School Blog 4

Chapter 4 Reflection 

Woodsong

Gary Paulsen

In chapter 4, Gary told about how he ran into a bear into his yarf and then threw a stick at it. We were to say if we think that Gary handled the situation well or  not.

I have mixed thoughts on how well Gary Paulsen handled the bear situation. On one hand, he shouldn't've thrown the stick at Scarface in the first place. After that, there really wasn't much he could do, so I guess he handled it well after that. He did the right thing, when he sat there, not movingm wating for the bear to make his choice. If he tried to wriggle free, or move at all, I think that the bear would think of that as an attempt to threaten him, and decide to kill Paulsen. So, there Gary did the right thing. Personally, (but this could be different for some people depending on their personal experience) I also believe that Gary made the right choice when he didn't shoot the bear. I could add my own thoughts here, but Paulsen describes it perfecectly when he says "Kill it for what? For not killing me?" He should be thankful to the bear, because it didn't kill him. Gray also says it when he says "I am no more and no less than any animal in the woods." I think that that's true. Not just for him, but for all of us. Thinking back to our last post, we are animals, after all.
Then we also had to point out five examples of imagery, one for each of the senses, from the chapter.
Imagery:
Touch: "I took the riffle from the gun rack."  Makes me think of cold metal and anger.
Taste:"I put their frozen meat blocks the edges to soften, then fed them warm meet." That makes me think of warm meet.
Feel: "I nearly froze." It makes me feel cold.
Smell:"The wolves could smell her fear."
Sight: "A cow in the field was a marvel and had to be investigated." It makes me think of cows and fields.
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School Blog 2

Woodsong Chapter 2 Reflection

Gary Paulsen

Chapter 2 of Woodsong. I will be posting these rather often, since at school we're doing a chapter a day. I won't be going that often, but, you get the idea.

Gary Paulsen started introducing Storm before the paragraph where he started describing him. He started introducing Storm with little hints. Little hints at who Storm was and little hints at what was going to happen. Easing us into what was going to happen. Letting us foreshadow and think about was was about to come. I think that that's part of why Paulsen is such a good author. That and the fact that he knows from experience what he's writing about. So, back to the description of Storm. Gary started out by saying that Storm was a classic sled dog. He then described her appearance, and her attitude, her actions. And after describing Storm to us, after giving us a mental image in our heads, Paulsen goes on to say that  Storm pulls. Of course, they all pull. It's a huge part of their existence, it's just who they are. But Storm always pulls, he does not slack off, as most of the other dogs do sometimes. Which makes him an honest dog. He always pulls. The image in our heads, of a beautiful, hard-working, loyal sled dog is what Gary wants. he wants us to love Storm, before something bad happens to him.

Theme: Overcoming challenges and learning new things. First, overcoming challenges. What challenges did Gary face in chapter two of Woodsong? Well, there was Storms bleeding. But Storm's bleeding leads us to a different, bigger challenge: the fear of the unknown. Learning new things goes right along with that. Gary learned the hard way about what he was suppose to feed the dogs. He is afraid when Storm starts bleeding, because he doesn't really know what to do. So, overall, I would say that the theme of this chapter is overcoming new thing.

School blog

Woodsong Chapter 1 Reflection

Woodsong 

Gary Paulsen

This won't be a book summary, but a chapter by chapter two paragraph thoughts page. We are reading Woodsong at Literacy class at school, and then writing on a blog. It is a private blog on kidblog.com, but I thought that you might find my thoughts on the assignments that my teacher gave us pretty interesting, so I will be posting them as well, under Woodsong. Thoughts? Well, here goes.

Summary: In the first chapter, Gary Paulsen describes how the woods lost their innocence to him. He talks about a young doe jumping over his lead dog. She is running away from a pack of wolves. She is running away over a frozen lake, but then she falls through the ice. By the time she gets out of the lake, the pack of wolves is on her. But that’s not what surprises Paulsen. Instead of just killing the doe, they start pawing at her rear end, and pulling out her insides. They start eating her from the inside out, eating her alive. That’s when Paulsen released the truth of the woods, the truth of nature. The beautiful, but painful truth.

“Many people who enjoy the woods, or seem to enjoy it are spending their time trying to kill parts of it”. Quite a paradox really. Weird, but true. Many people who hunt say, “Oh I love the woods. I love nature.” But how are they showing their love, if they are killing the animals that they are hunting. Same thing with fishing. There’s also logging. Loggers say “The woods are my life. A very important part of my life.” If that is true, than by cutting down trees, they are killing their life. They are ruing the forest, which is supposedly very important in their life. Of course, not all people go into the woods to hunt, fish or log. Some people go into the woods for a leisurely stroll, or to climb a tree, sit and read. Or to spend half the day testing trees for climbing. There’s not ruing the forest, are they? I mean, sure we could get technical and say that they are crushing they grass and ruing the bark, but no big damage. So, I guess, overall, not all people who enjoy nature are destroying it. And those who are don’t realize it. I just think that this is a good quote for all of us to think about, not just hunters and loggers. Nature is important. It can’t be important if there is none left. The woods are important. Let’s keep them that way.

Thanks a lot for reading!