The Glass Castle by: Jeannete Walls

The Glass Castle is a memoir of Jeannette Walls by Jeannette Walls of her dysfunctional but uniquely vivacious family. Her father who when is usually drunk is a corrupt and harsh man. Yet when sober he is brilliant, alive, charming, and expands his children’s imaginations not only teaching them stuff school can educate but way beyond like taking on life courageously. Her mother does not like the “burden” of motherly responsibilities and would rather live independently. Yet had such a loving, free spirit, and loathing the idea of a domestic life. Growing up constantly moving around, the Walls children constantly had to mature on their own. They were truly independent, only taking care of each other with necessities, as siblings would do, but parents should be doing. Each kid had to go through such tough and disturbing times that no child should have to go through. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Walls struggling to feed, cloth, bathe, and educate their children on a regular basis. Once they grew up, the children found a way to make a living out of themselves, without being stuck with the homeless and constantly on the run lifestyle. Even though the Walls children moved on into the city, the parents did follow them, but choosing to stay homeless. From Jeannette’s hard told adventures growing up, to the situations put after living on her own, her masterpiece of a memoir can truly relate to many families out there. Even if they are not in as severe situations as the Walls had it, the basic family story remains the same throughout everyone’s life. Reading this book not only makes one appreciate his or her own family, but see that there is always hope for anyone no matter what situation.

Book Response

Whip It
By Shauna Cross

From the get go, it's evident that sixteen year-old Bliss Cavendar is not happy with her situation in Bodeen, Texas; home of the Bluebonnet Ice Cream Factory. In fact, the book begins with Bliss writing a letter to her "real parents", because she is convinced that there is no way Brooke could be her mother.

As different as night and day, Brooke's agenda for Bliss consists of winning small pageants, then going on to be Miss Bluebonnet.

While on a disastrous shopping trip to Austin, Bliss sees something that will inspire her to come up with her own plans: an advertisement for a roller derby bout. After attending, Bliss is convinced to tryout for one of the teams in the leagues, The Hurl Scouts, where she discovers her talent as a jammer (point scorer). Plus, she even meets a guy who isn't like the mullet wearers she's come to (unfortunately) be familiar with at Bodeen High.

Sooner or later, though, life is going to put a tear in your fishnets, as our narrator discovers. When her life blows up in her face, it isn't just the fact that her boyfriend and his band are leaving for a three week tour ("[A] word of advice, [Bliss], never date a boy in a band, or a Leo--they're totally toxic"), nor is it that the derby girls have discovered she's been lying about her age, that has her terrified. Brooke taking away her skates and is dragging her to the dreaded Miss Bluebonnet Pageant (which happens to be the same day The Hurl Scouts are going to the derby championships) might have something to do with it, too.

What's a caustic misfit who's desperately itching to get out of Bodeen to do?



I enjoyed this book because of the narrator's biting humor and the way that it was similar to It's Kind of a Funny Story in how it was just like a teenager talking normally. Bliss shows that you don't have to live your life according to other people's expectations and that it'll only make you miserable in the end if you try to.

One thing that kind of gets annoying, though, is how she constantly condemns everything that is the least bit mainstream. It made me think something along the lines of, "Okay, we get that you're 'fighting the system', but you're being so non-conformist, that you're beginning to conform".

Also, yes, there is a movie of the same name, based off the book, starring Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar.

Week of January 10th - January 14th

This week in Ms. Nickow’s fifth period English class we did a lot of fun activities. Our week kicked off with a discussion of the book we are reading called Night. Monday, we had a very insightful discussion in which everyone pitched in their share. Tuesday, we took our explore test. It was very easy because Ms. Nickow prepared us for what we needed to know. Wednesday we continued our discussion but Ms. Nickow was not allowed to talk during it, so the class had to do it by ourselves and it went better than planned. Thursday and Friday we reviewed for our final. Ms. Nickow gave us all a sheet of paper with everything we had to know on it. She also was nice enough to let us do it with partners. All in all, it was a good week for the best English class every. 

Jack

Week of 1/3-1/7

The first week after we got back from winter break was a busy one! We started on Monday discussing
the homework we did in order to learn about the Holocaust for our new book, Night, which we started this week. We had a list of movies to watch, books to read, and places to go to broaden our views on the topic. It was very interesting hearing everyone's discoveries about the different things they did. On Tuesday we had independent reading time, like we do every Tuesday and Thursday and it was a nice chance to calm down after a stressful day back. Wednesday proved to be a very interesting lesson. We were going to reenact the election in Germany in which Hitler came to power. Ms. Nickow wanted us to understand how people thought and why they would vote for something as horrible as Hitler's party. Each student was handed a slip of paper with a person's name, occupation, and a little bit of background information.  Then, we received a list of all of the parties that we had the option to vote for. It was crazy seeing how each person voted in terms of their character. It was very helpful to understand where people were coming from when they voted for Hitler, because some of the party's views were normal ones, and it's understandable to realize that the people voting couldn’t have know it would have gone as far as it did. Thursday and Friday were lighter topics: how to take our upcoming explorer test that places us in our English classes for next year. All in all, the first week back was a very busy, but fun, time in our class.

- Claire

Week of 12/13 to 12/19

This week, we learned about the author of the book Night, Elie Wiesel. We viewed an Oprah episode in which Elie and Oprah walked through Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. We played a game in which we had to phonetically say a group of words (or random syllables!) and try to figure out what phrase were actually saying. Also, we recieved an assignment that will get us a little more orineted with the holocaust so we will be ready to begin the book after break. Finally, we got a chance to view the Fremd Christmas Dance Special to kick off a spectaular break!

Week: 11/15 - 11/19

This week we finished up our peer edits on our expository essays from last week. After we finished the peer edits, we then did some reading exercises. Also we had begun our unit on the book Fahrenheit 451. That is pretty much all we did that week.

By Alec Assmann

Week of 12/6 - 12/10

We turned in the Fahrenheit 451 packet and took the test this week. For the majority of the week, we were in the lab, working on the "Create a Perfect World" project. Everyday was a different lab room so some people got lost. We took some time on Friday to go over our tests. Because we were working so hard, Ms. Nickow changed the due date for the project to Monday 12/13. =]