TKAM Journal#7

-Jean “Scout” Louise Finch
5/31/09

Summer has come to an end. School has started so has the terrifying walks by the Radley place. I think I'm getting too old to be scared. There is also something I'm really anxious about. It has me thinking all the time. If I could see Boo Radley just once in pure skin and bones. I want it more than I want Dill to come back. I don't know If it can ever happened because Atticus just tells me to stop thinking about that so does Jem. I think I will just forget about it.

However, ever since school has started Miss Gates has been lecturing us about Hitler.
He's wicked crazy so far that I know about him. The way he treats the Jews is unnecessary. I think I hate him but Atticus says that I shouldn't hate anyone. Miss Gates doesn't like him either. Talking about Miss Gates the other day I asked Jem something about her and he got real furious. It made me want to cry. I don't like it when Jem gets mad at me.

Well anyway Halloween is here. I dressed up like a ham. The costume came out to be pretty successful but it did bother me. Anyway I participated in a Halloween contest that the school set up. After it was all over Jem and I walked home. It was so dark outside. I couldn't see anything. It was so hard for me to walk especially with my ham costume. Suddenly, Jem heard something. He said he clearly heard someone. I was scared. He said it was probably Cecil trying to scare us. So we didn't fall for it and just kept on walking. We had reached the end of the road then suddenly someone starts running behind us.


Run!” Jem yelled at the top of his lungs. It was too hard. It was completely dark and my costume was bothering me. I lost my balance and fell. Then Jem dragged me all the way to the road. I then heard a cracking noise and Jem screamed. I try to run toward him and then someone squeezed me. I couldn't breathe. Someone suddenly pulls the person that attacked us away.

Suddenly there is a strong smell of whiskey. I stumbled home then the light of my house I see a man carrying Jem. When I get home Aunt Alexandra immediately calls Dr. Reynolds. I was so scared. My heart was throbbing. Is Jem dead? Then Dr. Reynolds says he 's only unconscious and he has a broken arm. At least hes not dead.

The man that carried Jem home was in the room but I wasn't sure who it was. I didn't recognize him. Suddenly Mr.Tate appears and informs us that Mr.Ewell is lying under a tree, dead, with a knife under his ribs. It was him all along.

TKAM Post#6

I kind of wonder. Its 's kind of suspicious that the night of November 21st when Tom Robinson "raped" Mayella and beat her. Ewell did not call a doctor immediately. I keep asking him why. A doctor was needed if she was badly beaten. This is just very suspicious.



When Mayella got called up she says that the night of her "rape" . She says that thst night she offered Tom a nickel to break up a dresser for her. Once he got inside the house he grabbed her and took advantage of her. She then admits that she lives with seven useless brothers, an alchaholic father, and that she has no friends. Then that really made me wonder. It made things more suspicious. How come she didn't put up a better fight? How come nobody else listened to her? And most importantly how did Tom Robinson manage the crime? How could he bruse the right side of her face with his useless left hand?




Well of course! Ewell raped and beat Mayella. If he is an alchaholic then of course he could have done that. I shouted that he ahd raped her in the court room. Then he started yelling at me. He said the courtroom would have to be a bunch of cowards if they do not agree that Tom Robinson commited the crime. Mayella started bursting into tears and refused to answer any more questions.



Minutes later I called Tom Robinson up. He starts testyfing that everytime he passes by the Ewell house on the way to work that Mayella would often ask him to do chores for her. On the night of November 21st he says that Mayella asked him to come inside the house and fix a door. He noticed that there was nothing wrong with the door and that the children were gone. He said that Mayella told him she had saved money and sent all the kids to buy ice cream. He said that Mayella asked him to lift a box down from the dresser. Suddenly she hugged his leg. It scared him so much that he jumped down. She then hugged him around the waist and asked him to kiss her. She struggled and suddenly her father appeared at the window. She called her a whore and threatend to kill her. Then Tom left. Suddenly Tom's white employer stands up and syas that all these years hes worked with him he has never had any problems. The judge kicks the guy out because he intterupted.




But it is still clarified that Tom Robinson did commit this crime and that he lied about the whole thing. Is it just because he is black? This is not going to stay like this.

