Reading and Writing Assignments November 12th, 18th class

Here is Alice's response:

In my first opinion of Zero, he is a boy who has nothing in his mind. He is kind of silly too. Mr. Sir does not pay attention to him. But since he asked Stanley about reading and writing, it changed Stanley’s and my opinion. Although he is not smart at the outside, but he has a good psychological quality of studying. I believe that at last, he really can do many things!

Alice, This is very nicely written. You moved very smoothly from your initial opinion of Zero to your concluding opinion, which is very different from your opening. And I think you are right, Zero can do many things! That's a very nice conclusion. 

Here is Mark's response:

Sorry about the way the site changed the lines in your sentences. This is very well written and I am impressed by how well you punctuate those opening clauses that set the time of an event, e.g. "When Stanley saw Zero for the first time." At this point, it does look as if Zero might be a bad person because he is a descendant of Madame Zeroni (I love that you used one of the new vocabulary words). But time might change things as the story unfolds.  Very nice work!

Here is Enya's réponse to the assignment:

Zero is a talk less but smart, unpopular but friendly boy.
    When Stanley first came to Camp Green Lake, All boys called Zero "Zero" beause they thought there is nothing in Zero'd head. So Stanley also thought "Zero" means nothing. After Zero almost killed Zigzag, Mr. Pendanski said to stanley:"You might as wll try to teach this shovel to read! It's got more brains than Zero." Mr. Pendanki thought Zero is too stupid to do anything,even a shovel is more brighter than Zero.But in fact, Zero was a very smart boy and he was a genius at Math. When Stanley started to teach Zero how to read, Stanley found out that Zero is not as stupid as he and other boys thought.Stanley told Zero there are 26 letters and each letter has one lower case and one upper case.  Zero told him there are 52 letters at once, but he never learned this at school! It made Stanley very surprised. It made Stanley surprised. Zero also told him: he can teach him 5 letters for four days and he can teach him 6 letters at the last day.

   At first, Zero didn’t have any friends. But after he and Stanley became friends, he was very nice to Stanley. He digged part of Stanley’s hole every day. When Zigzag hitted Stanley,  for stopping his hitting,Zero even choked Zigzag. (That will make the Warden punish him and he is more smaller than Zigzag!)

 You have definitely caught the complexity of Zero's personality. As you correctly say, Stanley initially thought that Zero's name stood for the contents of his head. But Zero's head is, as you point out, most certainly not empty. In fact, he has exactly the mathematically genius you illustrate so well. 

I am impressed, too, that you are starting to use transitions so gracefully as you do here "At first, Zero didn’t have any friends. But after he and Stanley became friends, he was very nice to Stanley."  Those transitions are perfect and do a great job making connections for the reader.

Excellent job, too, of using pieces of the story to support your point of view. All in all,  great work.  I will send you some additional comments via e-mail. 

This is Cindy's reply to the last assignment:

 In the book Holes the character Zero is a boy from the Green Lake Camp. At first, I think Zero is not like Zigzag or X-ray. He just a little boy in the camp and nobody will care about him. He even seldom talks. When he is watching Stanly writing, he never talks. But he wants to study, to learn more about the outside. And he doesn’t know how to ask someone to teach him.  He is not good at associate to others. So he makes everyone think he is lonely.

As always, your writing shows a clear understanding of the story. You are right

Zero wants help, but he doesn't know how to ask for it.  And far from being the idiot the others think he is, he does have a longing to understand the outside world.  I will send you some additional comments via e-mail, but very nicely done.