The Journey

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of properly citing information in a piece of writing. This is a creative writing piece, from the point of view of an orphan, with real facts about the Pony Express.

April 3, 1860 (Walske)

The day the pony express started, my first day. The pony express is a mail service that travels to Sacramento California (Godfrey). Which is way better than how the mail used to be delivered, by wagon trail and station coaches and even ships, but it took so long to get your mail. Especially compared to how it is now which is only about twelve days in the spring, summer and fall months (Godfrey). The only reason I was doing this was because they randomly chose orphans like me. Nobody would care if I never returned, nobody would ever come looking for me. On the bright side, I should get a good pay, the mail costs are quite high, ten dollars an ounce (Godfrey). The time of the year scared me a lot, soon it will get unbearably hot. The dangers of this job are something that makes me hesitant to start, because I’ll be traveling through some hostile Native American territory (Encyclopedia). Possibly even encountering a grizzly and getting killed, or worse injured and dying out here where nobody will ever find me (Encyclopedia).  

April 4, 1860

The time between stations where was a long time to be completely alone, soon I would transfer letters to another rider and they would takeover (Encyclopedia). The load of letters are really heavy, I feel them slowing me and my only companion, Scooter, the horse I am riding, down. Although they are written on tissue paper, they still are slowing us down (Godfrey). I am like a snail, slowly moving along, with no hope of getting where I’m going anytime soon. I look up at the sky and stare at the blueness of the sky against the pure white of the stringy cotton ball clouds.

April 10, 1860

 I felt myself dosing off while riding Scooter when all of a sudden I snap back, as alert as ever. I realize that it was the rustling in the bushes and trees that awoke me. I could feel my pulse quicken. Slowly I stopped me and Scooter and stopped dead in our tracks. I fear that something was going to burst from the woods and spook Scooter into throwing me from the saddle. Slowly I turned us around and hopped off of Scooter. As I looked into the woods I saw two eyes staring back at me. Immediately I froze. I could sense I was staring straight into the eyes of a massive grizzly bear. I could only breath slow shallow breathes, I knew I not to move, the second I’d move he would attack so I remained perfectly still.  As time went by I knew I was not going to get off easy, this grizzly was not planning on just walking away.

I took a deep breath and slowly shifted my weight to my left, where Scooter and the open trail waited for me. I had a bad feeling about this, and I knew that if this grizzly bear did attack me and injure me, nobody would ever find me and I’d just die out here. Quickly, the bear jumped at me and I knew it was over. I felt myself scream and attempt to run but I knew running would be useless. With a loud roar, I felt teeth plunge into my leg, tearing and ripping into my skin. Immediately, I felt the warmth of the blood rushing down my leg leaving me unable to move, while the bear stood on over me on his hind legs. My surroundings became fuzzy, but then I only saw black.

I remember nothing between that moment, and waking up in this tent laying on a bed. I’ve been told that a man on the trail found me and took me to this tent where a medic stitched my leg back together. If it were not for this man I would have probably died out there.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia, The Columbia Electronic. Fact Monster. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Godfrey, Anthony. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Walske, Steven C. Pony Express Mail. 16 November 2007. Document. 28 February 2013.

What am I

Author's Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of a metaphor.

I am a dog

Here to listen

Never to judge

Always here

Never to let my problems come before yours 

Always will I have your back 

Never will I let you fall

I am a dog, a best friend

Wealth

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of conflict resolution. This essay talks about the main conflict in the short story, “The Necklace” along with the resolution to the conflict.

Some people are born wanting and wishing to have nice things, although for a lot of people it’s not in the cards for them. The main character, Mathilde, says how she wishes to have nice clothes and feel beautiful, but she was born poor and most likely will always be poor. And when she is invited to a fancy party her husband gives her the money to buy a beautiful dress like all the other women there will have, so she can feel beautiful for one night. Once she has the gown, she still feels like she it doesn’t look complete. Because of this she borrows a necklace from her rich friend and after the night is over she realizes she’d lost. She never does find the necklace, so she ends up working for ten years to pay the bank back for the money she borrowed to replace the necklace. The main conflict of “The Necklace,” by Guy De Maupassant is person verses self.