TKAM Journal#5

character: Scout
As soon as I saw aunt Alexandra sitting in the front porch of my house I got this feeling. It wasn't a good one. Its not that I don't like her but I just can't get along with her. Who knows maybe I do dislike her a little bit. Jem has the same feeling.
When I found out aunt Alexandra was going stay with us for a “while” to be honest I didn't really like the idea. She was staying with us so she can give me “feminine influence”. She says that since I'm growing u she needs to be around. So I can grow into being an actual girl. She says that soon I will be interested in girl stuff. Such as boys and clothing. Never!
However, I for sure dislike aunt Alexandra. She has so much ride for her or our last name. A Finch. I guess she told my father to lecture us on our family ancestry because he started talking about it. By the way ever since aunt Alexandra came my dad has changed. His attitude and everything I don't like that.
I remembered how I asked Calpurnia what rape was and she said to ask my dad. Then I tell my dad how Calpurnia took Jem and I to church on Sunday and asked him If I can go again. Aunt Alexandra refuses but I did not even ask her. Later that night Jem tells me to stop being so rude with aunt Alexandra. I don't like it when Jem tries to tell me what to do or not to do. I got so mad and attacked him. But, of course my dad comes in and breaks it up and sends us off to bed.
Suddenly that night I discovered something under my bed. Dill! He was under my bed. He said that he ran away from home because his mom and dad don't pay any attention to him. Jem goes down stairs and tells Atticus. He then orders me to bring him food. While my dad goes and tells dill's aunt Rachel that he is here. He hops into Jem's bed and sleeps.
A week later someone is at the door at night I don't know who. Then my dad goes somewhere. Jem tells me that aunt Alexandra and dad have been arguing about his trial. He then sneaks out and follows dad and dill and I follow along. We follow him to were he is going. I see him from a distance reading the news paper in Maycomb jail. My brother then insisted that we shall go home and not disturb my dad. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to know what was going on.
Suddenly a car stops and four guys get out. I realized that these were the guys that were at the door really late. I decided to stop hiding. Jem and dill do the same and stop hiding. My dad then orders us to go home. Jem refused so did I. I didn't want to go home. What if these men hurt my dad. I just stayed along with Jem and Dill. I then realize that one of these guys is Mr. Walter Cunningham. The dad of Walter Cunningham in my class. This has been the weirdest day ever.

TKAM Journal#4

Chapter 10-12
Character:Mrs.Dubose



I'm crazy. I know I am. Jem and Scout drive me more crazy. Jeremy is a rude little boy who makes me lose my mind. The other day I told Jeremy how his father is no better than the niggers and trash he works for. It's the truth. He is a nigger lover. He's no better than anything. That Rude little Jeremy destroyed my camellia bushes. Scout drives me crazy. It drives me crazy how she is so dirty. Those overalls she wears. Makes her look unladylike .
However, now Jeremy has to read to me for a month. He always brings his dirty little sister with him all the time. Now they get to see the real me. They get to see the perculiar fits I have at a certain hour. I'm off the drug addiction for a month. Then my life will be gone. Morphine is powerful. It takes control over me. It has taken control over me all the time I've been on it. I can't take control over it. But just this month I want to gain control over it. Then I'm gone.
I had actually quite enjoyed Jeremy reading sessions with me. Even though I don't listen to him. It helps me gain control over morphine and it helps me achieve my goal. To be off of it for a month. I like the reading sessions because I set my alarm clock later so that Jeremy and Scout can stay longer. They life as soon as the alarm clock sets off because those are my fits.
I'll admit it. I am lonely. Imagine knowing your going to die in a month and your lonely and hopeless. That is why I decided to be off morphine for a month. I don't want to die a drug addict. As soon as the month is over and Jeremy and Scout walk out that door Ill be gone forever. I may die like a sad,lonely, and grumpy woman but not as a drug addict.

TKAMB Chapters 1-3

To kill a mocking bird
Chapter 1 through 3
Character: Jem

Summer has been good so far. I met a boy named Charles Baker Harris who calls himself Dill. He is staying with his aunt Miss Rachel Haverford for the summer. She lives next door to us. Dill and I have become pretty good friends. We always play together. Until one day he dared me to to cross over and touch the Radley place.
Boo Radley seems like a malevolent person. He never comes out of his house. I heard that as a boy he got in trouble with the law and his father punished him and imprisoned him in his house. Nobody knew about him for a long time and one day he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. People think he is crazy. I was dared to touch his house by Dill. Dill has pretty eccentric ideas. This one is the most eccentric. The Radley place is pretty intimidating specially Boo Radley.
September is here. That means school starts. This year will be Scout's first year of school. She has never gone to school. She will be starting the first grade. While I was at lunch I saw Scout rubbing a kid's nose in dirt. I had to intervene. Walter Cunningham was the kid's name. He was one of the Cunningham's. The Cunningham's were really poor. I decided to invite Walter to eat dinner with us. His dad was a friend of my dad's and I thought it would be nice. We walked and talked all the way home about Boo Radley. When we got home for dinner Walter and my dad were talking about farming problems. It seems like they got along just well.

