Advertise Book-of-the-Month

This interesting, eye-catching book is called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This book has an extreme amount of suspense, it has a mystery that you want to try and solve. I would say this book has a creepy, eerie fell to it. If you get easily scared, i wouldn't read this book. Other teens should read this because it tells a story that you wouldn't normally think would happen. It's shocking and disturbing, some ways good, some not. I haven't finished the book yet, but I would give it 4 stars. I encourage people to read this book, they won't regret it.

O. Henry

• O. Henry is just a pen name, O. Henry's real name is William Sydney Porter.
• O. Henry is best known for his ironic plot twists and surprise endings.
• He was not always a writer. He was a clerk and bank teller, and than around his mid 30's he became a writer. 
• He was being accused of embezzling funds from the bank he used to work at, so he ran away to Honduras. Although he ended up coming back when he learned his wife was ill, and after she died he turned himself in.
• He only served 3 of the 5 year sentence in jail, and that is where he began writing his short stories. 
• After O. Henry was out of jail he started writing full time in New York City. 
• During the last ten years of his life, O. Henry became one of the most popular writers in America, publishing over 500 short stories in dozens of widely read periodicals. 
• Some of his most famous stories were "The Gift of the Magi", "The Furnished Room", and "The Ransom of Red Chief". 
• His style of storytelling became a model not only for short fiction, but also for American motion pictures and television programs.
• Writing at the rate of more than one story per week, O. Henry published ten collections of stories during a career that barely spanned a decade.

Information From: Microsoft Student with Encarta. 

Masque of the Red Death Essay

Katie H.

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

The Masque of the Red Death

                In the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the colors that is defined is green. The color green in this story symbolizes adolescence and money. The story consists of seven rooms that are all different colors. The color scheme has more meaning than just being different colored rooms. Every color counts up through the ages of life, starting at birth and ending with death. This color is not the beginning mark of life but it is still in the early years. The story has a much symbolized meaning, especially through the colors. This will help make the story more understandable and relatable.

                Green symbolizes the ages that people go through around the teenage years up to being a young adult. As time progresses this stage in life will come and go, and people will move on to the next stage, or like the story, the next “room”. Green represents adolescence, going through the years in life. Green could also represent the freshness of starting to grow up and become something of yourself. Being in this stage of life you are ready to start exploring things that you do not know. It’s possible to have that drive inside you that makes you want to learn more. One thing people at this age are exploring is money. Money is yet another symbolization for green. People at this age are really starting to understand how to make money, spend money, and save money. This is the starting point for growing up, and becoming an adult. The stage of green is a life starter. Of course there was life before this stage, but this is about just really getting ahold of things. Growing up is a big part of adolescence. Every year of this stage, something different is coming along and making people grow and mature.

                This color relates to my life because this is the exact stage I am going through right now. I am a teenager in adolescence. I think reading this short story and learning about the symbolism. It helps me understand the stages of life more, and how they can be related to something such as colors. The color scheme in this story goes: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and lastly black. Green is not exactly at the middle, but it is very close. The stage right before it is purple, outgrowing the stage of being a toddler, and becoming a kid. The age group for this stage is 5-9. This stage is about having fun, being a kid, and being happy. I feel like the next step, which is green, is a lot different than this because things get a little more serious. The fun does not go away, but it is just not all fun and games anymore. The stage after green is orange. Orange is the actual middle stage in your life. This is when you have really grown up and headed right into your life. This is one of the longest stages because when you have a lust for life, time just flies by. The age group for this stage is 20-50. During this stage, you also might experience a mid-life crisis. I want to emphasize the “mid” meaning middle. People are realizing they have already been living life for a while now and they are starting to think about when they get much older. I think that this story has way more meaning than what meets the eye. You really have to dig down and unravel what the author is saying, and let it sink into the brain. I think this story was a lot more understandable once I understood the symbolism of the colored room scheme. I think the color scheme represents the stages of one’s life perfectly, especially the green because that color is relatable to where I am in my own life. 

Edgar Allan Poe Web Quest

1.       .Provide the following biographical information: birthdate; birthplace; death date. Birthdate: January 19, 1809; Birth Place: Boston, Massachusetts; Death Date: October 7, 1849.