The reason the main conflict is person verses self, is because the conflict was that Mathilde wants to have nice things and feel young and beautiful like all of the other women in her community that are rich and have many nice clothes and jewelry. So really, Mathilde is just making herself feel out of place because she feels like she has to be like all the rich women. The quote, “All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry,” really describes how Mathilde is torturing herself for not being rich and not having beautiful clothes.

Though, Mathilde has a huge conflict with herself, as you may think it would get resolved, it doesn’t. Mathilde never really does get over the fact that she desires to be like all the rich beautiful women. The quote, “Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed,” shows how her friend reacted when she saw Mathilde after she had worked for ten years to pay off the money she borrowed for the necklaces replacement. She reacted this way because Mathilde, lost her youth and beauty which was one thing she could’ve had without being wealthy. There would have been a resolution in this story if instead of how it did end, is if somehow Mathilde got wealthy and got everything she ever wanted. This is why the conflict has no resolution.

The short , “All Summer In a Day,” by Ray Bradbury and “The Necklace” may not have the same person verses person conflict, but they share the same ending without a resolution. “All Summer In a Day,” has a person verses society conflict, because the main character, Margot was bullied and not excepted by her classmates because she was different, and all she wanted was to get to see the sun for that glorious one hour every seven years. But, because she was different her classmates locked her in the closet so she would miss her one chance to see the sun for seven years. The quote, “They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out,”  shows the similar resolution between the two stories. It shows how there was no resolution, Margot never got to see the sun that she had missed so much since she had moved to Venus.

Person verses self is the main conflict of the short story, “The Necklace,” by Guy De Maupassant. Not only is the main conflict person verses self, but it also doesn’t get resolved within the story. The next time you read a story just think about what the conflict is and does it ever even get resolved.

Cold

Author’s Note: I wrote this as a creative piece, for an assignment. It was a requirement to be creative, so I tried to show my creativity and word choice in this piece. I also demonstrated my knowledge of figurative language in this piece.

My ears were pounding, I could feel my adrenaline surging as he took eerily, slow steps towards me. In one swift movement he reached out and bashed my head full force into the counter. Like a deer in the headlights I stood there shocked for a moment. Then I felt the warm flow of blood begin to slither down my face and it started  to pour into my eyes. There was something different about how he was acting today, it almost felt like he was preparing for some horrible new punishment he had up his sleeve. I couldn’t calm down while this crazy monster had such a horrifyingly happy look in his eyes as he watched me lay there with blood running from my head. Slowly, my vision started to blur and all I wanted to do was sleep.

The slam of the door woke me from my deep sleep. I could feel the hard jaggedness of the ground pushing into my back. Unsure of where I was I slowly began to sit up, but the throbbing of my head kept me from reaching a full sitting up position. With a clump my body slammed itself right back into the cold hard ground. I laid there for a while before I regained the strength to try and pull myself back up again. Successfully, I managed to pull myself up to an upright position. With slow, smooth movements, careful not to send a sharp shooting pain through my head, I found myself in a enclosed shed. I kept thinking to myself, where am I, and why am I here?

Once I gained all the power I could, I pushed through the sickening pain in my right temple where that horrible monster plunged my head into the side of the countertop, I was able to somehow stagger to my feet and cling to the walls to keep myself from toppling right over like a baby taking its first steps. The worst part about this whole thing is that that terribly cruel person who found it necessary to cause me pain and humiliation day after day was my own father. How sick and twisted is that?

Steadily, I made my way to this blur of a shadow, which I was assuming must be the door to this old shack. It smelled of rotted wood and mold. My mind was crowded with so many thoughts, but there was one in particular that kept racing through my mind. Is this another awful punishment he has decided to torture me with, leaving me in the shed to freeze? As I finally made it to the door I felt around for the handle and when I found it, I gave it a pull but nothing. Once again I pulled on the cold metal handle, but the door didn’t budge.

