Mean Girls

Author's Note: In this essay I am trying to show my understanding of text analysis and word choice/ context. Make sure to look for how I make real world connections.

Imagine mean girls tearing apart your decisions and actions every day, most people don't even have to imagine this because they live it every day of their lives. Girls can be rude and horrible to each other, this is true and it proves itself many times in reality and fiction. Just like in the book, The Clique, by Lisi Harrison. In the book, Massie and her friends are mean to the new girl Claire because she isn't like them, she’s not rich and she doesn’t care about her image as much as Massie and her clique do. This kind of judging and meanness happens everyday in real life, and in school. One of the most popular movies in America is Mean Girls, and you can tell by the name that this movie, similar to Clique, is about girls and their rudeness towards other girls. This movie is based off of making fun of girls behind their back and talking bad about them and putting this all into a book. In Mean Girls,  in The Clique and in life there is no way to avoid “mean girls”, they are all around.

The book, The Clique, is a good example of how mean girls can be. Girls say snotty things about other people behind their back. In this quote the four girls in their clique went to the principal to expose their ex-best friend for cheating during the uniform contest. The quote “ My mother came with us and made it very clear that if they went forward with your idea, she would expose the entire scandal on The Daily Grind,” (125) shows how mean the girls in the book can be. There are many more rude and unkind things that the girls say in the book that really hurt people.

Like in the book, The Clique, the girls in the movie mean girls are horribly cruel to each other. In the movie, Mean Girls, Regina George is one of the rudest girls at North Shore High School. She can be mean to your face or she can be mean behind your back. For example, she told this one girl that she liked her skirt and then turned to her friends and said that is the ugliest skirt I have ever seen. This proves that mean girls can hide their meanness from people, but show it to their friends.

Not only do you encounter and have to deal with mean girls like these in movies and books like The Clique and Mean Girls, but also in life. I have definitely had my share of mean girls in my life. They are rude, they are annoying and they think that everyone and everything should revolve around them. Girls like this are self-centered people who are mainly rich snobs. I’ve learned that in the society we have today you get out -casted for the simplest things, for example if you don't have long bouncy, vivacious, blonde hair, or if you don't wear makeup. Living in the society we live in you learn early in life that there will always be those mean girls who will try their very best to make yours and many other peoples lives as miserable as possible, but you have to realize that there will always be those girls and you can’t start believing what they say.

In conclusion I think that I can say that everyone has interacted with a mean girl at least once in their life, some people more than others. There is no way to avoid “mean girls”, they are all around: in books, in movies, in life, the only thing you can do is ignore them.

Short Response Post

This story is about a young boy named Bill got got kidnapped by these 2 guy and they decided to write a letter to his father to pay them money and the father wanted the kidnappers to pay him money for kidnapping his son. I think that the most interesting thing about the story was how the kid didn’t want to leave the kid. I think this because if I was in that kids position I would be freaking out and I would try to escape from the cave. I am not a person who likes being away from home for too long. 

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.

Personal Metaphor

I am a guard dog, I am a good listener and will always be there when you need someone to talk to. I am very protective of what is mine and of my friends/family. If something is mine you better stay away from it.

Are All Friendships Real?

Author's Note: This is my second time writing a point of view essay. I hope that this will be the last time that I have to do another point of view piece. I decided to write this essay on The Clique because this is the book that I recently read and I liked a lot. Today I am going to be telling the story through the eyes of Layne, one of Claire's friends. Massie and Claire are the main characters in the book, just a heads up. I really want you to focus on how people change over time and how that can affect friendship.

It was the first day that I had met Claire. She was looking for a seat to sit at lunch, when she saw that there was an empty seat next to me. All that I knew about her was that she was friends with Massie Block, the queen bee of seventh grade. As she approached the table I wondered if she was going to sit at my table or continue walking and attempt to sit with Massie and her friends. When she reached the table she said "Hi, my name is Claire." I didn't want to be rude and ask if she was talking to me so just in case, I replied saying "Hey, my name is Layne." "Is that seat taken" Claire asked. "No you can sit here" I responded quickly. I thought to myself this girl seems like she would be a good person to hang out with, but you never know people change and can affect friendship. Knowing that she is friends with Massie I had to be cautious, she could either be just like Massie and be mean or she could be the total opposite, sweet. It was the first day of the seventh grade and I had already made a new companion, a comrade that is friends with Massie Block. 

Fourth period was about to start and I wanted to ask Claire if she was doing anything tomorrow. I ran over to her locker as fast as I could, since we had just met that day I wanted to go see a movie or go shopping with her so I could spend some quality time with her and get to know her a little bit better. Hanging out with her would help me get a better handle on what she is like. If I had to guess what she is like I would think that she is like me in ways, I am kind of an odd ball and I can be shy at times, but when someone is really making me irritated I will come out of my shell and do what I can to resolve what ever the problem is. I could see Claire being that kind of a person. After all we got along pretty well at lunch. I got to her locker with a couple minutes to spare before the bell rang, I quickly asked her if she was doing anything tomorrow and she said no, allowing me to ask her if she wanted to hang out and chill. She liked the idea of hanging out and getting to know one another further. Just before I left for my class she said "can't wait to hang out tomorrow." 

The night before the movie I received a call from Claire, she said that she couldn't go to the movie anymore because she has to babysit her sick brother while her parents went out on a date. I decided to tell my mom so that she wouldn't have to deal with this in the morning when she is at her crabbiest. I was kind of disappointed that Claire couldn't go anymore, I was really looking forward to hanging out with her and having a relaxing day.

On Sunday when I called Claire, I asked her how babysitting was, she didn't know what I was talking about at first, until I refreshed her memory. Suddenly I got this good feeling that Claire had bailed on me and did something else. I put the pieces together when I saw Claire walking into school with Massie and her friends. I figured that she had ditched me to hang out with Massie. The more I thought about the more I got confused, because during lunch that one day Claire told me that Massie didn't even really like her all that much. I then realized that someone can change in the blink of an eye. 

It was later that night that I was sitting around thinking about how if I was in Claire's position I would have probably done the same thing. If I could have the chance to hang out with Massie Block I would take it. I decided to call Claire up and apologize for ignoring her during school. I explained why I was ignoring her and she also apologized. She didn't think that I would ever know the truth, that's why she did it. Since we had made up we decided to schedule another day that we could hang out and see a movie, but this time there wouldn't be any excuses.