Category: Grade 11

English 11 – Year End Review

This year in English 11 I learned that many pieces of literature can be an allusion. This is very useful to know because it provides context towards the piece, and can help you find more literary devices inside the piece or writing. The allusions also provide a better understanding of the literature, and also help you when writing about the piece. Many pieces of allusion in a writing can be very good in your own pieces of writing. My favorite piece of literature from English 11 was “O Captain! My Captain!”. This is because the poem had a way larger meaning then what I though it had at first. It has a very large reference to the history of the Civil War, and Abe Lincoln. I enhoy history so this poem was fun to analyze and look at. The unit I enjoyed the most was the short story unit. This is because I learned the most about writing in this unit and felt that I improved the most during this unit. I could further improve my writing form with word choice and sentence structure. English 11 was a very good class and I enjoyed it throughly.

Character Monologues – “Death of a Salesman”

Willy Loman

I am a middle aged man who believes I am something that I’m not. I am a salesman who struggles to make ends meet for my family so I tend to be very stressed. I believe I am a very successful salesman who can provide marvelous things for my family when in reality I cannot. This doesn’t stop me from telling my family how well I’m doing, yet tend to give many excuses when bringing up the reality of the situation. I don’t like to be very active as you can see, which may lead to my lack of confidence in myself. I enjoy people seeing the image of me being a very high class man,  yet I tend not to dress in a very mannerly and respectable way. I have had issues in the past that I tend to think about quite often and usually end up rambling on and on and on and on. My wife helps me and is a great woman, yet due to me being stressed, I tend to be very quick and hostile with her.

 

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“The Lord of the Flies”- Human Nature

“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood” (Golding 96)

“Robert stabilized the thing in a phrase which was received uproariously. “Right up her ass!”…the boys cried with laughter” (Golding 195)

“Here–let me go!” His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face. “Mind out! Give ’em back! I can hardly see! You’ll break the conch!” (Golding 55)

“All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. Behind him was Roger, fighting to get close. The chant rose ritually, as at the last moment of a dance or a hunt” (Golding 165)

“They raided us for fire” (Golding 156)

“Lord of the Flies” – Island Description

The shore

“He climbed over a broken trunk, and was out of the jungle. The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were 100 feet in the air.” (Golding 10)

The jungle

“The most usual feature of the rock was a pink cliff surmounted by a skewed block; and that again surmounted, and that again, till the pinkness became a stack of balanced rock projecting through the looped fantasy of the forest creepers.” (Golding 34)

Whole island and jungle

“It was roughly boat-shaped: humped near this end with behind them the jumbled descent to the shore. On either side rocks, cliffs, treetops and a steep slope: forward there, the length of the boat, a tamer descent, tree-clad, with hints of pink: and then the jungly flat of the island, dense green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail.” (Golding 38)

The reef

“The reef enclosed more than one side of the island, lying perhaps a mile out and parallel to what they now thought of as their beach. The coral was scribbled in the sea as though a giant had bent down to reproduce the shape of the island in a flowing chalk line but tired before he had finished.” (Golding 38)

Lagoon

“Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was still as a mountain lake—blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple.” (Golding 10)

Beach

“The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin stick”(Golding 10)

Beach

“The palms that still stood made a green roof, covered on the underside with a quivering tangle of reflections from the lagoon.” (Golding 13)

Scar

“Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in the trees; there were the splintered trunks and then the drag, leaving only a fringe of palm between the scar and the sea” (Golding,39).

Fruit

“Then, amid the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands” (Golding, 76).

The sea

“The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors.” (Golding, 79).

The beach

“They had built castles in the sand at the bar of the little river. These castles were about one foot high and were decorated with shells, withered flowers, and interesting stones” (Golding, 82).

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” Narrative

“Walter! Are you having one of those dreams again?” said Mrs. Mitty.
“No dear, let’s get going home now” replied Walter.
They get in the car and Walter begins to drive home. Mrs. Mitty abruptly stops him and says “Honey let’s go to the jewelry store I have to pick up my bracelet”.
Walter rakishly pulls into the parking lot of the store and proceeds to get out of the car with his wife. Walter and his wife walk into the store and are greeted by a disdainful salesman. Walter takes a glance around the store at all the jewels and valuables that are sparkling in the light.

