Civics Class

In Civics class, I'm learning about the New England, Middle Colonies, Southern Colonies, the Declaration of Independance, Stamp Act, Quartering Act , Townsend act, and the Tea Act and much more. I think it's kind of interesting knowing about what happened in the past. But only some things interest me about history not all. Sometimes the teacher put videos on about the topic we're learning about, and it's so boring. I learn better if the videos are interesting, when it catches my attention.

 

                                                         http://trochwiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/colonies.png

 Since we're learning about colonies the teacher assigned each student a colony. We have to write the name of the colony the teacher assigned in a big piece of construction paper. But I think we have to write the name going down not across.We have to come up with a sentence that is about our colony but that starts with the colony's letter. We have to do it really neat and creative. The colony the teacher assigned to me is New Jersey. It is one of the Middle Colonies. I think its really easy because I found a good website that gave a lot of information. But I had a little bit of trouble finding sentences that start with the letter Y and E. But other than that it was easy. Now all I have to do is write it on a piece of construction paper and make it neat and creative and I'm done. We also had to do a map and identify the New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies.

 I think this years history class is more interesting. Last year i had world history 2nd semester, I felt like it was so boring. My grades were kind of bad when i had World History because i had a lot of missing work. But this year I have no missing work, I do everything in time so I could get good grades.

What We Read in Class !

Today in class we read an article. The article was kind of hard. It was hard to understand, because it had many big words that I have never seen. I didn’t know what some words meant. But some I used context clues; I read what was around the word to figure out what it meant. Now I know what the hard words in the article mean.

 The article was about scientists that discovered new cave spider species with claws.  Each leg of this spider ends in a curve. The name of the spider is Trogloraptor. The spiders name is Latin for “cave robber." Citizen scientists and archeologists have uncovered these spiders in the caves of southwestern Oregon and old-growth redwood forests. The article says that the cave dweller has a unique lineage. The closest know relatives to the Trogloraptor come from the Oonipidae, or goblin family of spiders.

                                           http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/08/Trogloraptor_main.jpg

The researchers believe that the Trogloraptor family separated into its own evolutionary branch some 130 million years ago.  Trogloraptor’s claws are barbed on their underside and may be designed to clamp shut on passing prey. A researcher at the California Academy of Sciences says that the spiders are not likely to be venomous to humans. In fact, they’re quite shy. Working with specimens, he observed that their behavior is distinctly unaggressive and their main interest is escaping the light as soon as possible.

The researcher says that these species are different from those found in the caves. He says that given the age of this family and the formal distribution of redwoods in North America, it’s possible that other Trogloraptor species could inhabit caves across the country. 

I found my information at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery_directory.cfm?photo_id=1AC9C7D1-F12B-0179-DF7FE9529D8EF93D

Random!

I only have one pet. He's a dog. When my family first got him, my sister and I couldn't decide what to name him. So my dad named him Champion. He is mixed. He’s half German Sheppard and half Chow Chow.

 When we first got Champion, my parents were at New York. They had already agreed to let us have a dog. But they were planning on buying us a dog after they came back from New York. But we couldn't wait, so my older brother Joel brought us a dog, and then called my parents to let them know. When we first got him, he was so little! He looked like a little fur ball. We can easily pick him up and carry him.

 We were worried about him at first, because he was so little and lazy. Most dogs run around. But He didn't like to run or play around. All he did was sit around or lay down with his head on the floor. We would take him outside and put him on the ground, the only time he ran was to the shade. He only ate and sat around. As he started growing, he started running and playing around more. Then we stopped worrying because he started acting like any other dog. Now that he’s all grown he’s so big, you wouldn’t think he was as small as he was when he was a puppy. Now we’ve been having him for a long time. He’s about 6 years old now. When my sister and me tell him to come here in English he sometimes comes. But when my mom tells him to come in Spanish he always comes. When we say his name in Spanish he doesn’t come but when we say it in English he does. I guess that’s kind of weird.

Something I Read in Class

In class, I read the first chapter of a book called Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez. I haven't read the whole book so I'm going to summarize what it says in the back of the book, so you can kind of know what it's about.

"By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide, and senseless acts of streets crime claimed friends and family members. Before long Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words, and successfully broke free of years of violence and desperation."

                                             http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic-images/blog/Gomez/alwaysrunning.jpg

When I first got the book i checked the back to see what it was about. I discovered that this story is based on real life. That all these things that happened in this story really happened to the author. The way this book describes things that happen when your in a gang, seem so scary. Some people these days think being in a gang is something "cool" and something you should be proud of. But the way this story describes being in a gang it doesn't sound "cool", It sounds scary and dangerous. Something interesting that I read in the back of the book is:

"Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more,--- until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running. A vivid auto biography that explore the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants."

