"Alice in Wonderland" Vocabulary (:

1. I have got speed, dribbling and shooting skills. I contribute to my basketball team by putting a lot of effort and trying my best in every game.

2. It would be great to have the sixth sense because it would help me a lot by knowing people's real personalities, insights, and knowing their 'hidden' opinions about things, possibly me, too.


3. By hearing Jane question Ms. Brennan so many times in Math class, it is evident that she does not understand the lesson that Ms. Brennan has just taught her.


4. People often keep their own feelings to themselves, but, I do not. I have a little crush on this cute guy at school and I express my feelings for him by writing him a letter.

"Skateboard Park Documents" and "Leash-Free Dog Run Documents" Vocabulary (:

1. All pandas need to be rescued because most of them are potentially endangered.

2. After done working with my ICT model project, I asked my friend to give me a proposal in order for me to make an improvement.

3. Even though gathering round the campfire gives me warmth, but it also scares me because fire is an extremely hazard.

4. The government is empowered to mobilize its country.

5. The government also needs to give its citizens ample freedom to speak, to vote, and to protest.

"Drumbeats and Bullets" & "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" Vocabulary (:

1. I instantly became absent-minded and my ears were about to explode by the time I heard the music volume intensified.

2. Our brain is responsible for basic vital life functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and blood pressure.


3. I personally believe in God and his immortality.


4. There is a legitimate consequence that if one passes the red light, they will get caught by the police immediately.


5. Haitians tumbled one after another when the earthquake caused an enormous tremor in the ground.

Propaganda Poster on Animal Farm (:

~Ami & Antonia

"Academic & Camp Harmony" Vocabulary (:

1. After testing food with sugar in Science, I had an observation that coke contains a high amount of sugar in it.


2. Mr Blake usually makes the class emphasize by telling funny jokes which makes my classmates and I more energetic.


3. After watching "Scarlet Takes a Tumble" on YouTube, a lot of people had made videos of their reactions and they gave me a good time by cracking me up.



4. When it comes to new vocabulary, some students do not understand and Mr Patrick has a solution by defining it very clearly.


5. The principle tersely gave the bullies a lecture after hitting others for no reason.


6. It would be terrible if there was a breach on a ship because it would gradually sink.


7. I was riveted by the demonstration Ms Sarah was giving us on floor plan.



8. There was about ten guards who kept a vigil over a castle in Norway when I paid a visit.

"Camp Harmony" Literary Focus (:

5. Interpret- How would you define the mood of the people on the bus at the beginning of the journey to Camp Harmony? At the end of the journey?

At the beginning of the journey, all the college students on the bus seemed pretty excited to see and live in the camp because they were singing joyfully. Some Japanese-Americans were annoyed by the college students and horrified because the Americans would probably harm them. They all expected for the best, wished that everything would go right. But they thought wrong. They were assigned to a big room and it seemed like a prison in some way. They got blamed, had to live like prisoners. Sone's mother seemed like a woman that never got depressed or upset. She turned every bad thing to a good thing. Monica, who seemed a lot positive in the very first place but had changed at the end. She considered herself as a native American but her thought sadly got lost after she was blamed for being a Japanese.
...

Negative Impacts of a Command Economy (:

Book Trailer: A Shot At It (:

Please go to this link and watch it, thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdkP2VRXwlI

10 Vocab Words (:

1. There was once when Beyoncé was on stage performing her hit song "Single Ladies", millions of fans were screaming, cheering, they were mesmerized by her talent.

2. My driver spent a long period of time patiently washing my car and it was impeccably clean by the time I walked by.

3. It was the first time speaking in front of a whole class, Giselle grew petrified and a word could barely come out from her mouth.

4. I never liked to change schools, neither to make new friends, start everything all over again, and it was not simple to dissuade my parents.

5. When the classroom was in silence, some students were raising their hands up high in the air, some of them were looking at the teacher yet scratching their heads, which immediately flashed me a thought that the lesson was extremely chaotic.

6. It had been an hour or more of discussing about a basketball game, the two coaches of both schools finally negotiated to give the winner a golden trophy.

7. There were well-trained corps that was set from the government to conquer a land that had been fighting over for years.


8. My friends had a secret plan that they had been hiding from me, they were afraid if it was spilled, but I was thankful because that plan was meant to commemorate my birthday.

9. I kept on mimicking everything people said to me when I was a little kid because like works that way.

10. The small cruise ship which was going across the ocean resembled the fancy, gigantic cruise ship in "Titanic"- one of the most successful movies in the world.

"Gentleman of Río En Medio" Literary Focus (:

Hypothesize: Q9 This story is told from the point of view of a narrtor who is a character in the story. How might this story differ if Don Anselmo were the narrator?

I think the story would be totally different. If Don Anselmo was the narrator, he would tell us more about his feelings when he had to sell his land to the "good people". He would probably say he missed his land but he had to sell it for his needs. He would also explain why each person in the village each owned a tree on his land. "If it was a tradition or not?", "What's the importance owning a tree?", "If Americans are known such as "good people" then why don't they let the kids play in their land?" There were many questions that Don Anselmo personally needed to answer because the narrator didn't know all that information based on his own experiences. After all, I would enjoy to read this story of Don Anselmo as the narrator because I want to know the answers to these questions above and the difference between different narrators.

