Reading Inquiry - Motivation

Motivation is something that brings us the courage to do something important for ourselves. In my reading groups reading inquiry we asked, "What things do you notice (in a book or real life) that people do to motivate other people to do good things?" We all had many things to share. I going to just highlight a few of the ones a did. Because I want to let my group share their great observations.

So, for books I obviously chose 1984 by George Orwell as a main example since I am still reading it. In 1984, people are forced to not think bad things (if they do they will be arrested by the thought police), their thoughts are constantly monitored, which motivates people to think freely, out of the box and for ourselves. Also, in 1984 I noticed Winston, who I imagine to be a small person (maybe around 5 foot 4), who's very weak, and is a goody toe-shoes wants to do a big thing and break out of his little thought prison, which is something big, considering the thought police try to monitor everyone's thoughts. This motivates smaller, maybe even people who are very timid to make something of themselves. 1984 is the most thought provoking books I've ever read and I'm going to talk a lot more about it.

In real life there are many things you can do that are kind things you can do to motivate someone or many people. I focused on something little for this first one. Just holding a door open for someone is the gateway to a chain of motivation to do good things. For example, you hold a door open for somebody, that person does something good to motivate a few other people, and on and on. This next one is about Hurricane Sandy and that storm in Illinois a few weeks back. The amount of people who are helping the ones who got hit really badly by the storms were incredible. There still cleaning up for both. Just the people who are donating all there time to help the less fortunate are doing something that will motivate everyone to do something amazingly helpful.

Social Justice

Social justice happens everyday. No matter how big or how little, it's still something good that helps us in the long run. The whole thing of social justice is to maintain equality for every single person on earth. Social justice is the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits for economic growth for a society. This is shown in two different ways, one is through books, and the other is through our everyday lives.

Books sort-of transfers the knowledge of social justice to you. It can give you a sense of kindness. It can inspire you to do good things for random people you meet off of the street. The things you witness in books have a subliminal message that gives you something that can bring you towards doing the right things, or showing you something terrible that happens so you can improve yourself as a person off of it. A book that really gives you a sense of social justice is Animal Farm by George Orwell. It shows a higher class discriminating against a lower class. Which, as I said previously makes you at least want to help the lower class out a bit. I mean giving something or helping someone less fortunate then yourself gives you a really little bundle of satisfaction.

Outside of the book world, we tend to help others out. By lending them money or maybe donating to an organization to raise some money for a certain thing. Really, anything you can do to help someone is just worth it completely. I notice this a lot. For example, when Sammy in the 8th grade has passed away a week before his barmitzvah, he wanted to donate some of the money given to him to a charity. He had told a few of his friends that. And his friends are trying to raise money to give to the charity. Something as little as a penny is going to help a lot of people. There are also people who on the subway give away their seats to pregnant women or people with a handicap. So that they can sit down and relax without a worry. I love when I see people do that. I try to help these people out as much as possible. I love to see them smile and be just really greatful that there are people in this world who care about what's happening to them.

Young Adult Non-Fiction Reading Response

Without a doubt, you can tell the articles, "The Banned Books we Loved" by Jen Doll and "Darkness too Visible" by Megan Cox Gurdon are incredibly different. They both are based on young adult fiction. "The Banned Books we Loved" talks about how books shouldn't be banned. Where as, "Darkness too Visible" talks about young adult fiction being "inappropriate" for teens, who can actually relate to the books they read.

I completely agree with, "The Banned Books we Loved" about how young adult books shouldn't be banned. These young adult books teach us lessons. Lessons that may help us figure out our life. They give us ways to be grateful about how lucky we are. It makes us feel like we're not the only ones having an unusual problem. Banned books help us see ourselves, most importantly. In books like The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger we see a teen who struggles with both his school and social life, aswell to find his way in life. Jen Doll has a sort-of caring tone in this article towards the banned books. She is someone who appreciates the brilliant writing of the authors with the banned books. Jen Doll also quotes many authors with banned books, showing that they're just good books and that we should be able to read them.