2.      What tragic childhood events influenced his writing? When he was sent away to college with barely anything, then returning to his fiancés home and saw that she was engaged to another man, all these things made him want to become a poet and to find adventure.

3.       There are 13 theories on what caused Poe's death. List five of them. Epilepsy, Hypoglycemia, Diabetes, Delirium Tremens, or Toxic Disorder.

4.      .According to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, what state did Poe call home? Virginia.

6.      What famous military academy expelled Poe in 1831? The US Military Academy at West Point

7.      Who did Poe marry? How old was she? Virginia Clemm. Nearly 14.

11.   When was "The Raven" published? 1845

16.  ..Listen to the audio version of the Raven. What do you think of it? I think the voice helps you picture everything that is happening more easily.

17.   Who is the Poe Toaster? He is a mysterious figure who went annually from 1949 until 2009 to Poe’s grave and left three roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac, then would run away.

18.  .List five examples of "Poe in Your Life."

1.       Baltimore writer Laura Lippman's 2001 novel In a Strange City is a murder-mystery set in modern-day Baltimore. It explores a plot to unmask the Poe Toaster, the shadowy figure who visits Poe's grave every year on the anniversary of the writer's birthday.

2.       Heavy metal band Iron Maiden included the song "Murders in the Rue Morgue" — the title of one of Poe's best-known stories — on their 1981 album "Killers."

3.       At least 81 films have been based on works by Edgar Allen Poe — and many of them are about the same stories. There have been ten versions of "The Tell-Tale Heart", and nine of "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Black Cat."

4.       In 1999 The Hollywood Reporter reported that singer Michael Jackson was slated to star as Poe in a feature film to be called "The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe." The status of that film project remains unclear, but it seems even the King of Pop wants to pay tribute to Poe.

5.       In 1945, the Mystery Writers of America, Inc. established an award to recognize outstanding contributions to various categories of mystery, crime and suspense writing. These awards are known as The Edgar Allan Poe Awards. The statuette that winners receive is called an Edgar. 

Fresh Start (:

As I enter the second quarter in school, I am looking forward to start reading short stories. I think it will be fun because Edgar Allen Poe is eerie and mysterious. Besides English class, I will be doing winter cheerleading. Fall cheerleading is about to end so I am looking forward to the winter season. In my opinion i don't think Shakespeare will be as exciting because it's harder to comprehend. I find it boring, but maybe when i start understanding the meaning of his writing i will find it more interesting.

Research Paper

Katie H.  

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

October 2, 2010

Sports Injuries

            Sports injuries are an epidemic that affects over 12 million kids per year. One third of all sports injuries occur with kids ages 14 or younger (Brown). These injuries may include sprains, broken bones, torn ligaments, facial injuries, and head injuries. This paper will examine more specifically, facial and head injuries and how these injuries can be prevented.

             Sports can result in brain injuries such as concussions and amnesia. Such head injuries can cause several different things to happen to the brain. Concussion result from blows to the head causing blurred vision, ringing of the ears, headaches, and swelling of the brain. Amnesia is a serious diagnosis than can change a person’s life. The term amnesia means the loss or injury of your memory (Amnesia). As Dr. Ahmed compares, “A broken leg is a broken leg, but the brain- it is different for everyone. A brain injury is a lifetime diagnosis.” Each year an estimated 1.5 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. Getting a brain injury from sports could end one’s life of playing sports, or even their everyday life as they know it (Keller).

            Depending upon where the head is hit, different resulting brain injuries may occur. For example, localization and diffuse injury. In the United States, a traumatic brain injury happens at least every 21 seconds, making it the Number 1 cause of death and/or disability for people under the age of 44. Even though blows to different areas of the brain can result in different impairments-a concept known as localization- a brain injury anywhere affects the brain everywhere (Keller). As Dr. Jeff Frank points out, “Brain injury is unique, because it affects personhood.” In the type of brain injury called diffuse axonal injury, it affects the memory and other crucial cognitive functions of the brain (Keller). Some injuries happen because the equipment and training they use is not safe enough. Brain injuries are very dangerous, and they need to be better prevented in sports.

