Tag: 7th Grade English

   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!

   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.

   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.

   One, cold Friday night, some boys and I were supposed to camp, but it was canceled so we got to spend some of the night at my Dad’s Shire. We could not camp out there because there was not enough room for all the tents, so we had to just stay there for a while. We had a fire, hot chocolate, and lots of fun. We even have a swing and a zip line there!

   Later, my friend Jaden and I wanted to get to the bottom of the zip line through the woods, but my brother Wyatt wanted to come along with us. Jaden and I did not want him to come with us, but we had to take him with us.

   When we were about halfway there, it started snowing really, really hard; so hard, in fact, that we could not see very well. Wyatt brought along a flashlight, so he went in front to lead the way to light the way for us and regretted not wanting Wyatt to come along. We eventually got back to the others and the fire and warmed ourselves up a bit.

   When it stopped snowing the result was that we got really cold and snow was all over the place. Fortunately, we had hot chocolate to warm ourselves up and we played for a while or just sat by the fire till it was time to go home.

   I have just finished reading “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. It was about when a kid named Hank got transported to the Middle Ages. When he was discovered by knights, he was imprisoned and was to be burned. The Eclipse was on the day he was to be burned, so he used the Eclipse to get out of it, and after that, he claimed to be a great magician. He also made many inventions. Of course, this was just a dream and eventually ended.

   A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is Satire, which means it is generally meant to be funny. When Hank, “The Boss”, and the king were about to be hanged, Sir Lancelot and five hundred knights came to rescue them on bicycles instead of horses!

   Mark Twain used Visualisation in this book. Hank knew he was in the Middle Ages when he saw the castle. Mark Twain also described people very well. There were knights in shiny armor and chain mail and peasants in old, raggedy clothes.

   I felt the mood of this book was amazing, weird, happy, sad, and scientific. Juxtaposition is putting two things together when they do not go together. Hank in modern clothes and a knight in shining armor is an example of juxtaposition.

   In this book, Hank is forced to interact with a different Milieu, which is a person’s social environment. The time period Hand came from did not have any kings, peasants, knights, etc; therefore, he was forced to interact with people from a different time, period, and social status. This story had many different tones. For example, when Sir Lancelot and the knights came to rescue the king and hank on bicycles, the tone was funny and weird. After they won a war with just an electric fence, I felt amazed and satisfied that they won the war.

   I don’t know whether it was a dream or if I had really been transported back in time. Let me tell you my story. I was going to bed as usual and fell asleep. All of a sudden, I noticed that something was licking my face. After I opened my eyes, I saw stars and a sheep licking my face! I jumped up as fast as I could and looked around and found out that I was on a hillside surrounded by sheep! I was like, “What in the world?! Where am I?” I saw a town in the distance, but it did not look like a modern-day town.

   I said, “Where are all the cars, and the streetlights, and why are the people there using candles instead of electricity, and those houses dod not look like our house.”

   Once I turned around, I noticed shepherds, but these shepherds had on tunics and robes and had shepherd canes. When we were trying to figure out who each other were, a bright light appeared in the night sky, and we were so afraid. But a loud, booming voice said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For unto you this day in the city of David…”

   I could not believe what I was hearing! This was the night Jesus was born! After the angels left, we went to see Jesus. After I saw Jesus, I began to feel sleepy. I laid down on a piece of hay and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in my bed again. What a night!

   The five points of plot are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. I read “The Hardy Boys”, book number 2 over the summer. It was written by Franklin W. Dixson. I am going to explain the points of plot in that book.

   The exposition is normally at the beginning of the book and introduces the main character or main characters. In the book, the main characters are the Hardy brothers, Frank and Joe, their friend, Chet, and someone named Spencer Given who hired them to go on his ship with him on a trip to make sure it will not be sabotaged.

   The rising action leads to the climax while building tension in the story. At the beginning of the book, they were warned not to go on the ship and to turn down the deal Spencer had given them. Another time when they were on the ship, someone pushed Frank over the side of the boat toward the turning propeller, but he was saved. Another time when they were in a cabin on some cots, a bulldozer crashed through, but the boys dodged it just in time. They meet a lot of other dangers along the way.

   The climax is the highest point of action in a book. The climax in “The Hardy Boys” is when the three boys get captured, but Chet escapes and calls the police.

   The falling action solves the tension that was built up earlier in the book. That is when the police find and rescue the boys and arrest the bad guys.

   The resolution is the end of a story. In the book, the resolution is when the boys find all the clues to what the bad guys were doing.