My heart started pounding. Did he lock me in? It was January and I could see the shed getting darker as the sun began to set. If he left me in here all night I would freeze to death before he would come get me in the morning. That is if he even planned on coming for me at all. I know I must find a way out of here or I’m as good alive, as dead. The crisp air felt as though it was at most 10 degrees.  At the top of the shed I could hear the wind whispering through the boards in the rooftop.

After at least an hour of useless tugging and pounding for help, I couldn’t do a single thing.  I finally gave up and sat curled up on the freezing ground. My consciousness was a blur for a long time. Some points I’d be shaking ferociously on the ground trying to preserve whatever body heat I had left and other times I’d be unconscious laying on the ground.  Suddenly, I woke once more only to find myself whimpering in pain from the frostbite.

I forced myself to stay awake, by sitting up as best I could, worried I wouldn’t wake up the next time I closed my eyes.  After  waiting this long I knew he wasn’t coming back for me, He just left me here to die in the bitter cold of the night. Slowly I laid myself back down to the frosty ground and I felt myself drift away never to wake up again.

Who Tells The Story

Author’s Note: I wrote this to show my knowledge on point of view. In addition to the essay I wrote a creative piece, which is a scene from Fallen but instead I told it from Daniel’s point of view, instead of Luce’s.

Picture learning at seventeen that you have lived over ten past lives and are doomed to live and die and not remember it, because in your first life you fell for an angel. Well in the book Fallen, by Lauren Kate, you read the story from the main character, Luce’s point of view. The book, Fallen is about a teenager who is sent to a reform school and learns something very interesting about herself. She meets a intriguing boy named Daniel and when he seems to want nothing to do with her she can’t help but feel more and more like she needs to be with him, like she knows him from somewhere. Later she learns one of his deepest secrets, Daniel is really an angel and he was punished for falling for a mortal, so now every seventeen years he meets Luce but she doesn’t remember him and every time she dies a painful explosion death. The novel is told from the main character, Luce’s point of view.

The book is told from Luce’s point of view, because of whose point of view the story is told from it really changes how the reader reacts to certain things. For example, because Luce is the narrator she doesn’t have a clue about the truth behind Daniel, therefore the reader doesn’t either. Because of this, Luce does find out the Daniel is an angel; the reader is shocked as well. For a while, Luce is totally confused. Because of all the confusion, Luce is feeling the reader also becomes confused and frustrated that they don’t have a clue what’s going on. The quote, “'I don’t believe you,'" she said, feeling her voice tremble. "‘I don’t believe any of this.’” Gives a good example of how Luce feels when she finds out Daniel’s big secret, and how her shocks transferred to the reader as well.

The point of view of a story really changes how the reader feels about certain things. What if the point of view were to change? Would the reader feel completely different about the story? If the point of view of the story changed, and it was now told from Daniel's point of view, the reader would react completely different. So if the entire book you were reading about how Daniel saw things and how Daniel felt about it all, you wouldn’t have as much surprise. In the quote, "Luce gripped the windowsill as Cam made the first move, running at Daniel and slamming into him with his shoulder." You see how rather than surprise and suspense there’d be a lot of action, because when Daniel fights in the action scenes you’d be reading everything Daniel was feeling while fighting Cam instead of how Luce was feeling when the two boys were fighting in front of her.

The point of view stories are told from really gives the reader different thoughts and feelings while reading depending on whose telling the story. Fallen is told from Luce’s point of view. Depending on what the character is like and whose telling the story, the reader gets a lot of different emotions while reading from different characters points of view.

  

******

It had been just a regular day at Swords and Cross, but then I saw her. I couldn’t help but think to myself, don’t go near her, avoid her at all costs. I couldn’t let what happened to her so many times before happen again. She looked right at me, but I quickly looked away, she had not seen me looking at her. Then all of a sudden, she waved and smiled, I had to think fast. How do I make her not ever want to look at me again? I did what I had to do, so I slowly raised my hand to her and shot my middle finger at her. It worked she quickly turned her head the other direction and pretended she had never even looked at me.

