The Song

Author's Note: In this essay make sure to look what I thought the tone was. 

Think if you were on the ocean, catching some waves, I bet you could feel the wind blowing in your face. When I read the poem "Song for a Surf-Rider," by Sara Van Alstyne Allen I felt that there was a lot of tone and figurative language within it. When you run through this poem and go back to how you felt when you were reading this you will be reminded of how vibrant the poem really was. 

There was different kinds of figurative language in this poem, one of the main kinds was personification; it helps give a clear image of what's going on. The author really wanted us to feel like the wave was a human. To show how she did this she referred to the wave saying him or he. Another example is when she said "We race together, the sea and I." When I read that personification I really felt like the wave was a human. 

One other kind of figurative language that was used in the poem was metaphors. The author really compared the waves and sea to a horse, "I ride the horse that is the sea." The quote, “His hoof beats echo on the sand,” shows how the author uses personification to make it seem like the sea is a horse. These two kinds of figurative language are used a lot through out the poem. 

Tone is how the writer feels and how they show their attitude toward something through their writing. Tone helps the reader understand how the author feels and possibly get the feeling of how the author is feeling themselves. Within this poem the author used tone. The tone of this poem I would have to say is friendship. Sara Van Alstyne Allen wrote this poem to show friendship, like how the sea and the person work together. Great writers use tone, they use it to make people feel emotion within writing. 

Tone and figurative language was shown a lot throughout this poem. Remember to always look for figurative language and tone in poems and short stories that you read. Look for how the tone really affects the piece and see how it makes you feel about that story. The tone can really change how you feel about the story.

A, B, and C Point of View

Author's Note: I'm writing this piece to show my understanding of point of view. While reading through this make sure to pay attention to how me as the reader felt while reading this book.

A. The book the Clique was written in the eyes of Claire Lyons. In the book Claire basically explained how she moved to Westchester and moved into a rich snobs guest house, Massie. She describes how Massie ruins her life and tortures her during and outside of school. She tries to stand up to her fear and tell Massie no and stick up for herself. Sometimes it works and most of the time it doesn't. 

B. Me, being the reader, I felt that the book made me feel that Massie actually cared and liked Claire. For instance, it was the night of Massie's annual fundraiser for her school and Claire's and Massie's parents got on stage and called them to the stage. Massie helped Claire find them a hiding spot so that they could get out of having to be embarrassed by their parents. But there are other times where I feel like Massie hates Claire's guts. For example, it has only been a few days that Claire has been living with Massie, and it was the first day of school. At this point Massie hasn't really gotten to know Claire and what she is really like, but Massie assumed that Claire was a LBR--loser beyond repair--so Massie thought it would be funny to ruin Claire's life and hope that it would make the Lyons move out of their guest house faster. Claire was wearing white pants, so Massie thought it would be funny to order her friend to "accidentally" spill red paint on the back of her pants so it would like Claire got her period. Now if I was Massie, I would at least try to help Claire and help her become a friend of Massie, but Massie does the total opposite and messes Claire's life up. 

C. If the book was told in the eyes of Massie, I feel like it would be more about how she tortures Claire instead of how Claire gets tortured. Massie is a totally different person so it would be a totally different point of view. Massie has the personality of what she is.. a snob, but Claire has the personality that a regular person should and would have, therefore I think that the story would be different. 

Compare and Contrast piece

Author's Note: I'm writing this piece to show my understanding of compare and contrast. While reading this, look for the ways that Massie and Roger are alike. 

In the story Thank you Ma'am Roger is living through a tough time. He is living out on the street, with no parents, no money nothing besides him and his hope to one day get off the streets and live in a real home. Meanwhile Massie Block is living the life in her huge house, getting everything she wants whenever she wants something. There are many things that are different between the two but there are also many things that are similar. 

Roger and Massie have a few things in common, one thing they both have in common is that they both don't care about other people. Roger goes around stealing purses from ladies and Massie pulls mean and cruel pranks on her new "room mate". In a way I can say that they both don't care about other people as much as they should. Massie cares about clothes and accessories more than she does about the less fortunate. I can see why Roger doesn't care about other people as much, but stealing from people is just making his life worse and making it harder on himself. 

“Claire, did I invite you to my barbeque?" Massie asked, her neck tilting to the right and her arms tightly crossed. "Huh? No. I mean, I don't know," Claire said. "Then why are you all up in my grill?" Massie said through her teeth.” These are the kind ignorant things that Massie says to Claire. Roger is also a very ignorant person, if he wasn't ignorant he wouldn't be going around stealing purses and wallets from strangers. Ignorant is the perfect word to describe both Massie and Roger. 

"Massie Block is the perfect definition to describe something that is perfect" some girl said to suck up. Massie is a girl who gets everything she wants, she is spoiled and is the perfect definition of a snob. She is the total opposite of Roger. Roger is a boy who has nothing good in his life to look forward to. While Massie is out shopping and spending money like money is free, Roger is barely getting by with stealing money from people. On one hand you have Massie and on the other you have Roger, both people, but very different life styles. 

While reading both of these books, I've learned two lessons: to always respect others and never to take things for granted. Sure, sometimes you get everything you want like Massie, but you could also end up like Rodger and have nothing. There were many similarities and differences between these books. They start off as not the best people, but in the end they find out where they really stand and start to appreciate what they have.