Red

I think that the girls who wrote about their lives were very brave. Even knowing that their mom or friends or other people they may offend or would rather not having read their life story was going to be reading this they still offered their stories, and I think that was really cool. I believe that they offered up their stories because they knew that other girls felt the same way, so they could help them out or because they wanted those certain people to know about their problems so that maybe they would get involved more in their life. Most times when a person rants, or complains about their life people say they are trying to get attention, and I think this may be true of the girls who gave up their stories. A lot of the stories were on addictions, eating disorders or more generally something that was giving them trouble and I think it was a calling for help. It is really neat reading about these stories from real people, because we all know these issues are out there but teens never come forward with their problems. It was also kind of cool to be able to relate to some of these stories from my adolescence or what I see going on now. This was a really good idea for a book.I think it could help teens all over the place struggling with the same problems.

If I were to write a novel that had similar patterns of adolescence as The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian I would write it in first person. I think first person would really depict the actual occurrences, events that happen during adolescence. Writing it in diary form, I think would have more meaning to the aspects of adolescence being portrayed because it is straight from their experiences. I would use friendships, and relationships in my novel as portrayals of adolescence. I would use these because I think a huge part of adolescence is having friends, losing friends, love and sex. In my novel I would have 2 friends that are girls that have been best friends since they were little and guys start ruining their friendship. What I mean by this would be, guys start to get inbetween them either because one friend doesn't like or approve of the other girls boyfriend or they like the same guy. I think that these two instances happen all too often in adolescence. In my novel the girls would start having sex and experimenting because this is all new to them. I would also have one of them get pregnant to show that this also can happen and I would portray how being a teen mom would be. I wouldn't necessarily write it this way because it is a bad thing but it is definately realistic. The boy that got the girl pregnant would stick around every so often to help, but their relationship would be over. I would make it that way because it is very rare for teenagers to stay together if they have a child at a young age. I would write about these topics because friendships and relationships are major issues in adolescence and reading it in a first person diary form would hopefully be a teaching moment rather than just reading it for pleasure.

Part Time Indian

I really did enjoy reading this book because adolescents everywhere can relate to this story somehow. Whether it be from being bullied, being the bully, switching schools, losing friends and joining sports. Arnold had a very tough adolescence but he stayed strong and not much got in his way of doing what he wanted to do. I think he was very brave to switch to a whole other school where he knew he may not be liked. I never switched schools but I do imagine how scary it could be moving somewhere where everyone has their friends and you start with nobody. It was very smart of him to realize that he needed to get out in order for him to have a better life and he made the leap to do it and never gave up. I really respected Arnold for doing this even though he was very bullied, he never showed weakness or let it get to him. He was able to learn that in order to be respected he needed to stand up for himself and what he believed in. The only reason people were being mean to him was because they did not have the courage like he did to get out and make a better life for himself. Even after the three deaths in his family when he though he was cursing himself and his tribe for leaving the rez, he still didn't give up. He knew what he had to do and he did it, no matter what and most adolescents can't say they are that brave which is why I think this book should be read by more adolescents.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I wanted to comment on how Betsey and the other children in the house had a lot of responsibilities to uphold. I can see how the children should be responsible for themselves and maybe taking on a few chores, but I felt Betsey had to many responsibilites only being 13. She was expected to wait on hand and foot for her mother, and take care of her siblings. In my eyes an adolescent should be just that. A child should be able to have fun, learn about boys the hard way, learn from their mistakes, and play outside after school and before bed. The children appeared to be sheltered from all that could go wrong. Teens learn from mistakes and will learn how to act the way they want to act from those mistakes and lessons learned.
One other thing about the book was that I don't think children should be involved with trying to make a stand for something, like how Greer took them to that demonstration. I have never been to a protest, but they seem very dangerous, and to bring a child to such a thing would be very irresponsable. If he wanted to take a stand, he could have done it with Jane or a friend who agrees. His children could have gotten hurt badly.
I believe this book was well written by the author and really showed how racism affected people. It was too bad that the children were even exposed to such a racist world that it made them afraid to go to school. It was also unfortunate that the children also became racist against whites because of what they heard, and saw.

Essay Outline

My Essay is going to deal with juvenile delinquency and the causes of teenagers to be rebels. I want to discuss what it meant for a teen to be "delinquent" decades ago and up until now. I would like to discuss the different decades to show the difference in what was considered delinquent in say the 1970's up until now, the 21st century. I was going to look at the different books and how the authors portray juvenile delinquency and what causes their characters to be rebellious. I would start the essay talking about delinquency and what it means to be delinquent or being a rebel in teenagers. Then I would use the different books as examples of the time periods and how they were portraying adolescent delinquency in each of the ones that we are reading. So far, Charlotte Temple, Huck Finn, and Betsey Brown are showing different ways teens act out and what society or families considered rebellious behavior. For my essay I would most likely start with the earliest time period I chose and then lastly I would discuss the 21st century. I will also reflect on my own adolescence and look at the ways I would act rebellious and compare it to other teens of my age and in the past. I would also compare my adolescence to the characters in the books that we have read.

Huck Finn #2

First off, I just really did not enjoy this book. It was too scattered and too much going on for me that it made me really confused. The ending of the book disapointed me too. I think that it would have been better to have let Tom, Huck and Jim get away and just start sailing down the river to be free again. That is just how I would have ended it.
A part about adolescence that did strike me as interesting was when they had to make it difficult and just like "other people" in books or movies to get Jim free. They had to use small spoons that would take them years, and write a letter to make it interesting. I think that is a good example of adolescence because young kids are always imitating others and trying to be so much like other people. For boys, it did seem common for them to want it to be difficult and not so easy to just do it a way that would be clean and unnoticeable. Boys always like a challenge and don't want to seem like a sissy. Just like how Tom said that Jim needed rats and snakes and spiders.