"Gentleman of Río En Medio" Vocabulary (:

1. The soccer coach needs many soccer players and he negotiates by buying them with a price.

2. There are tons of human cells in a human and they are innumerable because many die and a lot are newly born.




3. Vietnam has many boundaries because it used to be Cambodia.


4. Many people say human beings are all descendants of gorillas, and some say we are descendants of fish. Though no one knows which statement is true.

OR

???

"Stop The Sun" Vocabulary (:

1. There is a big sale off of the mall; many people are lining up waiting for the gate to widely open. Once it opens, the crowd runs in quickly and the commotion stops immediately.

2. It was Jane's first presentation and her words foundered because she was extremely nervous.

3. Yesterday, I gave my Math textbook to Layne to do her homework. But when she returned it to me, my eyes were gone by just looking at the ruin; wrinkled papers, paper edges were torn, some strawberry jam stains on the cover.

4. Smosh has heart problems and he never feels comfortable when his friends keep scaring him. They should stop doing that because once when he got too shocked he was inert laying on the ground.

Literary Focus "Stop The Sun" (:

Make Judgements: Q.7 Do you think Terry made the right decision about questioning his father on his experiences in Vietnam? Why or why not?

To me, what Terry did was absolutely correct. A son had the right to ask his father on his experiences in Vietnam. Terry tried his best to ask his father but there was something really personal or private that he could not tell his son. This made me wonder a lot. What is the reason why his father is being strange and why can't he tell his son? This question also really bothered me. Terry wanted to know so bad because he could somehow understand how his father felt, he could somehow realize what he thought of his father was wrong. Terry judged his father and after this, he would realize something really important and he would not make the same mistake ever again in the future. After all, I think Terry made a right decision by understanding his father and realizing what he did wrong.

The Other Side of Sheilla (:

“Hey Sheilla, let's go down here to make a snow man with us!” One of Sheilla' friends friendly asked Sheilla. It was seven months ago, when the weather was freezing cold and the bears were deeply hibernating. While Sheilla' friends were having fun building a snow man outside the house, Sheilla just sat silently in a corner of her huge, pink room. More terrible, Sheilla didn't even reply to one of her friends. Sheilla was a very sensitive and quiet person. She never talked to anybody beside her dad even if there was an emergency. Slobbie, her teddy bear, was her only friend that she played with since she was little.

Sheilla was raised in a wealthy family but sadly her mom died of the last stage of cancer. Her dad, Mr. Solih, was a very wise man; he became a “mom” in the family since Mrs. Solih passed away, he had a job as a school professor, therefore, Mr. Solih was a very rich and knowledgeable man. He taught Sheilla every single lesson in life even when they were unnecessary. He put all of his knowledge into Sheilla because he wanted Sheilla to become a next professor in the family. Everyday since Sheilla was little, Mr. Solih sat in Sheilla's room with a bunch of books covered with dust. He carefully taught her how to read, write, listen, and speak in many different ways. Sometimes, Sheilla had to listen to a story that was read by her dad, to answer hundreds of questions that were asked by her dad, and she was to write a summary of that story. She also had to write a narrative or a short story based on a topic given by her dad. There was one interesting thing of how Mr. Solih taught Sheilla how to speak. She had to be a professional teacher for a day; she had to teach her dad a lesson from a book and do the exact same thing what a professor would do. Based on all the knowledge that Sheilla had, she was an excellent student at school and was doing very well. For eight years in a row from Elementary School to Middle School, Sheilla kept on achieving a Grade Point Average of 4.0. That was a difficult dream to come true of thousands and thousands of students. Luckily, Sheilla was the top student of the school and everybody called her a “genius”. Both Mr. Solih and she were very proud and amazed of what she specially had. But most of her friends were jealous of her and she was being ignorant by a pretty large group of people. Not so many people played with her because they thought she was a nerd and she was not fun to play with. Sheilla was very lonely if nobody noticed. She was always upset but just kept to herself and she sometimes cried because of the bad day. Sheilla always had to sit at the back of the classroom and worked alone by herself to do every single thing. When Sheilla was sitting at a lunch table where the “uncool” people sat, she heard the arrogant students mumbling in their mouth.
“Hey, lemme tell you, don’t ever sit with that girl over there okay? She is so not cool and tedious, if any of you play with her, we’re through!”

Every day of school was a different tragedy that kept on going and never stopped. Sheilla was a quiet and lonely person was partly because of how her friends treated her at school and she didn't have a mother's love since she was born.

