Harlem Renaissance Blogpost

The Harlem Renaissance Icon that spoke out to me the most was France's person, Piri Thomas. Piri's entire life is something that amazes me because it's like no other. He was taken by gang violence and drugs at the early part of his life. Crime on the streets absorbed Piri and he was eventually arrested. During his seven years in jail, he wrote about his experiences before being caught. Prison made a new man out of Piri. After his life on the streets, Piri traveled to many different universities and colleges to tell his story in order to keep more people out of crime and drugs and gangs. This amazed me because people barely see or even hear of people who try to reach out to others to prevent them from something. For me it's extraordinary to see someone try to stop others from potentially doing what he did in the past.

Piri Thomas' role in the Harlem Renaissance was to prevent more gang members and drug addicts. The lectures that Piri has given may have actually made a significant progress. Society was impacted because more and more young men and women were aware of the risks of drugs and gang violence. There's more people in the world that are against crime on the streets. That was Piri's role and impact on the Harlem Renaissance and society.

Another icon of the Harlem Renaissance that stood out to me was Charlie Parker. He mainly stands out because he helped invent bebop, a whole new type of jazz in the 1940's. Inventing a new type of music sounds challenging, so that's what makes Charlie a distinctive icon. Around the time he helped make bebop, he was undergoing a serious heroin and alcohol addiction. This lost him his ability to play his music publicly. Charlie's talent in playing saxophone and inventing bebop was his positive impact on music and society. His impact and his accomplishments are why Charlie Parker stands out to me.

Piri Thomas

Of Mice And Men Blog

Section IV

I think that Of Mice And Men is a tale like no other. The characters and themes make this book simply wonderful. There's lovable characters like Slim and Lennie, then there's the ones you love to hate like Curley. In less than two-hundred pages, John Steinbeck crafted a great story using these characters and combining them with several different themes. There were main themes like friendship and isolation, and side themes like race. All of this made Of Mice And Men an enjoyable experience.

The visuals of Lennie's strength in the movie had the biggest impact on my understanding of Of Mice And Men. We already knew that Lennie was strong telling from how George talked about him and the fight with Curley. It was easier to see exactly how strong Lennie was in the movie. During the scenes where we saw the ranchers working, Lennie was able to carry one bag of barley by himself. It took two normal men to carry what Lennie could've. Lennie was strong enough to buck barley faster than the others. We even see one of the ranchers tell Slim that he couldn't keep up with Lennie's pace.

During the movie representation of the fight scene with Curley, you can see the exact emotions and strength of both Lennie and Curley. There's Curley's punches to Lennie's head, which will hurt more than normal because Curley practices boxing. Lennie later completely stops Curley's hand and makes it bleed. This visual and the barley bucking scenes change my understanding of certain parts of the novella related to Lennie and Curley.

I would recommend this book to just about anyone. Most people would think that an awesome book with excellent story elements would be a few hundred pages. This is a simple novella. It's short and delivers the same enjoyable experience that another other five-hundred page book can.

Section III

The flashback in the movie consisted of all the events from the Weed incident to George killing Lennie. George was looking back on the past while he was on a cargo train. Changing the end of the story to make the past events a flashback leaves a bigger impact on the audience. The audience is surprised and shocked to see that George was thinking about his last rodeo with Lennie. Viewers feel bad for George because he's running away from Tyler Ranch alone. They see George's expression of sorrow as he looks back at what he did. He's running off to another ranch but without Lennie, George's only true companion.

The feeling you get at the end of the movie definitely does not match the same feeling at the  end of the book. The director probably wanted his viewers to feel heartbroken. By turning the story into one big flashback, people will feel worse than if the original ending was shown. The last line of dialogue at the end of the book is: "Now what the hell do you suppose is eatin' them two guys?" Carlson says this after he and Curley find Slim consoling a depressing George. This last line tells us that Carlson is really inconsiderate of the friends of his coworkers. We already know that he didn't care about whatever Candy had to say before his dog was killed. Not knowing why George and Slim were crestfallen shows us that Carlson probably didn't have many real friends. George and Lennie have a mindset about why their different than other swampers. They know that they have each other to look after but other men don't. Slim also says that not many workers travel with others. Carlson didn't care about Candy's relationship with his dog or George's feelings about Lennie because he himself hasn't had a companion like the ones Candy and George had. He doesn't know how it feels to lose or even have a close friend.

That last line leaves the reader thinking Carlson is either cruel, lonely, or both. What Carlson said can make people think of Carlson as inconsiderate because George killed his best friend. Some might also believe that Carlson isn't rude by heart and just hasn't had a real friend before. It could be a combination of the two. Maybe Carlson is just inconsiderate of others because he's alone and doesn't have real friends. This line left me thinking that Carlson was insensitive but after looking back at the past events of the book, I believe that Carlson had little to no friends in his life.

Quarter 2 Reflection

-In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts?

I think I have improved in writing with TIQA and writing essays. More specifically, I think my biggest improvement is in thematic essay writing. Last year, I slipped up and made "And this brings us to Atticus" as one of my topic sentences. This was for a thematic essay we did on To Kill A Mockingbird. After Mrs. Larson used my mistake as an example of what not to do, I realized that I had to think harder about what I use in TIQA essays. I remembered last year's mistake and reminded myself to make better topic sentences for this year's thematic essay. 

-What is something you have accomplished since the new year that your are proud of?

Something that I've accomplished since the new year that I'm proud of is getting better grades on my assignments and spelling tests. I wasn't sure if I'd see any 2's when I checked my Powerschool grades. If I did have any 2's maybe they weren't on Powerschool but at least I have mostly 3's and 4's. I'm proud of having good grades for the only advanced class in this school and this is something that I wan't to keep up.

-What has been the most challenging part of 2nd quarter for you and what did/can you do to help overcome this?

The most challenging part of this quarter was being able to participate in socratic seminars. Participation was only an issue if the guides were an issue as well. I find guides sometimes hard to fill in. I want to jot down ideas that I can contribute to the discussion. Most of the time, we talk about topics different than what I write in my guide. To make my life easier, I can ask a few friends and classmates for small previews of what they'll talk about. I'll also ask for what they think we'll talk about during the seminar. This way, I can contribute more to future socratic seminars.