My Blog Reflection

By blogging this trimester, my writing has improved tremendously! As each week progressed, I feel like I became a better blogger. This can be seen throughout many of my blogs, but especially between my blogs titled, “The Lovely Bones: Book Recommendation” and, “Insurgent: Book Review”. The book recommendation about The Lovely Bones I wrote towards the beginning of the trimester, and you can tell. I have no textual evidence to support my claims, I don’t state what type of readers may enjoy reading the book, and when I stated “I think there could be improvements made”, I don’t give any specific examples of what the author could change.  In my book review of Insurgent, I use quotes to support my claims, I elaborated on major events (without any spoilers), and I explained which type of audience this book may appeal to. I said “I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed reading The Hunger Games. Insurgent contains a lot of action, mixed with a little romance”. It is as if the two blogs I am using for examples are night and day.

Overall, I really enjoyed blogging this trimester. I love reading good books, and being able to talk about them just made me more excited to keep reading. While I say I enjoyed blogging, I also enjoyed reading other students blogs and seeing what they had to say about the books that they were reading. One thing I struggled with through my blogging experience was trying to find two things that I could blog about each week. With all of my other homework, I didn’t have a ton of time to read outside of school, so I had trouble finding enough to blog about each week. I worked through this struggle by setting a goal for myself about how much time I should slot to read each day. Once I did this, I found I was moving along in my books quicker, and I was able to start new books. This really helped me find new things to blog about each week. One strength I had with blogging was when I set out to blog about a specific topic; I elaborated and could provide textual evidence. In most of my blogs towards the middle of the trimester and on, I did provide a lot of textual evidence. Unfortunately, I have not met my reading goal on good reads yet. My goal is set for 10 books, and I am almost half way there. I have completed a total of 4 books this trimester. I used goodreads.com in many ways. I followed some of my friends to get the latest on what they were reading. I downloaded the app to my phone, which I used to update the progress of my reading. I think I have improved as a reader over this trimester. By slotting out a certain amount of time each day to read, I found that I was able to read a book quicker. I also gained a better love of reading. I have a new respect for authors because it seems hard to be able to write a whole book and go through the process of getting it published. I really enjoyed blogging this trimester, and I am glad I was given the opportunity to become a better writer and reader!

The Glass Castle: Maureen's Birth

For weeks after the new addition to their family was born, she still didn't have a name. "The baby went without a name for weeks. Mom said she wanted to study it first, the way she would study the subject of a painting. We had a lot of arguments over what the name should be" (Walls 46). This new baby girl completes the Walls family. They have a total of four children, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen. The little baby's name ended up being Lilly Ruth Maureen, but they would call the baby Maureen.

Jeannette was so excited to have a new baby sister. "Mom handed me the baby. I was going to turn six in a few months, and  Mom said I was mature enough to hold her the entire way home. The baby was pink and wrinkly but absolutely beautiful, with big blue eyes, soft wisps of blond hair, and the tiniest fingernails I had ever seen. She moved in confused, jerky motions, as if she couldn't understand why Mom's belly wasn't still around her. I promised her I'd always take care of her" (Walls 46). I like this quote because it shows how happy Jeannette is that Maureen was born. It also shows how important each sibling is. Since they were always on the move, they were all each others best friends. They relied on each other to take care of themselves, since their parents had a little role in raising them.

The Glass Castle: Theme

The theme of The Glass Castle so far, is that you don't need material items to be happy. Growing up Jeannette's family didn't own much, and what they did own, they were able to pack up at a moments notice and put into the car. "Dad came home in the middle of the night a few months later and roused all of us from bed. . . We had fifteen minutes to gather whatever we needed and pile into the car" (Walls 17). As this quote shows, the Walls family was always on the move and could fit almost everything they owned into the back of their car.

Despite the fact that they didn't own much, they were still able to find joy in the little things in life. Rex Walls (Jeannette's dad), decided that he wanted to find gold. So, he started building a tool called the Prospector. "Dad let Brian and me help him work on the Prospector. We'd go out behind the house, and I'd hold the nails while Dad hit them. Sometimes he let me start the nails, and then he would drive them in with one hard blow from the hammer" (Walls 23). This quote shows how excited Jeannette and Brian got when they got to help their Dad work on the Prospector. It was a big deal to them because they looked up to their dad. It made them happy to spend time with him when he wasn't drinking.