Unbroken

Louis Zamperini went from being an olympic athlete to a prisoner of war.

Unbroken begins with Louis being a troublemaker in the small town of Torrance. He was so bad that he punched anyone who angered him. He was so bad that he constantly was sent to the principles office for pushing teachers. He was so bad that he threw things at cops for fun. After Louis came to the realization that he needed to make a change, his brother introduced him to track.

Louis was a star from the beginning. Louis smashed Torrance High records and state records and national records for his age. He began rigorous training with his brother to reach his big goal: the olympics. Louis ran like the wind in hopes of making it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Louis was a track prodigy and made it to the olympics, but years later, things took a turn for the worst.

After the outbreak of World War 2, Louis joined the military. He became a B-24 bomber crew member. On one of his crew's missions, the plane experienced technical difficulties and crash landed into the Pacific. 47 days at sea, 2 years a POW, a lifetime of pain and suffering.

As a POW in Japan, Louis-with many other soldiers- was brutally tortured by the Japanese. They unmercifully beat him and the other POW's daily, and only fed them just enough to survive. It was a terrible experience, and it would live with all of the POW's long after the war was over.

When your enemies try to break you, you must stay strong. You can not break. The story of how Louis remained strong, from long before the war to long after, is what makes this book so inspiring.

3rd Quarter Independent Reading Reflection

The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Decision Points by George W. Bush
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
     I did not meet my reading goals this quarter. I set them for the entire semester, not just one quarter, which is part of the reason I did not meet my goals. The other part is that I did not set aside enough reading time each day. I only read four books this quarter but I wanted to read five. Next quarter, I plan to set aside more time to reading each day so that I meet my fourth quarter goals.
     In fourth quarter, I would like to try and read six books to really challenge myself to read more. Reading six books will be hard for me, but I think that I can do it. Working towards reading six books in one quarter will force me to read every night. Also, I want to read three Alex-Award winning books to expand the genres I am reading. I read a lot of non-fiction in third quarter, and I would like to read more books outside of non-fiction.

Point of View - Rick Reilly

Rick Reilly is undoubtedly one of the best sports writers of all time. Currently, he is in the National Sports Writers Hall of Fame, and has 11 National Sportswriter of the Year awards to his name. Reilly has won countless awards for sports writing and journalism, including the 2009 Damon Runyon Award, and has co-authored many books. He is most well known from his columns in Sports Illustrated. Although many of his columns are comical, his point of view is definitely centered around sports. It’s obvious to see because he was a writer for a sports magazine and all of his columns are about specific sporting events, or are connected to sports in some way.  

Columnist Rick Reilly makes his point of view obvious to readers through his use of elevated diction to jab at or describe the main idea of each column. In Fiesta Fiasco, Reilly uses words like, “bespectacled”, “torrential”, “Unbridled, “jubilation”, and “siphoned” (Fiasco). Reilly also uses elevated words in Old-Timers Game like, “credenza”, “smiting”, and “platoons” (Old-Timers). In both columns, Reilly described the main idea of his column by using elevated diction. In Fiesta Fiasco he was taking jabs at referee Terry Porter for taking too long to make a call in a football game. In Old-Timers Game, Reilly described Julio Franco (an old baseball player) using elevated diction. Porter and Franco are both involved in sports, and since Reilly used elevated diction to describe them in his columns, readers can easily identify that his point of view is sports.

Watch the first minute of this video to see the call by referee Terry Porter.

Things I Learned Last Year

Dogs are something that my

parents do not want to get.

Sometimes medicines are

not worth the side effects.

Cam Newton, a man who's 

devoted his life to football, 

created the most popular dance

move right now, the dab.

Dj Khaled is a rapper, 

but he inspires everyone.

Some guys who now sit 

at my table in english, were 

not even in my class last 

semester.

     I liked 2015 a lot. It was a very fun year, and I was able to do a lot of fun things with my friends. I met more new friends this year than my past three years combined. I tried some new things that I was unsure about in 2015 that ended up being amazing. Overall, 2015 was a great year.

     The tone of my poem is very lighthearted. It is not complex, deep, or personal in any way. There is nothing personal about this poem because no big, life-changing events happened to me is 2015. I really did not learn any super personal things about myself of anyone around me. The tone of this poem reflects my 2015 year.

     Stafford's poem has very lighthearted stanzas just like mine. Most of his stanza's are random, ironic facts he learned. Our poems are very different though because he included some deep things that he had learned, whereas the entirety of my poem was random and has no serious topics in it.