Now, I've got a lot to say about "Darkness to visible." Mega Cox Gurdon, doesn't know what she's getting into. She thinks young adult books should have ratings. This is not the correct solution. What is she gonna make a book "R" rated, so I can't just go to a book store and buy a great book. She also is very condescending in this article. Making herself seem smarter and us dumb by using loaded words, like "depravity" and "traumatizing," all that crap. She thinks it's evil aswell. She talks about how descriptive books can be. And that it the few words about bleeding in a certain book may "traumatize" us, isn't that right Megan. Let's take Hunger Games for example, the killing in that isn't real, it's a book for pete's sake. I mean books are great, but she obviously doesn't understand. Also there's this whole thing that ALL young adult books teach you by the end of the book, and Hunger Games was, war and killing is bad, so why would she not support the fact that she's basically saying that?

Overall these articles are very descriptive. As you can already tell I don't like "Darkness too Visible" and love "The Banned Books we Loved." This is just my opinion though. Books shouldn't be banned because teens need to explore culture and not be limited to uninteresting books.

Animal Farm

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm.

The book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell should be allowed in the MS51 library. The subject of this book has something very intriguing about it. Which is the part, that's incredibly obvious, the animals take over the farm.

Before I read this and a few other books I wasn't a very fascinated reader. Pretty much all the books I read were just dull and boring. I couldn't ever focus on them because they were all about kids facing sports troubles and all the stuff. If you know me, I'm now much of a very sporty person. Though, George Orwell's Animal Farm was one of the first books I'd read to change my reading habits by a lot. Since, my dad's from England he told me about his favorite book, Animal Farm. He told me that it's about English society in the mid 1940's aswell. I had opened this book and was immediately interested. As soon as I had finished the book I had figured out what my dad meant. The "animals" were the poor English people of the mid 1940's and the "farmers" were the rich people, law makers and royalty back then. Soon after I figured this out, I thought that if the "farmers" keep abusing the "animals," then the "animals" will take over. I've never read something so brilliant (besides "The Catcher in the Rye"). George Orwell finally found a perfect way to comment on the way England was back in the mid 1940's.

My personal thought is, "if George Orwell didn't think of the Animal Farm idea that we know of today, yet he still wanted to find a sort-of outlet on English society, what else would he use to represent it?" I don't understand at all why this book is band. It doesn't teach kids anything bad. I mean if anything, I guess it would maybe be kids taking over something, but we're not strong and big enough for that. And that's the only bad thing I could get from it. I mean there's a bit of abuse in it. But that's life, and life isn't perfect, that's just the way it is. And also it's a metaphor, no animals really got harmed in the making of this book. No doubt I would recommend this book for 6th graders nearing 7th grade and up, or just anyone who's fit to the challenge of this book, and is a dedicated reader.

The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye is the best book I've ever read. It's about a 16-18 year old teen named Holden who flunks out of about 3 different schools and is forced to go home after his most recent flunk. But, the thing is, he can't take it anymore and wants to live a real life and show everyone that he can do something with himself. So he moves to New York. Though I haven't gotten that far into the book yet. My stepdad told me him going to New York. In this I'm going to talk about Holden's very interesting use of vocabulary, how adults have been underestimating his potential, and how this book is 2nd on the top banned books list.

Holden in the book has a very complicated but at the same time simple vocabulary. Which I really love. The word that he uses to describe people who are fakes and don't really try to be helpful, nice, or just don't believe in anyone are "phonies." He uses this many times throughout the book for rich people or people who just are too caught up in themselves that they can't focus on others. Which, already has really made me fell as if I can really relate to him. I also completely agree with him about the conceited people who are caught up in themselves. I really think they are phonies because a rich person has so much money that they don't need to worry about anything but themselves.

In the book there is a representation about how adults completely underestimate kids and teens now a days. And I have to admit, we have given them the right to think that way about us because of all the things we do wrong. But, I believe they shouldn't down on us because we are going to become what they were. So why look down on something that is going to be like you. I think you should embrace them and maybe just maybe help them out a bit in life.

So my final topic is about how this book is on the 2nd most banned book on the banned books list. Let me start off saying it's an amazing book and it teaches kids to treasure what you have and what you do. And although Holden runs away from home it still helps you get the idea of not doing that. Because when you read something about someone running away from home. Your usually not going to do that because you see the characters struggle. This book also has it's amount of curses in it, but I don't consider them curses, I consider them to be "real words" because the world isn't all sunshine and celery stocks, it's tough. And stuff happens and you have to deal with it. I can also see why this book is banned because of all the curses and him running away from home.

As you can see by now this is my favorite book I've ever read and I am very pleased that my stepdad had it otherwise I would just have to keep finding books that are uninteresting to me. So I hope you can read this book because of what it teaches you about life.