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Robin Hood and his merry men did not have anything to eat that morning. After several minutes of hunger, Robin Hood said, “I will go fishing and catch some juicy trout for breakfast.”

“But Robin, you’ll die! You know the Sheriff’s ships are patrolling the harbor,” said Little John.

“I realize that,” said Robin, “but look at all these hungry men. I can’t just let them die of starvation. Besides, I’ll have a fisherman disguise on. They won’t recognize me.”

“If you say so, but I’ coming with you,” said Little John.

“All right,” said Robin. So they put on their disguises, grabbed their fishing poles, and left.

“Halt! Who are you?” asked one of the guards.

“We’re just going to fish, cause we are so hungry and we have nothing to eat,” said Robin. Eventually, the guard let them pass. Robin and Little John together caught seven trout for his band of sixteen merry men.

When he got back to his hideout, the cook cooked the trout in less than an hour for one trout. When he was done, the merry men were so hungry, there were no leftovers.

“But what will we have for tomorrow?” asked one of the merry men.

Robin said, “Little John and I will just fish for more trout but for more than today, so we will have leftovers for the next day.”

And so they did just that the next day.

   A novel is “a long prose narrative that describes fictional characters and events”. A short story is “a piece of prose fiction shorter than a novel”. A novella is “a text of written, fictional narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel”.

   Some similarities between these forms of writing are that novels and short stories are written in prose which is “written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure”. Another is that all three are fictional stories. One difference is that they are all different lengths.

   I like novellas best because it’s not too long like a novel, and it’s not too short like a short story. One example of these forms of writing is “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. This book is a novel and so is “Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle. Some novellas are “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells. Two examples of short stories are “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, a common nursery rhyme, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories about Sherlock Homes.

   In the book “A Knight of the White Cross”, the main character is Gervaise. Gervaise is a page who is a young male servant who sometimes carried messages for a nobleman. He was assigned to serve on a gally. Even though he was to serve on a galley, he had a plan to keep them from being captured by 4 pirate vessels, and because of this plan, the galley was able to capture the 4 pirate vessels. A galley is a ship which has rowers instead of sails.

   Gervaise eventually got back to the castle at Rhodes and was knighted because of his brave deed. He also decided to learn how to speak Turkish for 9 months. He was put in charge of a ship to take back the Pasha of Syria (which is in Syria because he knows how to speak Turkish. After he succeeds in taking over the Pasha of Syria, he goes to a party in which he sees a mysterious Greek talking to the slave, so he asks to be put on a galley as a slave to figure out a plot. He eventually figures out the plot and stops thousands of slaves from escaping from Rhodes since he could speak and understand Turkish.

   As a reward, he is put in charge of a galley, and all the people working on the galley were younger than Gervaise! He captures two or three of the Corsair fleet. They also burned or captured the entire fleet. when he returned to Rhodes, the Countess’ daughter, Claudia, gave Gervaise a gage at a party. When Gervaise was out at sea again, he gets captured by pirates and they stole the gage Claudia gave to him. He is sold to a kind master, but he escapes and gets his gage back. He returns in a small fishing boat, but almost gets captured by the Turks there waiting to attack the city. When some Turks tried to cross the moat, Gervaise sent fire ships and they destroyed most of the boats trying to cross the moat and the rest retreated. The Grand Master died, but the Knights of the White Cross win. After the battle, Gervaise asks if he can stop being a knight. After his request is granted, he marries Claudia.

   I am half way through reading “A Knight of the White Cross”, by G. A. Henty. It is about when Gervaise started out as a page, then became a knight of the Hospitaller of Saint John.

   The knights are on the island of Rhodes in a castle. The castle has a prison to keep prisoners and make sure that they do not escape. Sometimes when they are not at Rhodes, they are at sea in galleys chasing pirates or fighting enemies or taking a trip to get someplace. Rhodes is in the Mediterranian Sea of the coast of Turkey.

   Gervaise started out as a page, then he became a knight of a galley. After being chased by pirates, he was crashed on an island, but he found a way to escape and get back home. Back at the castle at Rhodes, he was knighted because of his courageous act. After this, for nine months, he studies Turkish and because he could now speak Turkish, he kept thousands of prisoners from escaping because of discovering a plot! You’d expect someone to become a better fighter to become a better knight, but just by learning Turkish, Gervaise became a better knight. See you next time!

White Fang

Posted 6 years ago by OwenPitts

   I just finished reading “White Fang” by Jack London. I really liked it. It was a very exciting book.

   It was set in the Yukon territory. White Fang’s mother was part of a dog sled team. White Fang’s den and a Native American village are some other settings. None of my other school books I have read this year have any of these settings.

   The book “White Fang” was written from White Fang’s perspective. Whenever something happened in the story that White Fang did not understand, the Author would explain it. In other books, perspective comes from a human.

   There are lots of Themes in White Fang. Some of them are exposure to nature, hardship, curiosity, instinct, and happiness in rest. Some of these themes are in the other books I have been reading. For example, hardship is in Wulf the Saxon, happiness in rest is in all of them, and instinct is in no other book I have read.

