Honors english essay

Christine Scullywest
Honors English essay

This semester we read Shane, The Call of the Wild, and The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittan. These books all related to what we have been learning and studying in our US History class and English class. Shane is about this guy who is always traveling and he comes to this town and helps this man and his family out. The Call of the Wild is about this dog that gets taken up to Alaska/Canada area and is a sled dog under very harsh conditions. The Jane Pittan book is about a former slave and her life and how she lives it.
The book Shane relates to our US History class because it is about a conflict between boundaries of two families in the mid-west and in our history class, we talked about the westward movement. It was where a lot of people wanted to move west and families were settling the whole US. There were also lots of boundary disputes, some which led to war, like the Mexican War, although that is on a much bigger scale than the one that is in the book, it is the same idea because people died over conflicts like that.
The book, The Call of the Wild is about this dog and he got sold illegally to a different owner who took him up and made him a sled dog for people trying to mine gold. The owners of the dog are really mean to him, they whip him and beat him, and some are really stupid, but the biggest danger is that of the other dogs, because they are constantly competing for the highest rank. This book relates to what we have been learning in US History because it is about the extremes of the gold rush, and to what extent people went to try and get rich. It also resembles part of the human kind, the way that people want things so badly they will kill other creatures to get it, like dogs in this case. It not only resembles the human kind though, and since it is written from the point of view of a dog, it shows the greed and need to be the best dog and to survive. I say greed because some dogs just fought because they wanted to, and others, like Buck, fought for their lives.
The Jane Pittan book highly relates to our US History class because it is all about slavery and how harsh it was and what it was like to live it. Jane Pittan ran away, and came very close to dying when she was 11 years old by a group that hated African Americans. This was very common, people, mostly slaves, getting killed by white people. Jane thought she was going to make it to Ohio and find General Brown, but then she gave up and her life went in another direction. She moved from plantation to plantation, working and all along caring for Laura's little boy Ned. She died when she was 110 years old and she died at a gathering of angry African Americans just a little bit after the Rosa Parks movement.
Overall, I liked all three of the books, because they were all interesting and you learned something new. I think I liked the Jane Pittan the best because it related to our History class the most. Shane was a little boring, but very suspenseful, and The Call of the Wild was very gory, but very well written, especially from a dog's point of view.

~Christine

Miss Jane Pittan 5

Yay!!! I am now officially done with all my postings for this years honor books, although we still have to do that essay. I thought this book was better than the others we have read, although it was pretty boring at the end, Ithink the author could have left out the last 100 pages and it would have been better. haha Well anyways, Jimmy, that guy that they all thought was going to be the "One" obiously didn't turn out to be very famous because I didn't know about them until I read the book! Please, if anyone knows of a doggie that needs to be adopted, contact me..thanx!

Miss Jane Pittan 5&1/2

Yeah I am only going to write a little bit here because I haven't read that much since the last blog. I seriously need like to clear up on what happened when that Tee-Bob killed himself. I thought that Tee-Bob and Robert were the same people, but I guess I was wrong. If any of you have any idea what's going on, can you please comment and tell me? Thanks, well I kind of know, but it's still kinda fuzzy.

Miss Jane Pittan 4

I think it is wierd how Ned dies. He dies because he wants to teach. What a stupid reason. The stupid police or whatever don't even believe the guys that were witnesses, or at least they weren't strong enough to speak up for themselves and say that that Andrew guy was lying. I would have said he was lying, because that's the truth. I like how this book relates to what we are learning in US History. I hate it though, that people got tourchered like that. I think that I would rather not live, than be a slave in the south or be in the Hollacust. Well that's enough of gross bad stuff for now. (By the way, does anyone know of a dog that needs a home? if u do, contact me) thanx

Miss Jane Pittan 3

When Ned built the school, he knew he was going to die. He still pressed on. He wasn't afraid, and he wasn't scared in any way. I think that if I were a slave, I would be like Martin Luther King and Ned. I am glad I am not a slave. I like it how Ned keeps running until he gets his chest blowen off. He never crawled. I think my favorite part of the whole book so far is when Jane and that other girl, Andrea, or someone, that daughter of Andrew C. that was talking to Jane and she was like, my Dad keeps beating me every night, because of the Chariot of Hell. She's like, I have showed you the scars on my back. Jane goes, I wish I could show you the scars on my heart.

Miss Jane Pittan 2

Well I just got finished publishing the first post like 2 minutes ago. Anyways, as I was saying, Miss Jane's little stories are all very interesting. Like Tom Sawyer, it is filled with little adventures that all add to big story, of someones life, the life being the life of Jane. I think it is sooo sad that Ned's Mom and little sister died by a racist group that smashed their heads in. I can barely thinnk about that. How could someone be possibly be so horrid????????????????????????????? I couldn't even live in that time. Killing someone??? Watching them die??? Smashing their heads into the ground with sticks?? Seeing little innocent babies suffer because you are taking a stick and smashing their heads??? I seriously don't understand it.

Miss Jane Pittan 1

Hello, everyone! Well then, I am on page 140 so far of the book, and I would have to say that this book is tied for first place out of all the honors books with Tom Sawyer. I like it that Jane doesn't talk in proper english, because I think it takes less time to say cause, than because, and I think it's great that she leaves out all the thes and little words. It is much much easier on my eyes. lol Not that I can't read big words, haha, but I would rather read little words. I think all the little stories that Jane has are all very interesting.

Call of the Wild 5

Yay I finished Call of the Wild, it was a pretty sad book because aside from the pack of the wolves at the end and Buck, all the poor little doggies die. The author of the book, Jack London sure spends alot of time describing in detail about the surroundings of the wilderness and how Buck feels and uses his 5 senses to his advantage. It took me a while to get what the author was saying when he said that Buck marched out of camp and then like turned into a fox or something. I get it now though. Overall, I think this is a very well written book, but it takes a long time to read all of the authors descriptions. Does someone want to tell me wut the next book is? Thanx

Call of the Wild 4

This book is sooooooo incrediably sad!!!!!!!! I hate it how all those poor little animals die, they are so innocent and they had to get beaten to death and killed by their peers. O well, there is nothing I can do about it now. I wish I could though. Those stupid stupid people that don't even know how to take care of sled dogs and they feed their dogs too much to begin with and then that woman, who is "soft" shouldn't have come along with them in the first place if she was just going to sit in the sled, the little starving, freezing, exauhsted doggies had to pull the really really heavy sled. I was so glad when John saved Buck, although I wish he had saved all the dogs.

Call of the Wild 3

I seriously think this book is really depressing, at least if you were a dog it would be very depressing. All the poor "little" doggies get beat up and it was really sad when all the starving huskies came into the camp and started visously eating all the food in sight. Then everyone, including the humans there got all gross, with blood and bites and cuts and everything that they went through trying to defend thier food. One particular thing I thought was particually gross was that when Buck bit into the jugular vien in the other dog's neck and the "warm" blood started spurting out and he thought it felt good so he went around biting other dogs' necks. GROSS!!!!