Finishing Allegiant

    I just finished reading Allegiant and I was very surprised by the ending. I don't want to spoil it for you in case you're planning on reading it, but I'll say that it wasn't at all what I expected to happen. Now that I finished this series I need to find something else to read. I plan on reading The Maze Runner series by James Dashner. I'm planning on reading this book because of it's similarity to the Divergent series. I am a very big fan of fictional dystopian or futuristic themed books and therefore i think this will be a good choice. It is about a boy who wakes up in a place called the rift with no memory of anything but his name. He has to survive and escape the maze that nobody has ever made it out of. This sounds very intriguing and I am excited to read it.

Best Thing About my Book

    The best thing about the book Allegiant is probably the uncertainty about where the plot will go next. There is so much suspense that leads to various plot twists that you are constantly engaged in the story. I am a big fan of unpredictable stories so this book appeals to me. Plus the fact that the chapters rotate points of view, it makes it so one person may know something that the other doesn't. Tobias and Tris both learn different secrets and lie about different things that the other one won't know so you have the suspense of how the other person will find out. If you are like me and enjoy a unpredictable plot, I highly recommend reading the Divergent Trilogy.

Final Blogging Assessment in English 1B.

 The main protagonist in Allegiant is Beatrice (Tris) Prior. She starts in the abnegation faction, the faction of selflessness, and chooses to switch to Dauntless after turning 16. Immediately after making the switch from Abnegation to Dauntless, Beatrice changes her name to Tris and her personality changes along with it. Abnegation members are sort of looked down upon in their society and Tris is effected by this. She doesn't want to be known as the girl from Abnegation or by "Stiff", she wants to be known as Tris. She quickly grows up and learns new customs and an entire new lifestyle. By the end of Divergent, you wouldn't even know that Tris started out as a shy girl from Abnegation. The changes in Tris from Divergent to Allegiant are astonishing. Tris really breaks out of her shell and takes a position as one of the most comonly known people in this society. She has to learn to become a leader, and adapts well. She also has a lot more experience with weapons and has learned to kill, for better or for worse is a decision that you'll have to make. An example from the book that shows this new Tris is , " 'Fire, and I'll shoot him in the head,' I say. 'You wouldn't kill your own leader,' The red-haired woman says, 'He's not my leader, I don't care if he lives or dies,' I say. 'But if you think I'm going to let you gain control of that death serum, you're insane.' "This quote is towards the end of Allegiant and shows how Tris has become a deadly force that can take over a situation. She is now able to cope well with emergencies, and is willing to do whatever it takes to solve an issue, even if that means killing people. I like to think of Tris during her time in Abnegation as a bomb that is slowly ticking away. Once she chooses to switch to Dauntless, the bomb bursts open. At first the explosion is small but as time goes on the fire from the explosion burns up the way that Tris used to live and all of her old habits from Abnegation. As this happens the fire grows and becomes more reckless and out of control, just like Tris does. Throughout all these changes Tris really seems to become a whole new person. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself and read the Divergent Trilogy.

    In this blog post, i used a few aspects of syntax and diction. An example of diction that I used is,  " I like to think of Tris during her time in Abnegation as a bomb that is slowly ticking away. Once she chooses to switch to Dauntless, the bomb bursts open. At first the explosion is small but as time goes on the fire from the explosion burns up the way that Tris used to live and all of her old habits from Abnegation. As this happens the fire grows and becomes more reckless and out of control, just like Tris does." This is a form of abstract/concrete diction. I am comparing the changes in Tris to a bomb that explodes into a fire which is concrete. At the same time, i am using the fire to relate to how Tris' old habits slowly disappear of burn away which is abstract. An example of diction that I use is typically short to medium sentences with a lot of commas such as, "She quickly grows up and learns new customs and an entire new lifestyle." By using short sentences, I can keep the reader engaged and let them think over what I have said instead of worrying about reading long sentences.

    My blogging goal from the beginning of the trimester was to more effectively incorporate specific textual details into my blog in order to back up my blog and keep the reader engaged. I feel like I did a better job of this over the past trimester than I have before, but I think that there is still room for improvement. I have been trying to use quotes as topics for my blog posts and to write about what I'm reading at the moment so I can clearly remember details from the text that can be used in my blogs. For instance in this blog post, i used the following quote, " 'Fire, and I'll shoot him in the head,' I say. 'You wouldn't kill your own leader,' The red-haired woman says, 'He's not my leader, I don't care if he lives or dies,' I say. 'But if you think I'm going to let you gain control of that death serum, you're insane.' " This quote showed how Tris has developed over the course of the story and helps not only back up my point, but engages the reader in something beyond my own writing, In the future I will continue to improve my use of textual evidence because it makes my writing more interesting, and helps support my points and opinions. 

  

Authors Purpose

    The authors purpose for writing this book is primarily to entertain. Veronica Roth wants us to enjoy reading her books and to want to keep reading. There isn't much of any persuasion in the book and real, factual information that applies to our world at it's current state is limited. The one purpose that stands out more than any other is to entertain. As i said above, she wants you to read her books and wants you to enjoy reading her books. While i read this, I was and still am entertained throughout so she was successful in entertaining me, and many other readers.

