Machuca

I am Pedro Machuca. I am a 50 year-old man, which has witnessed the history of our country from both sides. When I was around 10 years old I lived in what the people call a “shanty town”, I lived with my mother and my little sister… Well I had a father too but he was always drunk and he mistreated us. I was attending to a school in a high neighborhood, Saint Patrick, with some other boys, because father McEnroe invited us to meet some boys with a totally different reality to ours, the idea was to learn to respect each other.

At the first moment I felt like a strange bug, because all those students were blonde, clean, well-dressed and it showed that their families had a good economic situation while we were poor, dirty and bad-dressed boys.

With the days in that school I met one boy, Gonzalo, we became very good friends, despite what different we were. He also went with me and my uncle to sell flags in demonstrations. All was nice, He usually went almost every day to my house and sometimes I went to his.

Everything changed one day… we fought because he treated me really bad, so we stop talking and get together. One day after the military coup some policemen went to my neighborhood, killed some people and arrested others. Gonzalo was watching all that and he realized how unfair life was like for people like me. I could escape of those policemen, I lived alone in the streets, that time of my life was awful. I had to hide of the military trucks.

But now my life it is different because one day, a school accepts me and then I could go to the university. Nowadays I had a beautiful family and all those past days remember me that we must be humble and remember where we came from, yet we have to strive and get ahead.

Dangerous Minds.2

5th chapter: Mrs. West, you have a lovely daughter.

Ms. Johnson have some problems with one of her students, Callie, a girl who interrupt the class being disrespectful and also yawned like and showing that the teacher make her get bored. Hal tell to Ms. J that she has to write a note to the parents of that girl, she did it, but she tell them very good things about their daughter. Then when Callie read the note she change her bad attitudes and she began to be a good student. So the name of this chapter means the assertive way that the the teacher had for change the behavior of her student.

6th Chapter: Thunderbolt Jones.

Ms. J tell to the students about her summer school and she wanted to do the same with them. Although Hal said that would be a bad idea, Ms. J did it. She had problems with some students, for example one boy, Thunderbolt (or Troy Jones, he has this name because he had thunderbolts in his hair) he was very disrespectful, he said that he’ll hit her if she did not let him finish his test. The teacher said if he do that she will do the same, so the boy realize that he had no chance to be defended by the principal if that happened

Dangerous Minds

The first chapter of the story is called "My dog ate it" because that was Raul's excuse for every teacher when they ask him to do a homework. In the first chapter he realizes that Ms. Johnson has faith in him, and because of that he does not have to let her down, that means that he tried to be a good student and to be a better person.

The second Chapter, "Okie Dokie, Artichokie" is about the moment that Ms. Johnson tried to make classes in Ms. Sheppard's classroom, she met this disrespectful students that just ignore her. In that moment one of the girls tell her that expression ("okie dokie, artichokie") and she felt offended. So the main idea of this title is that the teacher had to put some limits and demand respect and that it did not work as she expected.

The third one, "Fire in My Heart". This chapter is about the passion of Ms Johnson. When Hal said that those students have no hope in school because nobody of the teachers could change their habits. But she thought that she can do something for them because she feel that she still have fire in their heart, that is to say, Ms. J have the energy and the passion to do something.

And Finally the fourth, "George Shouldn't of Shot His Homeboy" This title is a comment made it by some of the students when Ms. J asks them to read a story. It was a very weird comment because he tried to say something but they all were confused about the story. But it wasn’t the idea of the activity, so the teacher realize that it would be better to do an activity to make them think about their visions of world.

Article about "Les Choristes" movie

This movie showed very interesting topics about kinds of school education. It made us think about how we have to act in front of some cases when the student behavior is not the best and also when the direction is not supporting your decisions.

First of all, this story showed a school that it had two serious issues; the students were too naughty and annoying, and the teachers with the director were too strict and violent. This was the environment that awaited the teacher, Clément Mathieu.

His role in relation with students was, in one form or another, educate and punish them when they deserved, but in other ways and not the violence that the school used to use. He use the music as a means to educate and to ensure respect.

His role with the school was like showing that he was making a good and strict job with those kids, but they but in the depth, he defended them of the unfair punishment. Because of that, the school authorities, that is to say the school director, did not get along very well with him and did not like the way he teach the students

Clément Mathieu felt very depressed at the beginning because those students were uncontrollable and his boss just wanted to him leave behind his pedagogic ideals and punish the students like it were in a prison.

I think if I was in his position I would do the same he did, for example, tried to get along with them, but without leaving aside the respect and obviously, if I watch something unfair or abusive I would sort it out in the necessary way to defend my students.