Despite that, Sheilla was a pretty rich person and her house was more like a five-story castle. There were many well-designed rooms with full of expensive decorations and Sheilla's pink room was one of them. There was a small but mysterious room that had never been opened for more than ten years. It was super strange for Sheilla because her dad kept warning her not to come in no matter what. Curiosity couldn’t get away from Sheilla and she couldn't wait to find out what was in the room. She spent days going up and down, back and forth the “golden castle” to find the key. When Mr. Solih was in a deep sleep, she snuck into his room. She was terribly afraid of her dad as if he would suddenly wake up when she was on a mission. Mr. Solih let out a big, long snore and moved his body to the left within a small cling-cling sound of a key. That snore calmed her down a little bit. Sheilla heard the sound of the door’s key and all she had to do was to go near her dad and get the key. She silently crawled onto the bed, stuck her two little palms out and slowly took the key out of Mr. Solih’s key chain. Sheilla let out a quick, excited sigh and quickly ran out to the hallway. Now the key was in Sheilla’s hand, the next step was to unlock the door of the secret room and discover what was inside. The heavy footsteps were coming to the door. Sheilla looked around the house and carefully unlocked the door. Bam! The door was widely opened in just a blink. Sheilla quickly stepped in the room and she was literally gasping by the look of the room. The room hadn’t been used for more than ten years but it looked like it was cleaned just a few days ago. The book shelf, the table, the clock, the ceiling light, the couch, and especially the long mirror, they were all very valuable because they were made out of pure gold. When Sheilla’ eyes landed right on the long golden mirror, she couldn’t control herself from going near it. She leisurely and cautiously touched it without leaving a fingerprint on it. Unbelievably, she was dragged by a fastening tornado into the golden mirror. She magically appeared in a totally new world. Everything was new to her: her knowledge, her friends, her personality, her dad, her house.

At school, Sheilla’ friends treated her differently than before. Whenever she went, they followed. Sheilla became a popular girl at her school gradually from an ignored, unknown girl. She was not as smart as before because she turned into a naughty, headstrong party animal. She hung out with her friends overnight and never did her homework. Her G.P.A started to decrease to 1.20 after that because she deserved it for what she did. All the complaints about school, the arguments with Mr. Solih happened. He was really upset to see his daughter being a different girl than she used to be; a girl with no manners, with no knowledge. Also, Sheilla’s “castle” was not a castle no more. It was an ordinary one story house. She used all her allowance, sometimes secretly stole her dad’s money and put the money into parties, drugs. Seriously, who was she then?

It was the time for Sheilla to think about herself and what had she done for a while. If she didn’t steal the key from her dad, if she didn’t step in the mysterious room, and if she didn’t touch the golden mirror, nothing would have happened. She needed to think before she did something because one little thing can really make an enormous change.

"A Retrieved Reformation" Vocabulary (:

1. This morning, James and Jenny had a big fight and the broken relationship caused them great anguish.

2. John failed a Math final test and Ms. Brennan gave him clemency to retake the test.

3. Jane threw the baseball elusively into the air and her teammate found it difficult to catch.

4. I had an injury while playing basketball and hopefully it would rehabilitate soon so I can join the next game.

Oliver? Yes, He is Oliver (:

A faded yellow shirt and crumpled blue pants are what Oliver wears to school everyday. Oliver rarely listens in class and he does unnecessary things that never relate to the lesson. Every teachers' eyes are always marked on his miserable face to see as if he pays attention but the answer to that is an enormous NO. Unlike his peers, Oliver doesn't play basketball nor soccer everyday after school but instead he just sits heavily on the stairs and watch them play. To everybody's eyes, Oliver is an extremely tedious person to play with.

Conduct an Interview (:

An Interview with Miki Doan

1. Where were your parents born?

Miki Doan: My mother was born in Vietnam and my father was born in Singpore.




2. What are your favorite foods?

Miki Doan: I love hamburgers, french fries and together with soft drinks. Fast food in general.








3. What do you most enjoy doing?

Miki Doan: I enjoy hanging out with friends, shopping. You know? Girls :D



4. What is most important to you in life?

Miki Doan: There is only one answer, my family.





5. Do you play sports?

Miki Doan: Uhmm...NOPE! I'm not interested in it and I'm not really good at it.

6. What is your religion?

Miki Doan: My religion is Buddhism.

Miki and I are best friends for more than four years. She's currently living in Singapore with her family. Even though we're living in different countries but she pays me a visit about three times a year. We usually hang out or go to one's house and that's how we interact.

Miki is half Vietnamese half Singaporean and I'm Vietnamese but we have many things in common.

• We are Vietnamese.

• We both like to hang out with our friends, as well as with each other.

• Fast food is what we love, although we know that it's unhealthy but it's way too delicious and we can't help it.

• To both of us, family is above and beyond. There's no person on this planet earth that can compare to our family. Also friends are still important but it depends on what kind of friend you have.

• The only two things that we don't have in common are sports and religion. Miki doesn't enjoy playing sports while I do. Miki's religion is Buddhism while mine is Christianity.

We are from different cultures but we have many common responses to our lives. These common responses are what make us best friends and we're thankful for that.

"Hamadi" Vocabulary (:

1. Geometry class was very tedious which made me almost fall asleep.

2. My grandpa always wears archaic clothes because of his age and he doesn't like wearing fancy clothes.

3. Antonio speaks French vaguely because it's not his mother language.

4. Maria doesn't do her homework on task and she barely pays attention in class which she always ends up inquiring the teacher.