The significance of The Painted House shows how unwealthy the Chandlers are. The only people in the town that have paint on their homes are the wealthy, the poor can’t afford it. Mrs.Chandler grew up in a home that was painted, and she always dreamed of having a painted house of her own. But since they are cotton farmers, they’re always worrying about money, and won’t ever have spare money to spend on paint. The hill people that work for them supposedly have a painted house, and Hank taunts Luke about not having paint on his house. Trot over hears their conversation and becomes very angry with Hank. Ever since then, little planks of wood on the side of the Chandlers home, have been painted. Each day, more and more of the house is painted, and everyone that knows about it, believes trot is the culprit. I believe Trot paints the house because he thinks the Chandlers deserve a painted house. They work hard everyday of cotton season, and barely earn anything in return.
Topic 4:
The main character in The Painted Houseis Luke Chandler. He is 7 years old and works along side his father and grandfather in the fields. Luke has many secrets that would get him in a lot of trouble if he told anyone. His secrets are one of his traits that earn him criticism, but at some moments, makes him praiseworthy. He keeps some secrets to protect his family and to prtoect the crop. Luke is very mischevious and tends to push the limits. He is a hard worker, most of the time, and tries to make his father and grandfather happy.This is one of Luke’s commendable traits. I like that he strives to please his family and how he works his hardest to help the cottton, which helpls his family.
Topic 3:
A Painted House took place in Black Oak, Arkansas on the Chandler’s cotton farm in the 1950’s. The family lived in a little brown house off of highway 135. This book is fictional but it could happen in today’s world. People still farm cotton and have the same worries about their lives. The setting in this book showcases Luke’s hard work and the reasons he dreams of leaving the farm and becoming a major league baseball player. Everyday, Luke dreams of the day he leaves the farm and goes to St. Louis to play baseball for the cardinals. He wants to leave the farm so badly because of the conditions and the little money he receives in return for working, this setting gives reasons for his dream.
Topic 9:
One theme in A Painted Houseis dreaming. Throughout this whole story, Luke dreams of getting away from the farm. “Musial came to bat in the top of the second, and i began to dream” (Grisham 94). Luke wants so badly to be a cardinal, and wont stop wanting that until he becomes one. Luke’s dreams are the reasons he works hard on the farm, he wants to earn money to get him closer to becoming a cardinal. His dreams are the only things that keep him going throughout life and he’s confident he’ll accomplish his dreams in the end. His faher and Pappy have dreams of their own. They dream of good crops and good weather to go along with that. Crops are their dreams and they always will be.
Topic 8:
Peace/Violence
Hank resorts to violence when he fights the Sisco’s, and hanks dad wants peace, so he has to break up the fight. Hank is alwyas violent when he wants to resolve a problem, but hanks dad, along with the rest of his family, just wants to keep the peace.
Luke wanted to keep the peace when he lied to Stick about hank picking up the board during that fight. He knew it would just cause problems with the Sisco’s and problems on the farm. Stick, on the otherhand, wanted to cause trouble and arrest Hank, he didnt care if it affected anyone.
Luke wants to keep peace on the farm and with his family by not telling anyone his secrets. He has many secrets that would ruin the crops and hurt his family’s pride. People telling him the secrets are causing possible violence by putting so much pressure on him. No one realizes they’re putting pressure on him, but Luke has secrets that could ruin everything for his family.
Tally causes violence when she tries to get Luke to tell her what really happened at the fight. Luke knows if he tells tally the truth that she’ll tell hank and the Siscos will probably leave. Luke keeps the peace by lying to her, he does this so the siscos will stay and they’ll help with the cotton.
Hank tries to keep peace in Black Oak when he leaves the town, but cowboy has violence in mind. Hank agress to leave Black Oak to avoid causing anymore trouble, and Cowboy kills hank for a reason unknown. Hank is usually the one causing the violence, but for the first time in the story, he wants to keep peace. Throughout the whole story, Cowboy keeps to himself when he gets upset, but when he sees Hank leaving, he decides its about time to do something about him.