Character Change

    The main protagonist in Allegiant is Beatrice (Tris) Prior. She starts in the abnegation faction, the faction of selflessness, and chooses to switch to Dauntless. Immediately after making the switch from Abnegation to Dauntless, Beatrice changes her name to Tris and her personality along with it. Abnegation members are sort of looked down upon in their society and Tris is effected by this. She doesn't want to be known as the girl from Abnegation or by "Stiff", she wants to be known as Tris. She quickly grows up and learns new customs and an entire new lifestyle. By the end of Divergent, you wouldn't even know that Tris started out as a shy girl from Abnegation. The changes in Tris from Divergent to Allegiant are astonishing. Tris really breaks out of her shell and takes a position as one of the most comonly known people in this society. She has to learn to become a leader, and adapts well. She also has a lot more experience with weapons and has learned to kill, for better or for worse is a decision that you'll have to make. Throughout all these changes Tris really seems to become a whole new person. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself and read the Divergent Trilogy.

Real Life Issue in the Text

    Veronica Roth exaggerates the real world issues of division among people and the choices we make. The fact that there are 5 different factions to begin with really shows how people tend to group with people who have similar beliefs as them. This leads to division among society and in the Divergent Trilogy, violence and other social issues. The first thing i think of when relating this faction system to the real world is political parties. People will take a stance and choose their party, typically based on either their opinions or just how they were raised to be. Then when the time comes to make important decisions that could effect our country dramatically this division slows progress. For instance, the government shutdown that kept people out of work and lost billions of dollars for the government was caused by this division among politicians.

Text to Self Connection

    I'm not going to spoil anything with this aside from telling you that Tris is about to fly in a plane for the first time. This reminds me of my first plane ride. Before taking off, Tris is both nervous and excited. She never knew air travel was even possible so she doesn't really understand what being in a plane is like. I was very young on my first plane ride and, similar to Tris, was a little scared about the risks of flying, but more excited about what it would be like to be so high up in the air. As Tris lifted up in the air, she was speechless in awe of the experience that is flying. I don't remember being amazed to the point that she was because I have seen planes before and she hasn't, but I was very amazed by the feeling of taking off the ground. Seeing the view around me from so high up was an amazing experience as it was for Tris.

Krista Ramsey Introduction Activity

    I chose to blog about a column on teachers being trained to use guns in the case of an emergency. The article can be found here: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/22/krista-the-very-poor-case-for-arming-teachers/5744065/.
This column complains about a new local effort being put into place that requires teachers to not only be trained on how to use a firearm, but to have one ready during the school day in the rare chance a hostile intruder were to threaten the school.

    A line that I think is well written is where she says, "Then comes the issue of responding to an actual threat. The logistics will be confusing and the complications enormous." I like how she takes the scenario and finds its weaknesses so they can either rethink the training or improve the plan. She also makes good use of denotation and connotation by using the word enormous. This really emphasizes how problematic this situation could potentially be. Her writing style is both straight forward and in a way sarcastic. She seems to be critical and informative. An example of her being critical is when she says, "This is to let you know that there are many of us who do not consider the plan reasonable at all." This gives her opinion on the new rule being put into place.

    My three questions for Krista are:
        1. Where did you go to college and what was your major?
        2. How to you brainstorm ideas to write about?
        3. What are good ways to implement writing craft into a column or story?

Early Conflicts

    So far a lot of different conflicts of all different kinds have come up. Veronica roth uses both self vs self and self vs others to move the plot forward. The main conflict is Tris, Four, and the Allegiant against Evelynn Johnson and her faction-less army. The Allegiant are a rebel group who want to keep the faction system and disagree with evelynn's reforms. They have a few small skirmishes but for the most part the factionless try to set examples in order to cause fear among the Allegiant instead of confronting them straight up. Tris and Four have some small conflict about keeping secrets and not valuing ones life over another. Four also has a problem with his dad who is set to be on trial and most likely will die. He has always hated his dad and wanted him to die but now that the dream may become reality, he isn't sure if he's ready to face it. He still has mixed feelings about his dad and thinks that his dad may still be on his side. I feel like the impact of the mystery is one of the things that keeps me reading. I love suspense and surprising results in stories and it really makes it more exciting and enjoyable to read.

First Prediction

     After reading the first few chapters, a lot of rivalries and feelings between characters have materialized. Tris and Tobias were both questioned and were set free. Evelynn Johnson, Tobias' mother, wants him to be her right hand man, but does not seem to entirely trust him. Tris and Tobias finally reunited and made up after being angry at each other for lying. I think that Tobias will be more loyal to Tris than to his mother, and that will cause some sort of conflict. I also think that they will eventually leave the city to find out what waits for them outside. Tobias and Tris have begun to get more intimate so I think their relationship could lead to an issue if emotions overcome logical thinking. But I guess I will just have to keep reading and find out how much of this is right.

My Book Choice (Tri 3)

     I chose to read Allegiant by Veronica Roth for this trimester. I chose this book because it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. I really enjoy reading action packed, Dystopian themed books and the Divergent trilogy fell right into that category. This book starts out in a futuristic version of Chicago. The citizens have found out that there is a world and people living outside of their fenced in city. However there are other, more troublesome problems at hand. The faction-less have taken over and eradicated the faction system. As always, not everybody agrees with this decision and violence is the outcome. To make things more complicated for Tris, the protagonist in the story, the leader of the faction-less happens to be her boyfriends mom. I'm excited to see how all of these conflicts can come into play and see how Tris reacts to situations that may come up.