#6 In Their Shoes

Being able to write a good quality story is hard enough on its own, but being able to write a good story while making the reader feel empathy for your characters is even harder. Some ways to write with empathy are to include many adjectives, add a lot of detail, and write in a way that your readers are able to relate to what is happening. This is an example from The Breadwinner: "One of the soldiers raised his rifle and whacked her on the head. She collapsed on the floor. The soldier hit her a few more times. Maryam and Ali screamed with every blow to their mother’s back." You feel empathy for these characters because this writing puts a clear picture in your mind. By using many adjectives, it seems like you’re living in someone else's shoes while reading this book. This is a way to make your reader feel empathy by using adjectives and using detail to make the reader have a clear picture in their mind. This makes them feel empathy for your characters.


One of the other ways that they make you feel empathy is by writing the passage in a way so that you can personally relate to the characters. An example of this is taken from The Breadwinner: "Then, late one afternoon, Parvana came home from work to find two men gently helping her father up the steps to the apartment. He was alive. At least part of the nightmare was over." As well as the other passage, this one uses adjectives and adverbs to help you visualize what is happening. The difference though is that this one is written so that you can relate to what Parvana is feeling. Most people can relate to this because it is like if your father has been away in another country for a while, and then when he comes home you are super excited to see him. Being able to relate to what the characters are going through helps a lot because the same or a similar thing has happened to you before. With this, you are able to feel empathy for the characters more than if had no idea what they are doing is like. Writing with empathy is a great way to make people to enjoy your stories even more.

#5 My Life As Parvana

My life would be very hard. Seconds would feel like hours, hours would feel like days, and the days would feel endless. I'd go out every morning trying to sell cigarettes, dried fruits and nuts. Later in the day I'd come home around lunch and get a cup of tea to fill me up. I'd have to go out and sell again after my trip home. All the while wondering if my family was safe, or if the Taliban were going to go to my one-roomed-house and take the rest of my family. Living as a girl in Afghanistan with no Father, and barely making it through the days on the money I would be making would be horrible. If I were Parvana I would be the only one able to go out and make money for my family. Without me working my family would starve. No one else can work because they are women, so they have to wear burqas. Burqas prevent women from walking very easily, and they only provide a small range of vision. Like many other men in Afghanistan Parvana's father was taken away to prison. Life would be a really hard to live like Parvana.





This morning I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to get up and get some tea ready for my family. After having a cup of tea I headed out to go to the market and sell my goods that I was able to purchase. I sell cigarettes and a mixture of dried fruit and nuts. I follow the crowd, wherever they go I follow. The market is busy with men out buying food for their families, some women sitting on the ground begging for money, and tea boys running around to sell tea to the people in the market. It makes it hard for me that there are many other boys out here trying to sell their goods. I normally wouldn't be doing this but ever since my father was taken to prison I have been the one who has to work. Women are not aloud outside without a male escorting them around, so my family cut my hair and dressed me up as a boy. I am now responsible for all the income for my family. Why did the Taliban have to take my father? Why can't they let a person get an education from outside of the country? Don't they know how hard they are making the lives for us Afghans? Life is hard but I will keep fighting until we have taken down the Taliban. I won't give up.

#4 Holocaust Survivor

Imagine having to watch your friends and family walk away from you to their death in the gas chamber, having to go to the kitchen and bring out a pot of soup with human bones and hair in it and told that that was your meal for the day, be told that you're going to Germany to work in a brick factory but instead be taken to a ''camp'' where you'll have to say good bye to everything and everyone you love. Dr. Eva Olsson had to go through all of that. On Monday our school was treated to an extremely moving and emotional presentation by a Holocaust survivor, Dr Eva Olsson. Dr. Olsson was taken to a concentration camp with her mom, her sisters, and five nieces. She was separated from the rest of her family and was forced to work all day. She was only fed a piece of bread and plain soup once a day. Some of the most moving things she talked about was being taken away from her mother at the camp, the reason for all the mass murders, and what happened after her life changing experience.





The reason for all the killing was hate. Hate from the Nazi's towards all the Jewish people. Hate caused hundreds of thousands of people to die, and even more to suffer. Hate caused Dr. Eva's life to be turned upside down. She and her mother had always taught her nieces not to use the word hate. Instead they were taught to use 'I dislike' if they didn't like something. She has also made such an impression on me that I to will try my best to not say the word hate. I would have not been able to go through everything she had without feeling hate towards the Nazi's and other people, but Dr. Eva was able to get through this horrific experience without that word.





On the first day at the camp she was separated from her nieces and mother. That would be the last time she saw her mother, the last chance she could have said 'I love you', the last time she could hug her mom. She only had her sister to fight through the pain and suffering she would go through. Many people take it for granted that they can have their mom drive them to school, pack them a lunch, or even tuck them in at night. We should be grateful for the family we have and love every one of them. Every chance we get we should say we love you to the ones who are important to us. You never know when you won't be able to anymore. After getting out of the camp Dr. Eva was taken to Sweden where she met her husband. They got married when Dr. Eva was 21. They loved each other greatly. But one night when she was 35 her husband was out and on the way home, when he was hit by another car. The driver of the other car was drunk. After everything Dr. Eva had gone through she had to loose her husband too. Dr. Eva Olsson's experiences taught me a lesson, you should always be grateful and loving to those you have and the way your life is, because you never know, it could be a lot worse.

#3 MS Team Building Trip

On Monday, October 19, our Middle School took a trip to Norval Outdoor Education Centre. The trip was the worst thing that has happened in grade seven this year. I went to Norval last year and it was pretty much the same, but this year we had a drum circle. There was a guy who led the circle who didn't talk very much so it seemed like he couldn't talk. He also got really excited, and started to sweat a lot. The drum circle was really pointless, but I'm not sure if it was because I wasn't feeling well or if it was really just pointless. In the morning we had to do low ropes. It was really boring because it was like the exact same thing that we did last year. Although the challenges were boring, our team seemed to not have any trouble solving them.


Our team was great at the challenge where you had to get a tire off of a twelve foot pole. Many ideas were presented and the one that worked was when Hannah stood on my shoulders and pushed the tire off. Our team was great at coming up with ideas to try. We also would always listen to each other when someone had an idea or something to contribute. Respect was shown most of the time in our group. Everybody would contribute anything that they thought would help the group. Our group always stayed positive and would encourage each other and cheer everyone on. But sometimes our group forgot that there is no "I" in team.

In the second challenge we had to get all of our team members across a wire that was about 30 feet long. We were unable to complete the challenge because we weren't letting people say their ideas, and if we were, we wouldn't try them. Also there were two people in our group, including me, who didn't get to even try when some people had already gone up to six times. Our team had stopped thinking about each other and started putting themselves first. Our team didn't ever start to put others first again, so we didn't complete the second challenge.


Norval was the worst thing that I have had to do this year in grade seven. Many people do not enjoy Norval and would prefer if it were not part of the Middle School trips. If you are planning to go out for a day to do fun and exciting things, I would suggest that you do not go to Norval. Instead of going to Norval I would have rather spent the day at school doing school work. For an exciting day out go to somewhere like Canada's Wonderland or another kind of place you enjoy. If I had the choice, I would not attend the trip to Norval again.

#2 Awesome Book

As some of you in my class have probably seen, I was reading an overly large book for the past week. You probably remember our science substitute asking me if I was reading the Bible when he was doing those cool math tricks. Well, I finished that book a few days ago and I think that it was one of the best books I have ever read! If you don't remember, it was not called the Bible, it was called Dark Visions. This fantastic book and many others was written by L. J. Smith, a well known author who has won many awards for her spectacular books.

Dark Visions has three smaller books inside it, but they are the same story continued on(in my opinion I don't think that it needs to be divided into three smaller stories). Kaitlyn Fairchild, the main character, has a special gift. She is able to predict the future and read peoples minds through her drawings. She receives an opportunity to attend a special institute where she will learn how to control and enhance her powers, but something very bad is happening to the herself and the four other psychics she meets there. Kaitlyn, Anna, Lewis, Rob, and Gabriel are at the institute and find out what has been going on behind their backs. One goes to the dark side and leaves the others to fight him and his new dark friends. In the midst of all this, Kaitlyn is falling for two guys, Rob and Gabriel. She must choose who she will stay with, but will all their psychic mess happening will she be able to choose? I guess you'll just have to read the book to find out.

This action packed story will keep you on the edge of your seat guessing what's going to happen next. I promise you, once your past the first couple chapters, you won't be able to put this book down! I sure wasn't able to put it down. For those who like action and fantasy this is the book for you. I LOVED this book and I'm sure if you read it you will too.

#1 The clothes make the man

Many people have heard the expresion 'the clothes make the man' Ithink that this saying is reasonable. Many people would judge a man by what he is wearing and then decide what class of society he is in, or if he deserves their attention. The same thing goes for women and children. Sometimes people will judge you on what you wear and how you look and sometimes that could be a good or a bad thing. On the negative side if you were wearing something like sweatpants and a sweater some people would take you as a person who doesn't care what you look like. They also might think that you are a lazy person. On the positive side if you were to dress formally to attend an interview for a job you'd probably have a better chance of getting the job because you know how to present yourself in a good way. Clothes can show if you are a structured person and know how to present yourself or if you're not worried what you look like and what people think about you.



I think that people can judge you on what you wear because it is like a piece of your personality. It can express what you like, for example if you like sports you could wear a sports team jersey. The clothes you wear however, don't shape who you are or what you do. You are the one who decides if you are a fun, happy, funny, or outgoing person. Your clothes aren't going to make you funny. You, yourself are going to be the person inside you and the clothes you wear aren't going to make any decissons for you. They might give you a little confidence boost, but other than that they aren't going to do much for your personality. Clothes can do a lot for showing people for how you want to express your style but I believe that they aren't really the things that make the kind of person you are.