I was surprised that the author had been in a gang in the past and now his son had joined one. I bet since the author has already been in a gang, and knows the bad things that happen, he doesn't want his son going threw all that. Rodriguez fought for his son by telling his story. In chapter one it said that the author had one brother and two sisters. His brother was named Jose Rene and his two sisters were named Ana Virginia and Gloria Estela. His mom and dad had split up. So far the story has been so interesting! Today during class that's all I got to read up to because there wasn't much time.

Public Speaking!

My fourth period class is public speaking.  Mr. Paul teaches it but he’s out right now, because his wife had a baby. So we have a substitute right now. I think the substitute is doing a good job at teaching us. We always get our work done. Sometimes we have homework, but not all the time. I like my fourth period class but in the same time I don’t. I’m a very shy person. I mean I’m good at meeting people and okay with talking to people I don’t know. But when it comes to getting in front the class and doing a presentation, I get so nervous! But what I do like about public speaking is that it’s not boring, it’s actually kind of interesting. The activities we do are cool but the only thing I don’t like is getting in front of the class.

                                                                                           https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4blNK2obrG-HOLUIbIklmvZhh-XLxE5Ph8vrsabm6dojrQwv3R6kxe5X8TI4kSmJJzH0NPGZdX4oBulCMIiTzS9t6YJ51UnBFXlFnwYPQqStH22YRCYROD95nhsVHWtMwqzcLBCv6OA/s1600/public_speaking.jpeg

Since this is my first week of school we haven’t done much. Monday the substitute made us pair up with a partner; and we had to interview each other about a important event that has happened in our lives. Then, with the info we got from the interview we had to make a story. The next day she made us present our stories to the whole class. She made us pick two wrong things we shouldn’t do during a speech; and she made us do those two wrong things and the class had to guess what we did wrong. Then the next day she made us read a long story about public speaking and answer question. Thursday we had to bring in a bag with 5 things that are about us. Then we had to present it in front of the whole class in form of a speech. So far I like this class.

Planet Earth Article

I think the article we read in class was average. It was silly in a way. It used personification, the Earth talked in the article. The Earth also has a personality. But it pointed out real natural disasters that have happened in the past. Most of the natural disasters that were in the article came on the news. So I think most people have heard about it. So the story is true but not at the same time. Earth in real life, doesn’t talk. But the natural disasters that the article talked about, really happened.  In the article, it says that the earth has manufactured natural disasters so the people can get a hint and get out.

 

“The Earth says all I can do at this point is keep manufacturing disasters and hope humanity wises up”

 

“Do I have to spell it out for you”? The statement continued. “Get the heck out of here. I want you to leave now."

 

    https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsRPHPPe-3odFnncN4z8AWGPKqRfz_2BCwYBZb5xggJQfmJFbmVk0xeHkz6hs5z_UivcDr7Gn4ygTUoBW2eiFVmFsv48zLAVnBFdJM7RSMlRogsE_QritqoY_NNvbHHb8X-fXax_0XtUM/s1600/earth.gif

 

The Earth sounds impatient, as if it tried a lot of things and humans don’t get that the Earth want humans to go away. In the article it gives many examples of what the Earth has done and humans still don't leave.

I think what the article is trying to tell us is that since people abuse the Earth; the Earth is creating those natural disasters in return. In the article, I think that Earth feels that way because humans mistreat it. In the article, the tone sounds like the Earth has an attitude. In the article it say that the Earth hoped that the humans "get the picture" by following one of the harshest winter storm years in recorded history. But then realized that humans just went on with their lives. They showed no intention to prepare for a trip through space to find a new home.

About Me

My name is Neris Guevara. I'm fifteen years old. I have one older brother and one older sister. I live with my parents, my older sister and her husband. My birthday is July 26. I was born in New York but have parents that are from El Salvador. So I can speak English and Spanish. I love to draw in my free time or when I'm bored. I only have one pet which is a dog. My dad named him champion. He's mixed with German Sheppard and Chow Chow.

I like to hang out with friends and spend time with my family. I love to travel to places. Most summers, I go for vacation to New York to be with my aunts. This summer I didn’t get to go. I didn’t do much, but I still enjoyed my summer. I wasn’t ready to go back to school. I felt that summer went by so fast! I’m not used to waking up so early and going to sleep early yet. I like to hear music. My favorite sport is soccer. But I would rather watch other people play than me. It gets me too tired when I play so I enjoy watching. I guess that’s because I’m kind of lazy. I go to church a lot. But I enjoy going to church mostly on the weekends. This year, I want to do better grades in school than last year. I also want to have better attendance in school than last year. So that mean I’m going to have to work harder to keep my grades up. I used to do all my homework in the last minute, right before I went to bed. I think I should do my homework earlier. That way I can go to sleep earlier. Well that’s a little about myself.