It gave me a horrible feeling in my gut to think that I was the reason for that surprised yet sad face she made, but I know it was for her own good. I can’t let it happen again, not again, this time I can never tell her anything, I can’t lose her, not again. Luce didn’t remember anything from her past lives, and I plan on keeping it that way. I know now what I didn’t know for the many times I’ve met her before this. I now know that in some lives just a single kiss will send her into an explosion of fire and flames. I also know that too much information about her past lives and what is going on will also take her from me.

I have decided that the only way to ensure her safety I must avoid her and make her think I don’t even want to see her face again. In her past lives, I'd never been able to stay away from her, but for the seventeenth time I’ve now learned it’s more painful to have her ripped from me than to never be able to talk to her and tell her how much I love her and how I’ve always loved her. The pain will get to me, but I have to stay strong, not for me, but for her. Just another day of being an angel. 

Struggles and Battles

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of compare and contrast. This is about the similarities and differences in the book, Sarah Bishop, and the movie, The Patriot.

Imagine growing up or living in the time of the Revolutionary war. The characters from the movie, The Patriot, lived and fought in the Revolutionary war, and the character Sarah from the book, Sarah Bishop, by Scott O’dell, grew up during the time of the Revolutionary War. The movie The Patriot is about a father and his son, Gabriel who joins the militia to fight against the king for freedom, and how they fight the war side by side. The book Sarah Bishop is about a young girl who is growing up in the time of the revolutionary war. Her brother and father are killed, and she is being tracked for a crime she didn’t commit so she flees and hides in a cave in the woods. There she learns to live on her own and off the land. The book, Sarah Bishop and, movie, The Patriot, both talk a lot about how war affected their families, and the weapons mentioned are very similar, also they are very different because of the perspective of the war shown.

One important similarity between the book and movie, is how the war effected the characters families. For example Sarah’s father was murdered because he was a proud loyalist and so patriots came and burned down their home and covered her dad in tar and feathers, which ended up killing him. Also Sarah’s brother enlisted in the war and was captured and killed, which left her all alone and without any family. This quote really shows how Sarah felt after she found out that both her father and brother died, “I felt little, only lost, lost and alone.” Not only did the war effect Sarah’s family but it also effected Benjamin from the patriot. Due to the war his second oldest son was shot and killed by a German soldier. Then by the end of the movie his oldest son, Gabriel was stabbed and killed in battle. How the war effected the characters families is one of the biggest similarities between the book and movie.

Not only was how the war effected the families of the characters a huge similarity between the book and movie, but the  weapons were also very similar. In the book, Sarah Bishop, Sarah’s musket is her main weapon that she took everywhere she went, it was also her only source of protection. The quote, “That was the way I looked at the musket now — as a companion,” really shows how important this gun was to Sarah. Similarly, Benjamin and many men fighting in the war in, The Patriot, carried their muskets almost everywhere they went and fought many battles with them. This proves how important and common muskets were in both The Patriot and Sarah Bishop.  

Although there were many similarities between, The Patriot and Sarah Bishop, there was also a very significant difference between the two. This difference is the perspective shown from the two stories. In Sarah Bishop the perspective is  shown from a young girl, who due to the war has no family and is just trying to escape all the fighting that’s going on. Meanwhile in The Patriot, the perspective is from a grown man who is fighting for freedom from Britain. Not only that but he also is trying to keep his son safe and trying not to let him end up like his now dead oldest son. That is one of the biggest difference between The Patriot and Sarah Bishop.

As you can see there are many similarities along with a very significant difference between, The Patriot and Sarah Bishop. While reading, Sarah Bishop and watching The Patriot, I’ve noticed that people in that time have a lot of things in common, their struggles and way of life are very similar, but also peoples age and gender have a huge impact on what their life will be like. 

Melinda and Margot

Author's Note: I made this chart to show my knowledge of compare and contrast. I compared and contrasted the character, Melinda,from the book, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. And the character, Margot, from the short story, All Summer In  A Day, by Ray Bradbury. 

Melinda

in high school

had parents who ignored

she was blamed

didn't care about school

was physically hurt and ignored _____________________________________________________________________________________ Same both were unhappy both were bullied they both hated school they had no friends their teachers didn't do anything to stop the bullying

______________________________________________________________________________________ Margot in elementary school had parents that cared judged good student constantly made fun of