Other injuries, such as overuse injuries occur when an athlete has a driving force to win, and not necessarily because of poor equipment or training. Some kids play more dangerously because they feel invincible and powerful (Brown). Injuries will always be a part of sports, but there are ways to protect youth athletes and help them be safer. All sports can be very dangerous, but many sports organizations don’t have the proper safety policies in place to reduce or prevent such injuries. Dr. Lyle Micheli comments, “The lack of public awareness, the assumption that kids’ injuries just happen and can’t be prevented is simply ignorance.” This quote is completely true. People need to start realizing that they do need to change some things in sports to reduce the occurrence of injuries and make it safer for athletes.

Too many sports injuries happen because there is not enough safety policies and procedures to prevention them. Almost 4 million youth athletes each year are in the emergency room because of sports related injuries (Brown). When injuries occur, sometimes coaches will make the athlete keep playing. This is not the way to fix the problem of injuries in sports, it’s worsening it. Young football players are playing with concussions instead of resting and taking time off. Some coaches see nothing wrong with this. By doing this, it will only make the injuries worse. The injuries need time to heal, but if the players are still playing it will worsen the injury and prolong or damage the process of healing. People need to stop playing while injured because by doing this they are hurting themselves even more and potentially endangering other players as well as themselves.

Prevention is a step in the right direction for overcoming sports injuries. There are several kids that think they are untouchable, which makes them play recklessly and more aggressively (Brown). With all this going on more kids are getting hurt and nobody’s doing anything to prevent it. There are several ways to try to prevent more injuries from happening. These include implementing different coaching techniques, new rules, and using safer equipment and training. Educating coaches, players, and parents is key to effectuating these changes. In 1990 approximately 140,000 baseball players went to the emergency room with 18,000 of them suffering from facial injuries. In baseball, players only have protective head gear while they are up at bat, but their faces and heads are not protected the rest of the time. Baseball is the most dangerous sport when it comes to facial and head injuries. You could prevent baseball injuries by wearing face masks on batting helmets, and heart guards worn on the chest to prevent collapsing of the chest when hit by a ball. Also, when kids do get injured, the best ways to heal their injury is to rest and not play while waiting for the injury to heal. This is a very serious problem because sports related injuries happen every day, affecting not only the injured athlete but family friends and teammates. For example injuries outcomes can be very expensive, especially if the injury requires having surgery to fix it. People can end up with a lot of debt with medical bills and insurance payments (Brown).  People need to know how to take this seriously to prevent this from happening again.

As my paper has illustrated sports injuries, while affecting millions of kids per year can be prevented through education and changes in policies and procedures regarding safety and how the sports are played.

Works Cited

"Amnesia." World of Health. Gale, 2007. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 23 Sept.       2010.

Brown, Curt. "Playing Hurt: Injuries in Youth Sports." Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). Nov. 1    1992: 1S+. SIRS Researcher. Web. 24 Sep 2010.

Keller, Julia. "Brain Injury Devastates Victims' Bodies, Changes Their Personalities." Chicago  

            Tribune (Chicago, IL). Jan. 14 2004: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 28 Sep 2010.

Article #2 Notes

Katie H.         

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

25 September 2010

Article #2 Notes

Brown, Curt. "Playing Hurt: Injuries in Youth Sports." Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). Nov. 1    1992: 1S+. SIRS Researcher. Web. 24 Sep 2010.

v  Sports injuries is an epidemic that affects 12 million kids a year.

v  A third of all sports injuries occur in players that are the age of 14 or younger.

v  Almost 4 million kids a year are in the emergency room because of a sports injury.

v  Some injuries are harder to prevent because when a player feels invincible, they play more dangerously and with more power.

v  Injuries can ruin ones career in the sport they are playing. When you have a driving force to win, overuse injuries occur. Some kids see injuries as inescapable, while others are almost relieved.

v  When it comes to injuries in general the outcome will always be expensive. Especially if the injury requires having surgery to fix it. People can end up with a lot of debt with medical bills and insurance payments.

