Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Travis's "That's What's Up!" Reading Book Is Outstanding!

BREAKING NEWS! Travis Nelson's "That's What's Up!" reading book, Peak, by Roland Smith, declared best book in the class!...Well, not really, but I bet it's pretty close because Peak is a great book!  Here's a picture to help you get the idea of what Peak is all about:

What do you see here?  If you're not seeing a man scaling a building, you need help!

You need to read this book!  NOW!  No, seriously, I want you to go the library right now and check this out. 

Anyway, Peak is a great book in so many ways!  The main character, Peak, is adventurous and spontaneous - what a great combination!  Peak sounds like a lot of fun to be around!  One highlight of the story is when Peak attempts to scale a skyscraper.  I don't know about you, but I am definitely not insane enough to try something like that!  Teenagers should read this book!  I can guarantee that you can and will relate to this book and its characters in one way or another!  This is sort of a given, being that Peak, the main character, is a teenager himself.  You know Peak is an awesome book because it's being read by an awesome person!  (Not to beat my own drum or anything.) 

So go ahead... read Peak by Roland Smith!  You know you want to!

Image obtained from: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/galleries/the_french_spiderman_strikes_again/the_french_spiderman_strikes_again.html

"Mask of the Red Death" Essay

Symbolism of Purple in “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe

           

            In “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, purple, the color of the second room, symbolizes fun, youth, playfulness, and childhood.  The colors in the story all stand for something.  They represent the seven stages of life.  Blue is birth, purple is youth, green is adolescence, orange is adulthood, white is the process of aging, violet is elderly, and black is death.  There are characteristics of each other that correspond with their meaning in the stages of life.  The color purple is associated with youth- which can be interpreted in many ways in the story and in the real world.  The Prince wanted to escape the lethality of the “red death” in England, so he lived in seclusion in his palace.  One could interpret this secluded lifestyle as an attempt to maintain youth.  Prince Prospero did not want to die; he wanted to live a fun life with his friends in his palace.  However, because one is unable to avoid any stage of life, the Prince’s plan of living ultimately failed in the end.

            Again, purple symbolizes the youthful stage of life.  Blue, which is associated with birth, precedes purple in the order of apartments and in the stages of life.  Green succeeds purple in the story and in the stages of life.  This makes sense because green stands for adolescence.  One experiences adolescence after the childhood/youthful years.  Alone, purple represents one stage of life, but in comparison to the other colors of the story, it directly relates to all the stages of life.  In “The Masque of the Red Death,” the ebony clock in the black room relates to the meaning of the color black in the story.  Black symbolizes death – the end of life altogether.  The ebony clock symbolized that the end was near.  It kept the time up until the death of Prince Prospero.  The ebony clock had a direct meaning to all of the colors in the story.  It was constantly keeping time, marking each of the stages of life (the colors).

            Purple relates to my life now in a number of ways.  Purple symbolizes youth and childhood, which I am moving out of as an adolescent.  I am thinking and acting more maturely than I did when I was a child.  I am becoming more aware of my community and those around me.  Although I am no longer a young child, I still have my youth; however, it is a matter of maturity.  As a fourteen year old, I am most certainly still considered young.  As a teenager, I stand for youth.  Purple represents me as an adolescent and as a person.  Purple is very significant in “The Masque of the Red Death”, as are all of the colors.  It represented the near beginning of life, before the “red death” entered the party.  Not only does purple represent youth and fun in the story, it represents the time before death finally reached Prince Prospero and his palace.  Symbolism is a key tool used in “The Masque of the Red Death.”  The meaning of the colors goes so much deeper than simply their appearance.  All of the colors, particularly purple in this case, were essential in understanding the story completely, as well as the meaning of each room and its color.

Getting to Know O. Henry!

• His birth name was William Sydney Porter.
• He was born in 1862 and died in 1910.

• He dropped out of school at age 15 to work at his uncle's drugstore.

• He founded a weekly humor magazine, titled The Rolling Stone.

• He was charged for embezzling funds from the First National Bank of Austin, TX in 1896. Instead of standing trial in a court of law, O. Henry fled to Honduras.

• After his release from prison, he moved to New York in 1901 to begin writing full time.
• Some of his most famous stories are The Gift of the Magi, The Furnished Room, and The Ransom of Red Chief.
• His method of story telling has influenced many modern stories and movies.

• At one point, O. Henry was writing at a rate of more than one stories per week.

• Over his entire lifetime, O. Henry published over 500 stories in several popular periodicals.

Below is a pciture of O. Henry:

This picture is of O. Henry with his wife and daughter in the early 1890s.

Image: http://schools.penncrest.org/staff/tdouglas/index.php/2009/12/13/the-gift-of-the-magi/

**All information was obtained through Microsoft Student Encarta 2009.**

Edgar Allan Poe Webquest

1.      Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died on October 7, 1849 (http://www.poemuseum.org).

2.      The death of his mother and father, along with his father’s alcoholism all influenced Poe’s works (http://www.poemuseum.org).

3.      The following are death theories of Edgar Allan Poe (http://www.poemuseum.org):

a.       Beating

b.      Toxic Disorder

c.       Rabies

d.      Porphyria

e.       Dipsomania

4.      Poe called Richmond, Virginia home (http://www.poemuseum.org).

5.      The Poe society of Baltimore believes that although Richmond was considered Poe’s hometown, Baltimore was a very significant city for him during his lifetime.  This is where he sought comfort while fighting with his foster father.  This is also where his parents are buried (http://www.eapoe.org).

6.      Poe was expelled from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (http://www.poemuseum.org).

7.      Poe married Virginia Clemm.  She was 13 years old at the time (http://www.poemuseum.org).

8.      I think Virginia was way too young to get married.  However, things were probably a little different back then.  I also thought that it was wrong for Poe to marry his first cousin.

9.      Murders in the Rue Morgue is a classic crime story.  In it, Poe analyzes the mind of the criminal (http://www.mysterynet.com).

10.  Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat were both written in 1843 (http://www.xroads.virginia.edu).

11.  The Raven was published in 1845 (http://www.heise.de).

12.    (http//:www.poestories.com) This picture looks most like the Poe I envisioned because of the exhausted, old, and uneventful look of the portrait.  It looks depressing, just like his stories.

13.  My favorite Poe story is the Masque of the Red Death.  It was very interesting in its own creepy, distorted way.  I thought it was a great short story, and it really demonstrates Poe’s ability as a writer of this genre.

Picture from 12.