Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven’t wrote anything in a really long time, I just haven’t been on my blog lately. So I’m just going to update you on all the things that have been going on here in JHK and Snow Lake…

Well, Christmas is definitely coming and if you come to Snow Lake you’ll sure as heck know it. We’ve got snow almost to our knees and weather like no other. We’ve already in the -20’s, and no one is playing in the snow like they should be, trust me. It’s too cold to even step outside without mittens! And this weather is just beginning… it’s going to get a whole lot worse around here with the real winter months coming.

In the grade 7/8 classroom we have finished reading the novel “The Outsiders” and are now working on a final project with the students in L.A. I really enjoyed this novel and hope that our final projects turn out well.

Nothing big has really been going on, except probab;y the highlight of my week will be when I travel to The Pas, which is about 1 hour and 45 minutes-2 hours away from Snow Lake. We are leaving the school at 2:30 and are going for supper when we arrive. Then we are going to go shopping and bowling in the mall. Then we are going to go swimming the hotel pool. The next day we will be playing volleyball from 9 AM-6 PM. Then we will be going through the McDonalds drive-thru and then be on our way home!

The whole team is really excited and we are all hoping to see much improvment in everyone which I’m sure we will. This will be our last tournament as a team and after the tournament we wil not be having practice anymore since the season is over until next year. A few weeks ago, I was unsure if I was going to stay on the team, but not I am glad that I decided to stay on. We have two more practices until we leave. I am really excited and I’m sure the rest of the team is too.

Well, I’ll try to write some more blog posts just to keep everyone updated. And I’ll be sure to update you on how we do in the tournament!
Sara

Here is what happened in these last couple of chapters of the book:

-Ponyboy looks through an old school yearbook and finds a picture of Bob, the Soc Johnny killed.

-Randy comes to see Ponyboy at his house and they chat for a bit.-Ponyboy tries to convince Randy that he killed Bob and Johnny didn’t.

-Ponyboy, Darry, Sodapop, Randy and his parents, and Cherry and her parents go to the hearing.

-Everyone talks to the judge and Ponyboy is declared of not killing Bob and the whole case was closed. 

-Ponyboy’s teacher tells him that he is failing his English class and that he needs to do well on his semester theme if he wants to pass the grade with a C.

-Ponyboy writes his theme on everything that happened during that one week that took lives, two of which were close to him, and the other who just didn’t’ deserve to die just yet.

My word choice for these final chapters is friendship. The weird thing about this is that the other words that I chose were ones that I knew would fit, and then there was only this one left. I didn’t think that it would fit, until now. 

Friendship: Being someone’s friend. Having a close friend. Sometimes it means so much more than that. Friendship is something very close to everyone, at least it should be. No one should be alone during hard times, and that’s what friends are for. Ponyboy and his brothers and even the rest of the gang were all going through a hard time, losing two of their best friends. They needed each other. They don’t really seem like the type of people to be the ones that will cuddle up with you when they need you, and it surely shows, but even just sitting next to them will help.

There was another act of friendship in these chapters. Randy attempted to make peace with Ponyboy. Sure, they’re not best buds, but they’re a lot better than what they used to be, on the verge of killing each other. If it were up to me, I’d rather be civil with a person than take their life.

Well, this is the end of the book, meaning it’s probably the end of all the never-ending blogposts. But we are doing a final project, but I don’t know if it includes a blogpost. You can probably expect a lot more school posts in the future!

 Sara

Here’s what’s been going on in these chapters:

-When everyone shows up for the rumble, Dally shows up and tells everyone how he snuck out of the hospital.

-The rumble goes on, and the socs run away, which means that the greasers win.

-Dally takes Ponyboy to the hospital to see Johnny but they get stopped by the fuzz (police), so they make up an excuse.

-Ponyboy and Dally go in Johnny’s room, tell him a little bit about the rumble, and he dies.

-Dally runs out of the hospital room and takes off.

-Ponyboy goes home and tells everyone what happened.

-The phone rings, and it’s Dally. He robbed a grocery store and was getting chased by the cops, so the gang goes out and looks for him.

-They find Dally in the vacant lot, and the cops were shooting, and Dally let them shoot and eventually died.

-Ponyboy faints at the sight on Dally’s death.