My 21st Century Twist On Charlotte Temple

Here is a plot summary of Charlotte Temple and how I would rewrite it today.
Charlotte and Rebecca are best friends that go to Ursuline College in Pepper Pike Ohio. They decided to go to a party at John Carrol where they met two guys named Derek and Ryan. Derek and Ryan were in the National Guard and were based in Texas. They were talking and drinking and Derek was really into Rebecca and Ryan was really into Charlotte. They seemed to really like each other and after a couple of dates they got the crazy idea to move to Texas to live with the boys. They told their parents of their plan and they were not happy at all. They actually said they would disown them if they moved and dropped out of College. They did it anyway because both of the girls were promised marriage and a happy life in Texas. On the plane ride back to Texas Rebecca met a different guy name Dave and Derek and Rebecca were no longer planning on being with each other. Once they arrived in Texas Rebecca went to California to be with Dave. Charlotte and Ryan appeared happy but weeks went by when Ryan would never come home and wold never even text her. In the meantime, Derek came swooping in and started hanging out with Charlotte. Charlotte decide to write Ryan a mean facebook message about why he was ignoring her. What had happened was Ryan had met up with an ex-girlfriend and was wanting to go back with her. This upset Charlotte a lot but Derek was really nice and seemed really perfect. After a few months Derek was doing the same thing to her. Not texting much or hanging out much with her so she confronted him. They decided to end their relationship too. Charlotte was so upset because she was in Texas, with no one. Not a boyfriend, or her best friend. A few months went by and Charlotte realized she was pregnant. She didn’t know whose baby it was though. Both of the guys denied it and wouldn’t help her at all. She decided to text Rebecca and asked her to go home to Ohio with her and Rebecca, like the best friend she was went with her and luckily her mom was just thankful she decided to come home and was going to help with the baby.

I have contemplated many endings and I haven’t decided on one yet. My original plan was to kill both of the guys but decided against it.

Charlotte Temple-End

Many of the incidents that happened in the book were shocking to me. I will focus on one main issue that was involving Charlotte, Belcour and Montraville. When Montraville decided he wanted to pursue his own happiness rather than keep Charlotte around, I kind of respected that. Although, He was the one to pursue Charlotte, to seduce her, and take her away from her family, I respect that he was trying to focus on his own happiness. As a bitter girl, I would have thought of him as a, let's just say, not a very nice guy but I also feel that in all relationships puting your own happiness first is important. As a girl, I would not want a guy with me that didn't want to be. The one thing that i didn't like was that even though he knew she was about to have a baby, he still left. He should have just married Julia and stayed nearby so he could care for his child. Even though it didn't ever get to Charlotte I respected the fact that he wrote her a letter and gave her money.

I found myself very agitated at Belcour for lieing to both Charlotte and Montraville about their feelings towards each other. When he was waiting for Montraville to get home to hop in Charlottes bed so it looked like she was cheating shocked me. Belcour was not a very nice friend to either Charlotte or Montraville. I guess I just can't think of why he was doing that to both of them. It appeared he was just Evil!

Essay Ideas

Some of the major factors that cause adults to fear teenagers or adolescents is because of the way they behave, dress, puberty and the other transformations that they are going through in this stage of their life. It scares adults because they for some reason do not know how to deal with this when it happens. So for my essay I was thinking about focusing on the reasons teenagers act the way they do. For instance what cause teenage delinquency, what causes them to do drugs and alcohol, want to commit suicide or other psychological problems such as eating disorders. I want to focus on the why and the what. Why is this happening and what is causing these problems among teenagers. I can find many of these solutions in the media and how many novels portray negative schooling experiences among adolescents. Many of these problems I can remember from my middle school days. I could always see what was happening and why. I am also majoring in middle childhood education so this topic interests me and I can see it happening in the schools. In focusing with the novels we read, I will be able to see how it is portrayed by each author. Many novels that portray adolescents have many issues with peer pressure which can be the root cause to all kinds of actions that teenagers engage in these days. I also see the media as a big issue with these problems as well.

One thing that I found truly interesting was in chapter ten "Dancing Daughters" was dating in the nineteenth century. Dating was a new "fad" for young people at that time. The book stated that they dating consisted of teens going out to dinner and a movie with another teen and then the next night going out with a different person. This is definitely not how the term dating is considered now. Now, during the twentieth century, dating someone means being exclusive to only that person. If a teenager was to be "dating" a few people at a time, it is considered to be trashy and wrong. It also talked about dances, where the boys would take the prettiest girls and you know you picked right if a boy would ask to cut-in while you were dancing. These days, one boy and one girl would go together and most likely only dance with their date. That is, unless a friend cuts-in.
One other thing I found interesting about this similar topic was the fact that it was a "fad." Another fad was once the automobile was invented, teens were all driving cars. This strikes me as interesting because when I was younger we had different fads. Our fads consisted of new hairstyles, new clothing styles, who had a tamogatchi, or a gigapet. Who owned pogs, or collected pokemon cards. No fad like this was mentioned during other adolescent years. Their interest was going to school or finding a job to support their family. Our youth today has become so frivolous.