v  Injuries will always be a part of sports, but there are ways to protect youth athletes, and help them be safer. Coaching techniques, new rules, and safer equipment and training could help do this.

v  “The lack of public awareness, the assumption that kids’ injuries just happen ad can’t be prevented is simply ignorance,” Dr. Lyle Micheli.

v  Around 140,000 young baseball players went to the emergency room in 1990, 18,000 with facial injuries.

v  Baseball is the most dangerous sport when it comes to head and facial injuries.

v  Most common injuries with players that collide, slide, or get hit by the ball suffer broken noses and jaws, eye injuries, fractured cheekbones, broken limbs and knee damage.

v  Ways to prevent baseball injuries are: face masks on batting helmets, and heart guard worn on the chest.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/scorecard/daily_list/2007/10/weird-sports-injuries.html

Article 1 Notes

Katie H.

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

September 22, 2010

Gathering Information- Notes

"Amnesia." World of Health. Gale, 2007. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 23 Sept.       2010.

v  The term amnesia mean the loss or injury of your memory.

v  There are SEVERAL different degrees of amnesia. Sometimes you can lose your memory for a short amount of time and then get it back. While other times if the injury was more serious, you might never retrieve that information back again.

v  There are several different types of amnesia but there are three general types of amnesia.

v   1. Anterograde Amnesia- short term memory loss, where you can recall what happened events prior to the trauma.

v   2. Retrograde Amnesia- opposite of anterograde. This is when victims can remember things that happened after a trauma, but can’t remember familiar information right before the trauma.

v   3. The last general type is when a victim experiences forgetfulness and confusion. If this sort of amnesia lasts for over 24 hours it can become retrograde amnesia that could take memory as far back as several years.

v  There are different ways to figure out if a patient has amnesia.

v  There are image tests that take a picture of your brain to see if there is any damage.

v  Also, while a patient is having a physical examination, the doctor can infer if there have been any traumas or illnesses recently.

v  Doctors can check for medication history and drug use.

v  They also look at your general health.

Summer Reading

Book: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
By: Gabrielle Zevin

1. Who is the main character and what is that character's personality like? Type a complete sentence or two that includes three different adjectives that describe your character.

2. Most good stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Type a complete sentence for each of these three that summarizes what happens.

3. Think about the experiences that the main character has and the changes that she or he experiences by the end of the story. In a complete sentence or two, describe what you think the author is trying to say about life.

The Issues:

1. Explain how one of these issues affects the character in this story. Write three complete sentences - either three different ways that one character is affected, or one way each that three different characters are affected.

2. In complete sentences,describe two specific events that make the book's social issue(s) seem real and important. How does the author make a big issue immediate and personal?

Image From: 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vaBUDNHDFQQ/SwGieOydzkI/AAAAAAAAATU/tupW1G1Et5c/s1600/Memoirs+of+a+Teenage+Amnesiac.jpg

Research Questions

1. What are the worst types of amnesia?
2. What percentage of people who had amnesia, got their memory back?
3. How long can amnesia last?

Social Issue Topic Paragraph

Katie H.

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

14 September 2010

Book: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Topic: Amnesia

Search Terms: 1.amnesia 2.amnesia rate 3.articles on amnesia 4.teenage amnesiacs 5.memory loss 6.amnesic brain damage 7.different types of amnesia

Amnesia

            The main issue in the book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin was amnesia, and how it can affect someone’s life. The main character became an amnesiac when she fell down the steps of her school. Amnesia is when you lose your memory and sometimes your memory comes back and sometimes it doesn’t. Normally with amnesia, these memory losses happen when you’re most likely over fifty. Amnesia is not very common, there were only 5.2 incidences out of a 100,000 population based on data from Minnesota. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1160964-overview.  The main character in the book showed symptoms of a type of amnesia called anterograde amnesia which is things that happened recently in their life. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9673.php Knowing this information could be important in case one of my grandparents have memory loss in the future.            

