Author post on Mike Lupica

The author of the book Miracle on 49th Street is Mike Lupica. He is a well-known sportswriter nationally. Some of his other popular books are Heat, Travel Team, Summer Ball, and Million Dollar Throw. He is a sports columnist in the New York daily news. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children. Mike also sites on the popular ESPN show "The Sports Reporters". Whatever Mike chooses to write about, you can almost guarantee it will be a great read for all ages! I encourage you all to look into reading books by this author in the future!

Text to text connection

I have just started to read the book "Mracle on 49th Street" by Mike Lupica. So far, I can already find a text to text connection within the story. In this story, a girl named Molly goes to the Boston celtics training facility. She waits outside to meet one of the best players named Josh Cameron. She claims to be related to him some way. I connected this with the movie "Gameplan". It is pretty much the same story. A girl shows up at a famou football players house and claims to be his daughter. I don't know how this story will end, but so far it is looking very similar to "Gameplan".

First post about "Fahrenheit 451"

I am responding to the prompt that says "How has a character changed since they were first introduced? What have they done or said thats changed your opinion of them?" The one charcter that has already made a change in the story is Guy Montag. He was introduced at the very beginning of the story as a fireman who puts fire to books and believes he is happy. Later in the first part, he was questioned if he was happy. He replied as if it was a stupid question. Of course he was happy! Then he began to think maybe he wasn't. This is a major change of his thoughts and internal beliefs of what being happy really was. Right after his confrontation with Clarrise, it even says, "Montag shook his head. He looked at a blank wall" (Bradbury 8). This quote shows how he is unsure about what he is supposed to think.

Final Blog Reflection

Click here to view my best blog post

This link leads to my analysis post. I felt this was my best post because I met all the requirements and it was picked for featured blogger. I felt I "cited strong and textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drwan from the text." These were the exact words from the rubric. I thought I included a good quote in my post. It really helped the reader see how Shaq feels at this point in the story. I infered in that post that Shaq was one of those people who likes to stay within himself. This meets the requirement on the rubric that states, "...as well as inferences drawn from the text." Overall, I thought I did a better job on this post compared to my other ones.

In the next trimester of reading, I hope to increase the time I read each day. This trimester, I hardly read at all unless I needed to. I feel if I begin to read more, it could help with my understanding of more difficult texts as well as increase my knowledge of more difficult words. For writing, I feel the same way. If I can start to write a little bit each week, I could become a better writer as well as a better overall student in english class. One area of improvement I have for reading is to be able to understand confusing texts better. I need to get into the habit of thinking about what is going on while I read instead of just reading without thinking; which I commonly do. If I do this, I feel I can better understand difficult texts like Shakespeare without having to read it many times. For writing, I think I could definitly work on my voice. If I have a better voice in writing, it would make my stories or whatever I am writing more interesting.

Post about Choir from THE CHRONICLE

In the school newspaper, The Chronicle, there is an interesting article written about the choir class. It is written by Emily Taylor. It mainly talks about the teacher, Mrs. Santos. She is known to be a very good teacher, as well as very passionate. She likes to have a connection with the students. "She calls us her family and that's what is truly special about her." I feel it is very important for teachers to do this. If you have no connection with your sudents, how are you supposed to find the best way for them to learn? The article also mentions how she doesn't like to mess around. "She's welcoming when you walk in, but she definitly wants to get work done." Although I personally don't take chorus, I'm sure they have a blast and it sounds like a really good time.

Analysis

A specific quote I found in Shaq Uncut was, "My thing is, why is this man coming off like he knows me or cares about me? From zero to eighteen I had practically no contact with you"(O'neal 83). At this part in the story, Shaq's biological father tried to talk to Shaq and become friends with him. As you can tell, Shaq wanted to have none of that. He is mad because this guy is only deciding to talk to him once he became famous. Many people would fell the same way. If they're not with you from the beginning, they dont deserve your respect once you become famous. I can infer from this that Shaq is one of those people who likes to stay in his own circles and not get caught up in all the hype or stuff like that. Later in the story though, we may find out this is not true, but you will have to read to find out.

2nd post

On this post, I am going to talk about how the setting has changed so much throughout the story. At the beginning, there was a very rough setting. Shaquille would be sad a lot of the time due to the times his dad would beat him. He would fight through it though. This setting changed so much later in the story. He loves life. If you would watch him play just one game, you would be able to tell how much he loves the game and being there on the court. In a way, these two settings are connected. If he hadn't been forced to work hard as a kid, he would not have had this amazing oppurtunity as an adult.