Stargirl | Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl is about a girl named Stargirl Caraway, who is anything but normal to the students of MAHS. When she first arrives at the school, everyone stares at her strangely because of her appearance and behavior. She is more daring than everyone else, they first notice when she sings and plays the ukulele during her first lunch at MAHS. Everyone judges her harshly, and one girl comes up with a theory that she is an actress hired to bring up the school spirit. Well, if she was an actress trying to bring up the school spirit, she succeeded. She danced with the cheerleaders at a sports game, and was then invited to join the cheer squad. After that, she sat with them at lunch and everyone began to love her. The students all became fans of the sports team, and the sports team used to always lose. Now, they forgot how to lose and always won the games they played. The whole school was changed. For now.

Stargirl Connector

          My connection to the last 60 pages of Stargirl is that don 't count the chickens before they hatch. Stargirl likes to think of what will happen instead of thinking what might happen. I learned that we should not jinx it when we are not 100% sure. And we can never be 100% sure in nearly anything. When we were at our volleyball match in Skopje, we thought that we might not get 1st place, but we knew that the sportsmanship will be ours. We were being happy for getting sportsmanship award even before we got it. And then the next day they were announcing the places and the sportsmanship award. "And the sportsman ship award goes to........HELSINKI!" And there was the sportsmanship that belonged to ISB Dragons, given to Helsinki Huskies. Even though we didn't get the sportsmanship award, we got third place and wished for better luck next time. I learned that we shouldn't count our chickens before they catch because someones wight not hatch.

By: Tara Jevrosimovic

Bloomabililty

Bloomability

By: Sharon Creech

This last week of literature circles my job was to be an illustrator. Since we were finishing the book, I decided to draw one of the very last scenes. It is the scene where Dinnie is at the airport with her aunt and uncle saying goodbyes. Dinnie is finally returning back to her own family, but will surely miss them. Specifically, on the picture there is Dinnie, hugging her aunt, while her uncle is waving bye. It is the part where they set off to continue the journey alone. Specifically, I really liked this scene and I kind of knew how Dinnie felt at the moment because I feel like that all the time when I leave by grandparents and head to Serbia. I also really liked the ending of the book, because I didn't have to think of what happened next. It was all there written down for me and I was calm with no specific feelings. I finally felt that the book was very fun and enjoyable for reading. Since I am not very talented for drawing, I did my very best to draw this picture down below. 

Bloomability-Literary Luminary

Marija M. 

Literary luminary 

Bloomability 

By: Sharon Chreech

Finished the book

 

Some interesting paragraphs and sentences that I found were...

1. On page 212 in the first paragraph it said...

There was a brief deadly silence following the avalanche, when the absence of the rumble and thundering left a hollow emptiness, as if the roar of the falling snow had sucked all the noise from the air."

I think that the details are amazing and powerful. They also just made the beginning of the chapter interesting and made me want to read further to see what will happen next. I also thought that how she explained what was going on was amazing.

2. On page 122 in the 2^nd paragraph first sentence…

“I thought about Uncle Max Aunt Sandy and Mrs. Sterling and the teachers, and how often they must worry about keeping us safe.”

This sentence showed that Domenica cared about how others felt. She was feeling this way when they were at Mt. St. Moritz and she saw that the teachers were getting worried, which also made her worried for them, which showed that she really cared. It was also interesting how she expressed it through the rest of the book.

3. On page 223 paragraph two…

“They arrived just before dark, bursting into the lodge, staring wildly around and swooping down on us when I waved a tentative glove at them. I was very glad to see them; we all were. Calm Uncle Max. He would take over now, and we were glad to let him.”

This paragraphed seemed like it used a lot of metaphors therefor it was harder to understand. Many parts confused me even though I knew what was going on before and then I figured out was happened after this paragraph and it made more sense.

4. On page 230 paragraph one…

“Early the next morning, when we learned that Guthrie was finally conscious and out of immediate ganger, Aunt Sandy and I jumped on the bed and whooped and shouted: He made it! He made it! Then the phone rang again, and it was Lila’s mother.”

This paragraph made me happy at first when I found out that Guthrie was better. It was a good moment because he was in really great danger. Then when Domenica and her Aunt were celebrating they got interrupted by a phone call, from Lila’s mother. That is when the paragraph ended and it left you thinking and wondering what the phone call was about. I knew that it was bad because it just seemed like the paragraph ended with a dramatic pause.

5. On page 272 the last paragraph on the page read…

“Soon I could no longer see Switzerland or any land at all. I was over the ocean, miles high, and I started thinking about Bybanks, wondering what it would look like and how it would smell and how it would feel to seem mother and father and Stella and the baby again and how soon Crick might come home. Bybanks. What would I find in Bybanks? It would be an opportunity. I told myself. A new life.”

This last paragraph explains how she feels when she is on her way to go to Bybanks to finally see her family again. It also describes how she is ready for a new life, again. It also explains how she wonders how it will be like to see her family again. 

Star-Girl Rotation #5

Leo was a normal kid in a normal school. The school was no different than another, all of this ended the day that Startgirl came. Stargirl was  a "Weird" type of student, she played her ukulele at lunch, danced during all of the school games, and carried around a rat with her. Leo's school will never be as normal as it was before Stagirl.

Bloomability

Book: Bloomability

By: Sharon Creech 

Blog post by: Katarina Markovic 

# of pages read: 273/273

Job: Vocab Enricher 

 

My job this week was to be the vocab enricher. This job means that i had to fin unknown words in the book, and write on what page i found them, the definition of the word and that word used in a sentence. 

Page #	Word	Definition	Sentence
189 pg.	Tattered	Old and torn; in poor condition.	I found a tattered shirt in the attic.
191 pg.	Persimmons	An edible fruit, which resembles a tomato.	I saw a persimmons sitting on the table.
194 pg.	Tantrum	An uncontrollable burst of anger.	She threw a tantrum as she heard about the divorce.
194 pg.	Sensation	A wide spread reaction of interest and excitement.	She felt a rush of sensation when she heard the amazing news.
198 pg.	Wavering	Getting weaker.	After I have asked her a couple of times she started wavering.
201 pg.	Transceivers	A device which can both transmit and receive information.	I took all the transceivers in the house and started sending messages.
204 pg.	Nudge	A light touch or push, to get someone’s attention.	I nudged Tijana, she had to see the picture.
208 pg.	Witless	Foolish, stupid.	I was witless, for letting him annoy me.
220 pg.	Avalanches	A great amount of snow, rocks and ice falling down a mountainside.	The avalanche started there was nowhere that we could hide, it wouldn't stop until id destroyed everything on its way.
221 pg.	Tentative	Not certain or fixed.	I grabbed the tentative box, which ended up falling into pieces.
227 pg.	Nomadic	Wandering.	I lived nomadic, there wasn't a certain place where you can find me.
232 pg.	Detained	Keep someone from proceeding to do something.	He was detained in the hospital because he had a patient.
234 pg.	Frail	A person which is week and delicate.	Babies have a very frail skull in the first few weeks of their lives.

Rotation number 5
My job: Literary Luminary
Stargirl
Jerry Spinelli

The sentence I chose:
"She seems to be in tough with something that we are all missing."page 102, Spinelli.

I chose this sentence because I think that this means that the people think that Stargirl is the abnormal one, who is missing a part that everyone else has; normal. But really, they are the ones missing out on something, she is the only one who is really what a human is supposed to be. She is special but in a good way. Stargirl is a person that is herself, and doesn't care what other people think of her and if the world was filled with everyone like that, it would be a better place.