Project Reflection

Lit circles

Overall I really did enjoy the book I chose to read and getting to choose important quotes and commenting on them. I also enjoyed getting to know the people in my lit circles group perspective on how they feel towards the novel. It was interesting to get to know about what they think.
Something I learned from my L.C group was about their perspective towards the book and some connections they had to the quotes they chose. Something I learned from the novel was about why people immigrated to the U.S and what they had to go through. Like in my book the family had to cross the border illegally just to live better and to try to get out of the poverty they lived in. They came to the U.S illegally and they were still too poor because they were illegal and they couldn't get a decent job because they didn't go to school and they were illegal.



Art & Literature
For my art piece I decided to make a metaphor for the story and create an art piece out of the metaphor. Since the story I read was depressive and happy at times I decide to create the ocean, the sun, mountains, and the border. I used bright colors which represented happiness and hope in the story and the dark colors represented depression. The family also faced a lot of obstacles so the mountains and the border represented obstacles. I decide to make that a new cover page so people could see how the story is by looking at the picture.
I think there was a connection made between the book I read and the art piece I created. Like I said I created a metaphor by creating what I created and it represented how the story was.
I think I could have done way better on my art piece. I think I should have added more detail to it so when people look at the image they capture the message I'm trying to send. If I would have added more detail my final product would have been more successful. Something I learned about creating an art piece of the novel I read was how to express what I felt towards something by creating an image out of it.

Interview
I think the interview process was difficult at times especially the in person interview because my person coudn't do the interview the time i needed to.
That affected me because I had to turn in that assignment late and that affects my grade. It was also difficult because the person I got was young and he migrated to the united states at a really young age so he didn't really remember some thing that were important.
I thought interviewing a person three times was a little hard because we had to ask different questions each time we interviewed them and it would be hard to come up with good questions. It was also hard because sometimes my person would not reply on time so that was a problem.
How interviewing someone helped me understand what we were learning in class was that it helped me understand why people were immigrating to the U.S. Mostly because of poverty or because of school. My person migrated here because his daddy was in the army or something like that and he had to go to the U.S so they migrated here.

Book Review:The Circuit-Breaking Through

The Circuit and the sequel to that book, Breaking Through, by Fransisco Jimenez was a very good book. This book and sequel is basically about a poor family who immigrates to the Unites States from Mexico illegally so they can make a better life and try to get out of poverty. The Circuit is about the childhood of all the kids and the sequel Breaking Through is about the family trying to overcome what they go through while living their new life in America.
I really liked reading these books a lot because I like reading stories about immigration and I liked the way the author describes every moment of the story. It really helps me understand. I got really into this story because it was so good and getting into depth of someone's life was pretty cool. It was really shocking how this actually happened like how they immigrated illegally and they did succeed.
One of the main characters in this story is Fransisco Jimenez. Fransisco is the second oldest child before Roberto, his brother Fransisco is a very good student, good son, and person. Fransisco is intelligent, generous, and caring. He is always trying to find a way to help his parents out. He always puts himself after his family. He is always trying to find a way to help his parents out. He is also the author of the story which is basically a memoir of his life. Besides being an intelligent, caring, and generous person he is a great writer.
I would recommend for people to read this book because it is pretty good. The way the author describes his life makes you see immigration different. Well at least that is what it did for me. Some people might think immigration is bad or whatever they think of it. This story really makes you see how the family came here and how people treated them. It's very good and I recommended it.
Overall this was a great book. Normally reading doesn't interest me so much but this book really changed that. It really opened my mind to reading other books and I learned a lot about immigration and what some people actually have to go through to get a so called better life because in their countries they don't have the opportunities America has. I learned a lot about the Mexican culture which I am Mexican but I learned stuff I did not know about my culture. I really enjoyed reading this book and I learned a lot.