitude toward people-you're not the same kind of human being"(85). This quote shows how he has changed not only his intelligence, but his personality. He is changing after he became smart. He changed the way he acts, he attitude, and view on people. He is a new Charlie. He isn't his old-self. This quote lets Charlie understand the way people are feeling. Therefore an important conflict is his argument with Alice.
In the non- fiction autobiography How I Came to Be a Writer by Phyliss Reynolds Naylor an important conflict the protagonist faces is when she starts publishing her stories to newspapers and editors and gets rejected every time. This helped her to improve her writing and work harder ever single day when she writes. She loved writing ever since she was a little kid. She always wrote and when she got older she wrote things and shared them with people that she knows. Her teachers always gave her advice on what things she does. She started sending them to editors because everyone said she was a good writer. "The second thing I discovered was that stories came back with printed rejection slips, not page- long letters of apology with encouragement to try" (31). This quote shows that she was rejected many times for her writing. This made her mad and sad so she decided to improve her writing. She always takes people's advice and after improving her writing and trying harder. This conflict pushed her to improve and work on her writing every day.
In Peter Moores realistic fiction novel, Blind Sighted, an important conflict that Kirk is experiencing at the moment is that he isn't doing well in english. Accourting to the book, Kirk isn't paying attention in class but instead he just do some random writings in his books, and yet no one notices him doing that. "Kirk doesn't have many friends, and he spends his time in school writing instead of paying attention." This shows that Kirks conflict is important because if he keeps this up he may end up getting kicked out of school.
In Darren Shaw's fiction book Lord Loss, the main conflict in this book is between Lord loss and Grubbs. Grubbs is a boy who used to live with his mom, dad and sister before they were brutally killed by Lord loss, a demon. Grubbs see's them getting murdered. Grubbs tells the cops what he saw but they think he is so crazy and in shock that they put him in a mental hospital. Now Grubbs lives with his uncle, Dervish Grady. Dervish believes Grubbs about the demon and is very heartbroken as well. "The beginning and end of your greatest sorrow"(26). This quote shows when Grubbs asked Lord Loss who he is and Lord Loss says he is the beginning of his greatest sorrows. This means that he is saying that he is the one who is going to be the beginning of his sorrows and the ending. Grubbs, even though he doesn't even know Lord Loss he hates him and despises him for killing his mom, dad, and sister for a reason he does not know of.
In Steve Augarde's fiction book, X-Isle, the biggest conflict that affected the protagonist was a flood that occured in his home town. That flood occured when a bridge collapsed letting all of the water into the protagonist's hometown. The protagonist is even lucky to be alive because some died in this traadegy. The protagonist escaped on a boat and he was heading to X-Isle for saftey. The protagonist was shocked that this happened. The protagonist states, "Dear God, I am lucky to be alive especially from a flood that deep." This quote shows that how lucky he is to be alive.
In Timothy Dalrymple's non fiction biography, The Reason For Linsanity, the main conflict is about Jeremy Lin and being stuck in the NBA D-League. Jeremy Lin's dad had gotten him into basketball at a young age and he continued playing throughout his life even at Harvard. Eventually he was drafted by the Golden State Warriors but traded to the New York Knicks after things didn't work out. There he was sent to the NBA Developmental League. He found he was getting better stats and was feeling more confident there than the actually NBA. Lin had admitted himself, "I had more time in the D-League to focus on the game. I was more confident and achieving higher stats." This quote shows that Lin wasn't ready enough to play in the NBA and he needed more time to focus and improve before proving himself in front of everyone. He did eventually overcome his weaknesses and turned into Linsanity playing for the New York Knicks. Therefore the main conflict of this biography is Lin being stuck in the D-League needing improvement.
In Harvey Rosenfield non-fiction novel, Iron Man, an important conflict is he talks about his batting avg. Cal Ripken Jr always has good games and bad games. He has more bad games then good games and his batting avg has dropped so much. When he talks about it, he feel a shame and wants to do better," Everytime I talk to my coach about this, he makes me feel like I can improve it." This proves that he keeps trying everyday even though he wants to do better. Therefore, an important conflict is his batting avg.
For a “4”: Did I….
• Write a topic sentence that provided the title, author, and genre of my text?
• Provide context of what is happening in the text, so my reader understands what I’m talking about?
• Find a direct quote from the text that proves my idea?
• Thoroughly explain the significance of my quote/how it proves my idea?
• Check for correct punctuation and spelling?