Reading and Writing Assignments for 5th class 3/24/16

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, two different worlds emerge. One world is perfect, beautiful and ideal, but there's no emotions, no color, no music, no love. However, the other world has much sadness, pain and hardships, but colorful. I would like to live in the second world and I like living in it. The life in the first world is boring. People can't change or create anything in that world. They are smiling, but they are not happy. Life in the second world is much more interesting than the life in the first world because people can make things become better and better. They may destroy things, but that's still much better than just eat and sleep but can not change anything. Isn't it?

This is just a fabulous piece of writing. There are so many beautiful sentences in it, it's hard to say which one is the best. One of my favorites is here: "One world is perfect, beautiful and ideal, but there's no emotions, no color, no music, no love. " It's a real writer's sentence. You've consciously repeated the word no for emphasis, and that repetition highlights the emptiness of the other world. You've also made excellent use of parallelism--using the same part of speech for ideas equal in importance--at the end: no color, no music, no love. 

But this sentence is wonderful too. I like how you set up the contrast between smiling and being happy:"They are smiling, but they are not happy." How true.

Great ending too!

If I did not know you, I would never guess from this writing that you aren't a native speaker.   As we say in the States, you made my day (made it a really good day).  LMF

 

I chose the second assignment. In Lois Lowry's The Giver, two different worlds emerge. The first world is the community where everything goes smoothly. And the second world is the world is the past, the world what is Jonas studying about. I think I like the second world better. The first world seems so weak. (This is my new idea)If someone in the community knows the truth, the people will start a big rebellion to revolt the Elders. The community will be easily to break. Just like what Jonas do. But the second world, there may be some wars. (The pain) There is also emotion between people. (The pleasure) the first world doesn’t have any emotion between adults. Even there isn’t any wars, any bad thing; I won’t choose the first world ever.

Very nice work, and as always, your understanding of the story goes way beyond your years. I think you are suggesting that a lack of knowledge is what keeps the world of the community so easy to keep under control, and that is exactly right.  You are also right to suggest that knowledge is what makes Jonas rebel. 

Your description of the differences is spot on, and that's a very nice concluding sentence.  I agree with you. Even with the addition of warfare, the second world is the one I would choose. 

Here is Alice's response. She chose one of the alternative (other choice) assignments:

The past is always with us even if we would like it to go away.

When I was younger, I had always been afraid of spiders, every time I saw them, it’s like seeing a bunch of “ghost”……

In 2011, when I was only on Grade 1, my mother took me to Australia for 12 days. One day, we went to the Safari Park. After visiting the koala’s room, we were going to see the kangaroos, but on the way to the area, there is a big wooden desk with tourist brochures. Suddenly, I heard a woman screaming incisively, looking all the way to the place that she is looking at, I saw a big spider with black and yellow stripes. That moment, I was stupefied with terror, my mother quickly took some pictures and then, we ran away.

   That is a really influence story for me, when I think of it now, it still horrifies me.

 

 

 

I can see why this story would be influential for you. And some of the writing is really excellent. "Stupefied" is the perfect verb to describe your fear, and I like how specifically you described the spider with its "black and yellow" stripes. 

  The past is always with us even if we would like it to go away! When I was a little kid, I liked to eat fruit very much. One day, when I was eating a plate of litchi, I found a green worm inside the fruit. I hated bugs and worms! And it was more horrible to have a worm inside the delicious fruit you just wanted to eat. I was so scared that I even started to doubt that I might eat some worms in accident. After this revolting incident, I didn’t want to try any litchi or any other fruit similar to it any more, and I was always paying attention at checking the fruit that I would put it into my mouth.

  One day, after I ate a litchi jelly, I realized that the disgusting worm had make me missed this fantastic flavor so long! The possibility of having a worm in the fruit was extremely low. I was so “lucky” when I was a kid. And the worm meant that the fruit was organic, healthy, and tasty. I’m really looking forward to enjoying litchi again.

This is a lovely piece of writing Alfonso, one of your finest. And your explanation of how the memory affected you, for a while at least, was very well expressed, particularly in your description of it as a "revolting incident."  

You also moved beautifully from the first paragraph to the second as you showed the reader what it was that changed your mind.  Very nice work! I do, though, have to look up the word "litchi." You made the experience of eating  the fruit so vivid. I want to see what it looks like.