   The book talks about White Fang’s whole life from a pup to when he is an adult. Wulf the Saxon is the closest book to that. White Fang also has to learn from trial and error. The people in the other books learn from teachings instead.

   Thomas was born in 1225 A.D. in Italy to a count and countess. At age five, he began school. When Thomas was old enough, he was sent to Naples to attend a university there by his parents. Thomas was influenced greatly by Aristotle’s writings and the Dominicans, a new order of monks.

   When Thomas was 19 years old, he became a member of the Dominicans; however, when he told his parents about this, they were very displeased, so they were kidnapped inside the castle they lived in for two years until Thomas’ mother helped him “escape”.

   After that, he rejoined the Dominican Order of Monks. Thomas’ greatest work is the Summa Theologica. Aristotle had the most influence on Thomas’ life. He died reciting the commentary on the Song of Solomon. He greatly influenced the thinking of the church. He also worked to increase the logical reasoning in the church.

   A project I had to do recently was part of my science. My assignment was to build a radio. I had to watch daily videos on how to build my radio. My dad helped me to order the parts I needed. I had six weeks to complete my project.

   I had to have copper coil, wire, scrap wood, paper, foil, tape, earphones, metal, a paper towel roll, and a toilet paper roll. I was excited to see it finished, and so was my dad. He knows a lot about electrical stuff, so he helped out a lot.

   I had to take a few steps to make sure my project was successful. I had to make sure we got everything correct and in the right spot. I also had to test it out once in a while to make sure it worked correctly. If I got something wrong, we would have to change it and move on.

   It was not really successful because I thought the wire was too short. I was very disappointed when I found out that I failed. I was looking forward to being finished with a real, working radio. We also made a radio transmitter, and that was successful. A radio transmitter can give messages instead of receiving them.

   The crusaders sometimes did their best but did not succeed. I did the same thing with my radio. The Crusaders also sometimes did their best and succeeded. Again, the same thing happened with my radio transmitter. The Crusaders did not even try to succeed in their mission, which usually never happened to me.

Cathedrals

Posted 6 years ago by OwenPitts

   Cathedrals were often big and very beautiful churches. They were made of stone and were often at the center of a town. “Cathedra” is the Greek word for chair, so that means that Cathedrals were the chair of authority for a bishop.

   Cathedrals often took centuries to build. Some people could work on one cathedral and still never see it completed. Romanesque, a type of style made in the 12th century, was the kind of cathedral that was the most common style in history.

   These types of cathedrals have pointed arches, flying buttresses, and very high ceilings. All cathedrals are made in the shape of a cross and are pointed west to east. Flying buttresses are pillars that support the high ceilings. Gargoyles are stone beasts that are sometimes added to the flying buttresses.

   It takes lots of money to build a cathedral, so the church sold indulgences. They said if you bought an indulgence, your sins would be forgiven.

   I am going to talk about three themes in “Treasure Island”, a book I just finished reading. Adventure is one of them. When a young boy named Jim finds an old treasure map, he begins a voyage across the ocean to find the treasure. The only problem is that pirates are looking for the map to find the treasure before Jim and his friends get it. It takes a whole lot of courage to find the treasure before the pirates find it, which brings me to my next theme: courage.

   Courage is very important in a super long journey to find treasure, especially against pirates. Courage helps Jim to be brave while the pirates are trying to find him and the map. Courage also helps the ship’s crew, the captain, and the doctor to be brave in times of trouble. When Jim finds out that the ship’s cook and some of the crew are actually the pirates who are looking for the treasure map, it takes courage to stand up to them! The captain, the doctor, and Jim will need more courage than ever before to defeat the pirates.

   The last theme of this paper is loyalty. Loyalty is also very important as well. Jim stayed loyal to Captain Smollett, even when there were more pirates than loyal crew. He also was loyal to a hermit named Ben Gunn who lived on the island. Long John Silver was not loyal to anyone, the captain or his pirates. You would probably need these three themes to write an exciting book.

   The culture of the Saxons was extensive, but I will include only a small portion of it because I do not know a lot about it. The Saxons always had a king to rule over them. The prince is always the successor of the king, which means the prince becomes king after the previous king dies.

   the Thanes also have a high position in Saxon culture. The king gives them a large territory of land that they have to take care of. The Thanes worked for the earls who worked for the king. The knights worked for the Thanes. When there was a war going on, the Thanes would be the generals of the army.

   Wars were a problem in Saxon culture. The enemy could attack at any time when the Saxons least expected it. The enemy could take over the farms first so the city or the army could not get fresh supplies to live so that either of them could be too weak to overcome the invasion of the enemy. Another strategy is to lock people up in barns or churches and then set them on fire. It is actually extremely sad.

   I would not at all want to live there because of all the wars. There was barely enough time for peace. I read a Saxon book called “Wulf the Saxon”. It is a happy and sad book, but I liked reading it.