Milkweed - Fifth and Last Rotation

Mai Ness
Fifth Rotation
Milkweed
Lit. Circles

Group Members:
-Lana
-SeungJun
-Alice

Task: Illustrator

My drawing is a hurried picture of the scene where Misha Pilsudski (later to be known as Jack Milgrom), is celebrating Hanukkah with Janina and her parents and uncle. I like this scene because it resembles the happiness of discovery and being happy to be himself, Gypsy, Jew or nothing...

Milkweed 2nd (last) rotation - Seungjun Lee

6/2/2014
Last rotation for Milkweed
Job: Summarizer

I was summarizer for this rotation.
I summarized the beginning, middle, end. I couldn't summarize chapter by chapter since the book has 45 chapters.

Summary of MILKWEED

Beginning – There are in Ghetto the orphan boys gives Jon’s shoes to Big Henryk. Wired cart takes the body of Jon. Weather changes from winter to spring.

Middle – Misha and Janina begin stealing food again. The snow comes to the Warsaw ghetto. Misha is surprised to find Uncle Shepsel is outside. Uncle Shepsel asks Misha why he returns from Warsaw each night. Uri comes to the ghetto to warn Misha and the boys about the trains that are arriving.

End – Jack is living with his daughter and granddaughter who easily let him settle into their fun and loving world. He is in heaven in this family, reminded of the pain of his past family, but able to enjoy pleasure of his present. He is able to give his granddaughter the middle name Janina, though he never tells another soul about his sister. The pain is too much. 

Milkweed blog 4

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli.
100 pages /208
I was Vocabulary this week.




Here are the words,definition and the page number. 

Jackboots is a big leather boot that reaching down to your knee on page 18. Gypsy is a traveling person with dark skin and hair on page 19. Saluted means past tense also on page 19. Babka  is a coffee cake with raisins and almonds on page 22. Blurted to say something with ought carefulness on page 24. Fading is to grow faint and to dissepear on page 28. Hooligan means a really young trouble maker on page 48. Sprawling is to sit,lie or fall in a unusual way on page 81.

Fourth Rotation - Milkweed

Mai Ness
22 May, 2014
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Pages Read: 100
Task: Literary Luminary
--
Group Members:
-Lana
-SeungJun
-Alice Rose
-Mai

Instructions: Your job is to choose a paragraph or sentences from the book to discuss with your group. Your purpose is to help other students by spotlighting something interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important from the text. Include your reasons for picking the paragraphs or sections you did. Please record page number and paragraph.

Paragraphs:

(from page 18, paragraph 3)

They were magnificent. There were men attached to them, but it was as if the boots were wearing the men. They did not walk like ordinary footwear, the boots. When one stood at tall, stiff attention, the other swung straight out till it was so high I could have walked under it, only then did it return to earth and the other take-off.

Justification:

I like the way Spinelli describes Stopthief's admiration towards the Jackboots using very rich vocabulary and adjectives selection.

(from page 31 paragraphs 5&6)

"Misha Pilsudski..." I kept saying. "Misha Pilsudski... Misha Pilsudski..."

And then it was no longer enough to stare at myself and repeat my name to myself. I needed to tell someone else.

Justification:

The emotional adjectives Spinelli uses to describe Misha's love for knowing who he is has a very strong effect on the continuation of the book.

(from page 37 paragraphs 3&4)

Someone was riding the horse, but not in the usual way. He was tied to the horse stomach-down and backward. His bearded chin bobbed on the rump of the horse and his face went in and out of the horse's tail.

I thought : I am glad I'm not a Jew.

Justification:

Explaining emotionally how the Jew/Nazi situation was bad and to what extent, to be thankful of being one religion and not another, explains how bad the situation was at the time.

(from page 62, paragraphs 5&6)

But I returned the next day, and the next. When the horses were moving, I stayed at a distance, watching, wishing.

Justification:

He is so eager to ride the horses, that he does not care whether he is poor and not allowed to go. It is powerful because it explains that he is so eager for this.

Milkweed Illustrator

Lana Beko 7B
Milkweed, Illustrator
Week 4

May 23 2014

The illustration I drew represents the main character stealing a loaf of bread from the rich woman. Later on, the big guy stole the main character with the crew of his friends. Sorry, im not really creative.

Milkweed 1st rotation - Seungjun Lee

5/22/2014

Milkweed 1st rotation

Pages 99/208

My job was connector

I needed to find connection with the book and real world

The main character is called 'Stopthief'. He doesn't realize who he is at first. It is during war, so city was all destroyed. There really isn't isn't warfare  going on around me. 

For next week we will finish the book and my job is going to be summarizer.

Discussion Director

Lana Beko 7B
Discussion Director
Anne Frank
Week 3

Question 1: What were your thoughts about the ending of the diary, and the afterwards section that her father has wrote?

Group opinion: It was not a real ending, because it didn't explain how everything ended and the story was cut off.
My opinion: Personally, I feel bad that she didn't have the time to finish her diary, and it sort of leaves the reader to think a lot about it. Also, she sacrificed a lot in the passed few years, for them just to die in that way.

Question 2: Would you be able to be hiding during war for 2 years without seeing your friends, but hearing new that they have died or about to?

Group opinion: I think that if it is necessary for you to survive, I would be able to do it.
My opinion: I would feel really bad, because my friends are a huge part of my life. But in the same way, if I have to go to hiding in order to survive, then I would do it as long as my family is with me.

Question 3: Imagine you were Anne's best friend that survived the war, and you can't wait to see her after 2 years of her hiding to survive, and then you hear that she has died. How would you feel?

Group Opinion: (DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO ASK THEM THIS QUESTION)
My opinion: I would be very sad, and in the same time very angry. Because killing people is no good, and Anne and her family and friends didn't deserve to die in that way after sacrificing so much just to go in hiding for a few years to survive the war.

Question 4: Imagine you and your older sister like the same guy. Would you leave him so you stay god with your sister, or would you just continue fighting for the guy and ruin the relationship with you and your sister?

Group Opinion: (DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO ASK THEM THIS QUESTION)
My Opinion: I would stop fighting over the guy, because boys are not worth ruining your "relationship" with your sister. Family is way more important than boys, and sisters do fight a lot but they should never stop talking because of a reason like that.

Question 5: When you started reading the leftover pages, did you expect that Anne would die, or did you think she would survive after hiding for so long?

Group Opinion: (DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO ASK THEM ABOUT THIS QUESTION)
My Opinion: Because Anne Frank was my hero in 4th grade, I knew that she would die in the end because they found them, and I also knew that her father found the diary and published it. But I never had the chance to read the diary and now I am really happy that I had the chance to finish it. But If I did't know anything about Anne, I would think that she would survive because their hiding place was so good that rarely anybody could find them, and they hardly ever had any threats from other people (even though there were thieves at times coming, they never found their hiding spot - or their Secret Annex)