Topic 5:
The character Luke, experiences a major change in this novel. HIs change take place when he starts keeping a lot of secrets. Before he had all of these secrets, he was taught to tell his parents everything. but now, he knows that these secrets can cause problems, so he keeps them to himself. One day behind the co-op, Luke and his friend Dwayne saw the fight between Hank and the Siscos. Luke knew that if he told his parents he saw it, he would get in trouble for watching a fight. So that began his pattern of secrets.
Topic 6:
“It happened in a flash and nobody saw it but me.” (50) I chose this quote because this is how a lot of things are in life. Everything goes by so fast and sometimes you don’t have time to react, all you can do is watch.
” Musial came to bat in the top of the second, and i began to dream.” (94) I chose this quote because dreams are what life is made out of. Nothing would be what it is if people didn’t have dreams. the reason we have all the things we do now is because people dreamt of it.
“Don’t worry i thought to myself, dont worry.” (156)I chose this quote because it relates to everyone. Everybody worries and everyone tries not to. We know not to worry, but most of the time, its hard not to.
” Sitting around the kitchen table , laughing and writing and listening to the game,there was not a single doubt that Ricky would soon be home.” (179) i chose this quote because this is what most people do, they ignore the truth and keep thinking about what things people say because they want what people say to be. Everyone always ignores reality and only hopes for what they want to be true.
“I’d finally seen a worse job than picking cotton.” (241) I chose this quote because in life, some one always has it worse than you. We always think we have it so bad off, but in reality, we are some of the best off. We dont think of the others that have no place to live or any food, and we still think we have it bad. But someone always has it worse.
“Gran carefully picked her moments to speak.” (95) I chose this quote because a lot of times in society, women are thought of as inferior to men. All through humanity, women have come second to men, no one ever though women could do what men do. Everyone thought that women were less important than men as shown here.
“Then she started on jonah and the whale again, and for a while we forgot about the killing.”(103) I chose this quote because this is what the whole novel is like. Something bad happens and people just try to cover it up or forget about it.
“And why was he yelling at us? we were good folks. We were in church!” (104) I chose this quote because this is how people make themselves feel good about what they do. They do the “right” things, but dont act it. They think if they go certain places that it will make them different, but the actually have to change to be different.
“Her eyes were closed, and a grin was slowly forming at the corners of her mouth.” (465) I chose this quote because all through the story, Lukes mom has wanted to live in a city, and now her dreams are finally coming true. It shows that dreams really can come true, you’ll have to be patient, but eventually, they’ll happen.
“He did not speak unless he was spoken to” (214) i chose this quote because kids in this period of time respected adults. Now, its rare to see a kid who respects all the adults.
Topic 7:
“Tally was hiding deep in the cotton with a man, doing something bad, or if not, then why was she hiding?”(284) One human truth in this story was that everybody lies, no one can help that. Its human nature to lie, and its proved in this story when Hank and Luke lie about the fight. Throughout the novel, lies were going on between everyone. Luke lied about the fight, Hank lied about the fight, and Dewayne and Luke both lied about being by the gypsies tent. All people lie to protect them self. “No sign of blood or the crime i’d witnessed.” (351) Another human truth is that people are violent. Hank killed a sisco boy when it wasnt necessary, he was just looking for trouble. Cowboy killed Hank for no reason, but his nature is violent. Violence happens all the time, ad a lot of the times, there’s no reason for it. People just like to stir up trouble. “Lots of secrets but no way to unload them.” (350)The third human truth is that everyone keep secrets. The reason for keeping secrets is the same as lying, to protect yourself or someone else. Luke keeps all kinds of secrets, secrets about Tally, Luke the Latcher baby, the fight, all kinds of things. All those secrets are either to protect his family, or the crops.