-Ponyboy wakes up days later when he is at home, and he is sick.

I think that this chapter’s word choice is more difficult than any other’s because more things happen, and some of the words that are kind of applied in these chapters have already been used. But I guess the best word for these chapters would be fear. Everyone is a little fearful in this part of the book. In the beginning of chapter 9, they must have all been worried about Johnny and Dally, since they were in the hospital. Sodapop and Darry were fearful for Ponyboy’s life near the end of chapter 10. So everyone is fearful in these chapters, but it’s not the kind of fearful like a child would be scared of a spider; it’s the way of someone fearing for their lives, or for someone else’s. The reason Ponyboy fainted at the scene of Dally’s death is because he was scared to the scene, and of what was happening in it. Everyone was scared to see Dally get shot, to see Dally let himself get shot. Dally let himself get shot because it was what he wanted, because he didn’t want to live without Johnny. Seeing Johnny die scared him so much that it didn’t feel right living without Johnny. He was scared without Johnny. They were all scared of living without someone they truly loved. But Dally just couldn’t take it. So he let himself be killed.

From this point on in the book, nothing will be the same. No one will be the same. The fear of everything will still be there for a while, until everyone adjusts to the truth of the matter: Johnny and Dally are dead. And they’re not coming back. That’s just how it was meant to be. But Johnny will always be known as a hero. He’ll always be known as that kid who saved a few lives one day. That guy who wanted to help a friend, just to do a good deed.

Sara

This week in The Outsiders, a few important things happened:

-Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry learn about Johnny and Dally’s condition.

-Ponyboy reads in the paper all about what has been going on through someone else’s eyes.

-Ponyboy talks to Randy, a Soc who was a friend of Bob’s, the Soc that Johnny killed, while stopping at Tastee Freez.

-Ponyboy and Two-Bit visit Johnny and Dally in the hospital while Darry and Sodapop are at work.

-Ponyboy and Two-Bit learn, from Cherry Valance, that the rumble would be the greaser’s way, and with no weapons. Ponyboy also has a chat with her.

My word choice for these two chapters would be survival. I chose this word, not because someone was out in the wilderness fighting for their lives all by themselves, but because Johnny and Dally were in that hospital fighting for their lives. The Curtis brothers were fighting their way through the fact that two of their best friends could die at any time and there would be no way to keep it from happening, especially for Johnny because he was in critical condition. So the Curtis brothers weren’t fighting for their lives, but they were fighting through the pain of what could become a loss. They needed to be strong, for Johnny and Dally. Johnny and Dally were the ones actually fighting for their lives, which would be even more difficult obviously, since you would know that you were on the edge of dying, more so for Johnny than Dally, though. For Dally, he just wanted to get out of that hospital and live his life normally, but he knew he couldn’t do that. So my word for these chapters is survival. It may not seem like the right choice at first, but once you dig deep into what’s happening in the book, it fits perfectly.

Sara

In these chapters, quite a few important things happened.

-Johnny went to a store and bought a week’s supply of baloney, two loaves of bread, a box of matches, a paperback copy of “Gone With The Wind“, peroxide, a deck of cards, and it doesn’t tell you that they bought these, but I’m pretty sure they bought some of these: cigarettes.

-Ponyboy and Johnny cut their hair, and Johnny bleaches Ponyboy’s.

-Dally shows up and tells them all about what has been happening back in their hometown.

-They go to Dairy Queen for a meal and Ponyboy and Johnny eat as much as they can hold.

-When they go back to the church, there is a school picnic going on, but the church is on fire.

-Ponyboy and Johnny go into the church to save some children that were stuck and Dally goes in to save the boys.

-They get sent to the hospital.

This chapter definitely shows a lot of heroism. Heroism means to be a hero or to do something that is courageous. Being a hero takes a lot of courage and it involves doing a good deed, not because you have to, but because you want to help others. For Ponyboy to go into a burning church to save some kids that he didn’t even know was very courageous and heroic. And for Johnny to follow him was also courageous because he didn’t really have to, he just wanted to help his friend save those kids. It was also heroic for Dally to want to save Pony and Johnny from the fire after they saved the kids. All of these three characters showed a lot of heroism during these chapters.

Sara