Today's tasks: Tell-tale heart

Edgar Allan Poe’s information

Edgar was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. His parents died when he was 2 years old. Then he was adopted by another family, the Allans. His new father, John Allan, was a successful merchant, because of this, Edgar grew up in good environment and he had a good education.

When he was 17 he started to drink a lot, he had to quit school less than a year later. He haven´t a job so he joined the U.S. Army in 1827. He was 18. He did reasonably well in the Army and attained the rank of sergeant major. He’s mother died and his father tried to be friendly towards Edgar and signed his application to West Point.

This author is well known because of his poetry, detectives, science fiction and terror stories.

Timeline

1.- The narrator tells about he is not mad and he star to tell his story.

2.- He goes to the old man’s room every night to trying to kill him.

3.- One night the old man knows he is in danger.

4.- The narrator feels fear too.

5.- The old man dies.

6.- The narrator cut old man’s body and put it below the floor.

7.- Three policemen came into the house.

8.- The narrator looked calm and friendly.

9.- He felt the heart noise again.

10.- He lost the control and he betrayed himself.

Conflict

the conflict is within the narrator, because he is telling that he hasn’t problems with the old man but he wants to kill him because he doesn’t like his bird’s eye.

Climax

The narrator kills the old man, then he cut his body and put it below the floor quietly. Later, three policemen came to the house because the neighbor heard a cry. The narrator tried to look calm and friendly but he starts to heard a heart beating more and more louder, that noise made him lost control and betrayed himself.

Resolution

He betrayed himself and said to the policemen that the body is below the boards

My Opinion about "The Scarlet Ibis"

In my opinion this short story showed the common love/hate relationship that some of us can have with our brothers or sisters. This was showed when the girl said that she wanted to kill her brother (Doodle) because he had a disease (she felt ashamed because of him), but then she help and teach him to do many things, like other kids do.

I think this story, after all, shows the worry of the author to his brother after the shame and hatred that she felt towards him. Also it had concern and brotherhood among them, because even  sometimes we don't get on well with our brothers, but that don't mean that we don't love and help them.

Letter for Della

Dear Della,

Hello! I hope you're well and you had have a really nice christmas with Jim. I write you to give you some piece of advice because I know what did happen with your christmas presents and how you sold your beautiful hair or how Jim sold his gold watch.

I think that you don't have to care about material things, if you love your couple and he loves you, it isn't important to give him an expensive gift to show your feelings. I think is more valuable when you make something for that person like to cook a delicious dinner, go to walk to a park and other nice things that are priceless.
I really hope to hear good news from you and Jim, and remember that maybe you are going through bad times economically but as you love each other you can overcome anything.

Love,

Camila.

Something about O. Henry

William Sidney Porter, well known as O. Henry is a north american writer, that was born in Greensboro on September 11, 1862. He is characterized by write short stories with a twist ending (e.g The Gift of the Magi, The Last Leaf, and The Ransom of Red Chief) He started to write his stories in jail, he send those stories to a friend who publish them in a New York's magazine.

As I mention, his stories end with a twist of fate, or a revelation of who his characters really are, or an unexpected turn that surprises and delights, surprising or thrilling his readers. Although he write about normal things about life in common situations.

His stories contains a lot of clever expressions, seldom used words, and allusions to other pieces of fiction, such as William Shakespeare, greek mythology, Arabian Nights, contemporary "dime novels" (cheap paperback novels of the late 1800's), and Kipling, among others.

Letter

Dear Fannie,

Hello, I hope you are well. I am Camila Núñez and I am writing to encourage you because I knew you are a little sad.

You are just a little girl; you need to have more fun, being more outgoing, less scare and nervous.

I know that you are worry about your new cousin, because you want that it be a girl to play with her, but if it will be a boy you can also have fun with him, play together and have a great bond. Do not feel alone, you can also play with church’s children or with your classmates; you just have to want it and be less shy!

Well, I really hope you feel better now. I want to have news about you, so write me whenever you want it.

Yours faithfully

Camila Núñez.

About my vacations :D

This summer I went to Viña del Mar with my family for around two weeks. We stayed in an apartment in front of the beach, so we had an spectacular view.


Every day, we got up early and we spent around the whole day outside home, mostly on the beach, we also walked down the city, visited new places, took a lot of beautiful pictures, we ate in some typical restaurants and went to some hand craft shops.


In the evenings, we usually walked to the shore, on the sand, or watched some comedy shows in some parks.


I had a really good time!

Camila.