        Image From:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUgTmGSh1c1o5evfCxBzM_G0DRI3glugrP1Vxbd0_6wqzZmvasSa1-gvx9imXQ7eotBZq0JYgfW_xnvA4Wgxy9dlq43JMzKwhPYu6fJ03ZFo9PfXA8Klw90eMI5cgScOtSA99YFGrB9yp/s400/Amnesia1.png&imgrefurl=http://blogs.clarin.com/dememoria/tag/amnesia/&usg=__pP_WdVGL3c2xL4AlRMxuuBK846Y=&h=400&w=398&sz=184&hl=en&start=28&zoom=1&tbnid=gF3HoWhnO-AVeM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damnesia%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D699%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&ei=zS-QTMizLcO88gbC1e3NDQ&iact=rc&dur=296&oei=xC-QTNqVK4yisQP3-LR2&esq=4&page=2&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:28&tx=69&ty=53

Stuff About Me(:

Hey I'm Katie and I am a freshman at John Carroll High School. I am on the jv cheerleading team. I am also going to do one of the plays. I like hanging out with my friends and acting stupid. I like a lot of different music, my friends think I'm like a black girl on the inside cause i love rap and hip hop. I love gymnastics and stunting in cheerleading. These are just some of the things i like to doooo

Pen Pal Letter

Dear Naomi,



My name is Katie H., and I read about you falling and ending up with amnesia in the novel Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. I am a freshman at The John Carroll School. I did a lot over the summer, such as going to Ocean City and hanging out at the pool with friends. My huge family normally goes to North Carolina every summer, but my parents had to go to Toronto, Canada, my brother ended up going to North Carolina with the rest of my family while I went to Ocean City with my friend Emma.


I know you were in high school when you fell down the steps of your school, but thankfully my school doesn’t have steps in front of the school. It must have been hard dealing with all that you went through, but you definitely stood strong. I’ve never had to deal with something as dangerous and scary as you, but just imagining it makes me realize what I would have to go through too. I look up to you on how you just started over completely and began a new life. I know you didn’t remember anyone, but you could of easily of found out who you were friends with and stayed being friends with them. Yet you didn’t, you found completely different people and you really seemed happy. Since this is my first year at high school there are a lot of people I don’t know, and because of it I’m also hanging out with different people then I did in middle school. I wonder what I would do if I, out of nowhere, got my memory back. If I would tell people, or keep it to myself like you did.


I thought that Gabrielle Zevin did a terrific job making everything seem like real life. There weren’t any moments where it seemed like she was making it up. You had the same thoughts any teenager would have and the accident that you had could’ve happened to anyone. I thought it really related to a real life situation.


While I was reading the book, I was trying to think of how you made the decision to not tell anyone that you got your memory back. If that happened to me I think I would at least have told my parents. Was there any real reason that you decided to slowly go back to some of the things that you used to do such as the yearbook and tennis with your ex-boyfriend?


I thought that the social issue in this book was how after you had your accident and decided to start over, you made completely different friends than you used to have. You also didn’t recognize anyone when you first came back to school, and that seemed like it would’ve been confusing to deal with. I was left thinking about what if this happened to me or one of my close friends, what would I do? I hope this never does happen, but it’s not something that you can plan or really even prevent.


If I were you I’d want to try and combine the life that you had and the life that you’re now living, because you liked both. It might not work, but it’s just a thought. I was glad to see that you and Will became friends again, and maybe in the future you’ll become more than friends. I think you two would make a cute couple. I hope you get to read this cause I have a few questions I hope you get to answer.


Your Friend,

Katie H.

My Unique Profile

Katie H’s Unique Profile


Hi, my name is Katie and I came from St. Margaret School. I am now a freshman at John Carroll High School. I like things such as gymnastics and cheerleading. I’m a base for my school’s junior varsity team. I’ve done gymnastics for almost 6 years until I got Achilles tendonitis, and I had to stop gymnastics for over a year. I want to get involved in the school musicals because they seem like a lot of fun. I hope to get good grades my first year and meet new people that didn’t already go to my middle school. I have an older brother who is sixteen years old and he is a senior at Calvert Hall High School. I love hanging out with my friends and walking around my neighborhood with them. What I think is a little unique about me is that my left eye is half brown when the other eye is green. I also wish I could have a pool in my backyard because I love swimming in the summertime. These are just some of the things about me. (: