Aubrey Roahrig
English 1109 at 10:30 M-W
9/11/20
Journal Three
My active reading in both books is going very well. So far, I have highlighted something in every chapter, written notes and asked questions. Whenever I was told to annotate in books I never really did it but now I feel like I’m getting more into it and it’s becoming so effortless.
I haven’t been connecting that much to Cisneros’ book, but a lot with Clarett’s. Neither book is hard to pick up, I think I just prefer Clarett’s over Cisneros’ because it is so easy to relate to on some levels. Throughout Clarett’s book, I’ve had connections to the mimicking of older siblings and the crying after a loss of a very important game. What’s not going well is I feel it is very difficult to connect to Cisneros’ book. I find it hard to annotate things within her book that isn’t new characters or things we go over in class.
A question I’ve thought of for One and Done is, why hasn’t his mother tried to straighten him out with the criminality? Something important that I noticed within chapter four was how determined Clarett was to succeed in football. He has always been determined in everything he did, but football was a whole other level for him. He could visualize himself succeeding and didn't stop even when he was injured because he wanted to prove something of himself. He was focusing more on school so he could be able to play football for a long time, and he was just getting his whole life together because of his love for football. Which I thought was very admirable.
Aubrey, thanks for your honest reflections, and I think Cisneros is a harder book to be active on and that's why I look forward to talking about some of the chapters in class on Monday so we can kind of learn how to do it better together.
ReplyDeleteI like your question for Clarett's book. I wondered the same thing. It's possible his mother was in the dark, or that he lied about everything? Or it's possible she did try, but he is leaving that part out of the book?
It is hard to annotate Cisneros’ book because she sometimes crams so much information in one chapter.
ReplyDeleteI like how you connected to Clarett's book through having siblings, I agree with that, I didn't think about that connection until now, with my step-siblings.
ReplyDeleteHi aubrey, I agree with you that either book is hard to pick up, and that I also choose to read Clarett just because I feel like there is also something happening. Its exciting to read about someones life and all the struggles he went through to be where he is at right now.
ReplyDeleteTo answeer to your question I feel like is that his mother is always gone working and she is never there really to watch him it was more his grandmother. And maybe since she raised them there in Youngstown I feel as if she was just used to all the criminal activity, so my guess is that she never really thought her kids would make it out of that place and do something with there life's to succeed