Topic 1:
To start off this story, Luke’s family has a very successful year with the crops, the cotton grew well ,and they found a lot of help to pick the crops. The help they found are the Spruills and the mexicans, this is a very good start for the picking season. But that soon takes a turn for the worst, the Spruills ruin this perfect start. Hank gets in a fight with one of the Siscos and ends up killing him. This starts a lot of trouble for the Chandler’s and stirs up a lot of trouble for Black Oak. Soon after that, the Chandlers find out that Ricky is the father of Libby’s baby. This stirs up even more trouble for the Handlers, but of course, is kept a secret. Another secret that is kept by Luke is that Cowboy killed Hank. this is very unexpected and really shakes up Luke when he sees this.This is the final straw for the Chandlers, they decide that its time to move up north, in the city. This is a whole new beginning for the Chandlers.
Topic 10:
I highly recommend this book to readers. It teaches many life lessons and is a great read. It’s intriguing from the beginning and only gets more interesting throughout the story. It feels like you really get to know the characters and their backgrounds. By the end of the story, it feels like you really know the characters, and the setting works perfectly with their lives. I wouldn’t have changed any element in this story, everything goes together perfectly. This is definitely one of Grisham’s best novels and a must read.
This week we reviewed how to compare nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. Instead of our teacher lecturing about this to us then giving us a worksheet and quiz, we learned it by watching a slide show and discussing it as a class. We also made our own slide show show, using Animoto, to help us grasp the formula better. I liked learning this way because i felt more involved in the learning and it was easier for me to pay attention. the formula for making comparisons is más/menos + adjective/noun/adverb + que.
We used Animoto to make our slide showfor comparisons. I enjoyed using this website because it helped me learn the material better. It was a fun way to learn spanish and doing a project helped me remember the formulas.
this is my comparison slide show:
Creative Commons was a good site to find all kinds of pictures, but it was frustrating when half of the pictures had all rights reserved and we couldn’t use them. If someone doesn’t want other people to use their pictures, then don’t put them on the Internet. Most people wouldn’t even think about going to Creative Commons because of the things you have to do to use a picture, they would just go to Google without the advance search and use whatever picture they want. Our generation expects everything to be right at their fingertips, Creative Commons doesn’t give people this luxury.A lot of people dont even know how to use the advance search on google, and wouldnt spend their time to figure it out. the Creative Commons site i used was flickr.
We recently covered vocabulary and grammar structures dealing with our daily routine and what we do to get ready to go somewhere. We also learned how to correctly use reflexives verbs in spanish in our writing and when carrying out conversations. We first had to conjugate them so they would match our subject, in order to use these correctly.
Voki project
We were required to use our avatars from voki to explain what we do to get ready in the morning. Here are the steps we took to create our personal avatar.
write a script
submitted a rough draft
our teacher made us aware of our error in our script without telling us how to correct them
corrected our script
practiced pronunciation
used our cell phone to call in and record our daily routine
emailed our avatar to our teacher
This project counts as a six weeks test grade, so its crucial that we do our best.
Opinions
I enjoyed using voki and our avatar for this project because i like to try new things. it was a lot more interesting then just writing about it on paper. I also liked using my avatar for a speaking test because it’s less stressful than having to do it in front of the whole class. I’m not one who enjoys speaking in public, so i’d much rather my avatar speak for me. I would not rather stand up in front of the class, it stresses me out. I think this project was valuable because it allowed us to fix our own mistakes and figure out the language in a different more memorable way. Having to use many steps for this project helped me memorize more about the spanish language and rules for grammar.
After reviewing adjectives, we did a project on people we like. My person was David Beckham. I described him in spanish sentences, uploaded pictures from google, and used the verd ser. here is my stixy board: David Beckham
In the first six weeeks we we went over verb tenses. like tener que, immediate future, present progressive, and present tense. tener que is the have to form, and immediate future is the going to form. present progressive is happening now, and present tense is the to do something form. we made a project on stixy using these sentences. here is my project: verb tenses
During the first six weeks, we reviewed basic conversational skills. We also went over verb conjugation. We recently created an avatar to represent our self, and our first avatar post was to tell about oursleves and our family.