…”Django! Make sure all the wires are hidden! We can’t have people looking around the store and see the cameras we installed!” Django turned to the voice, it was Witty.
Django was looking very haggard due to the lengthy and difficult preparations that were being made for this operation. Witty had the idea for this operation when he saw how much value was inside the jewelry store, and how easy access would be due to the lack of security. Django was one of the most intricate hackers that Witty could find. He had already done many operations of this size and Mitty believed he would be the perfect man to help him on this job.
“Sir, we have to start this operation in the next 10 minutes before the security guard comes back from his break”.
Django had already laid out everything to Mitty and how the operation would be.
“Alright Django I guess we should start right now then.” Mitty exclaimed to Django.
Mitty strapped on his harness and went down through the ceiling of the store. “I’m in” Mitty radioed to Django.
“Ok sir begin breach now.”
Mitty went straight to the first cabinet and broke the glass and took everything he could. Rings, necklaces, earrings, any with significant value.
“I have breached the security in the safe room, you may enter now”
Mitty ran straight to the safe room and proceeded to take all the money he could find.
“Django I’m exiting now.” said Mitty.
Mitty was astonished how easy this operation was. He proceeds out the back door of the store and hears a voice behind him…

“Sir I don’t think you are supposed to be here” said the security guard to Walter.
“Oh sorry sir, I must have just been daydreaming”.
“Honey? Where are you going?” Mrs. Mitty yells across the store.
Mr. Mitty had no idea how he got into the back room of the jewelry store. “Must have been one of those stupid dreams again” Walter exclaimed to his wife.

walter mitty story

“Father and Son” Photo Compilation Story

This assignment was to get 8 quotes from the short story “Father and Son”. The quotes are supposed to be for the plot of the story (Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement), and explain why we chose them for each of those parts of the story. We were then to take pictures representing what happened throughout the story and make it into a graphic novel.

 

1.)Exposition

“[My dad] will want to check that I came home last night.”(1)

This quote gives the reader enough information to come up with their own thoughts or opinion on what they think the relationship between the father and son is like. Also makes the reader wonder what the son is doing to make his father always check if he came home at night. The quote sets up the story to make the reader wonder adds to the concerns of the father.

 

2.) Rising action

“This is my son who let me down. I love him so much it hurts but he won’t talk to me.” (1)

In this quote, the father is hurt because he shows so much love and support for his son but his son doesn’t appreciate it. The son calls his dad names, yells at him and has built up this hatred for his dad with no reasoning behind it. At this point in the story the reader understands that the father and son have no relationship and the son has no intention on building a new one. Continue reading

“Character Sketch” based on K. Smith from “Two Fishermen”

K. Smith or Smitty from the short story “Two Fisherman”, is a middle aged Caucasian man that travels from town to town working as an executioner. Smitty is a small man with grey baby curls and a large head that sits atop a bird like neck. Smitty has a wife and 5 children, the oldest boy being 14. All his children are a lot bigger and taller than him. Smitty is apart of the middle class working men. Smitty keeps to himself and is a very shy distant person. He doesn’t have many relationships with people due to him believing people will judge him because of his job. Smitty has one superstition and that is he doesn’t read up on people who he is executing because he doesn’t want to get attached. He has a fear about people judging him due to his job. Smitty is very loyal to people he meets and is a very good story teller, but being loyal can lead to him believing people are his friends when they are not.

 


This is what I believe K.Smith would look like

Capital punishment within the story, “Two Fishermen”

(Man going up on the pedestal about to be hung)

The first year Canada introduced capital punishment was in 1865. You could receive the death penalty if convicted of rape, treason or murder. 100 years later in 1966,  Canada changed the rule where you could only recieve the death penalty for killing a police officer or prison guard. The final two death penalties in canada were on 1962 in December. The executions were of two men, one who killed a police officer, and the other man who killed two people who were going to be witnesses in a large drug trafficking trial.  Then in 1976 Canada removed the death penalty and replaced it with a life sentence with no chance of parole.

 

I believe that “Two Fishermen,” would have been taken place after 1868 and because,this is when the death penalty was being used and the execution had to be done inside the jail. We don’t have a direct quote that states it was inside but we can cuncurr that it was becuase Smitty has to come outside to face the people. Also the crime was a murder, so it would be acceptable punishment. I don’t think Delaney should have been have been killed because of the circumstance he was in. He did start the fight with Rhinehart, but the actually murder was part of Delaney’s self defence. Yet with the time period, I believe he should have been killed due to the laws surrounding capital punishment. Also, it was more than murder because he beat him up to a living pulp with his own hands so it would be considered manslaughter which should be dealt with by capital punishment. In this day in age I belive he should not have been killed because there is many other ways to deal with the situation.