writing

February 3, 2014

Breaking Down Dystopia: The Hunger Games – Part 1

Dear Jerry,

Throughout the next three weeks I am going to be on the topic of ‘The Hunger Games’. In our culture today, we have become fascinated with these dystopia books, and we (the OneRoom bloggers) want to break it down, and show what it is about these books that we love so much.

Every dystopia book starts with this idea of a utopia. Now, you may be asking, “what is a utopia? And what is a dystopia?” Well a utopia is when an author makes a perfect world, and a dystopia is when that “perfect world” breaks down and begins to fall apart, or break out of its pattern. That is where The Hunger Games starts, and that is what I am going to write about.

In The Hunger Games, the Capital has tried to make their world and culture perfect for them, by separating Panam into districts that work for them in very specific ways. They have every need of theirs met without them having to lift a finger for it. For example, district 12 contributes to this by working as coal miners, for the Capital. District 11 is agricultural, District 4 handles the fishing, and so on.

For the Capital, everything is good. They have everything they want, with nice clothes, an abundance of food, and nice houses. They even have, once a year, a reality show that they put on, called The Hunger Games.They put on these “games” that every year every district must offer up two young people, one male, and one female, to fight till the death in an arena that the Capital makes, while everyone watches on TV. They do this to try and scare the Districts, so they don’t start another uprising to destroy their “perfect” Capital. So for the Capital, their lives are pretty perfect, (or so they think) until one young lady, named Katniss Everdeen, comes along and begins to rock the boat.

That is where I will pick up next week, so stay tuned!

-Maddy

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November 22, 2013

NaNoWriMo – Hannah

Dear Jerry,

I know you have been dying to read my story, but its not done yet. So you’ll just have to be satisfied with just a little piece. Enjoy!

I awake and try to get my eyes to focus. Everything looks blurry. My head is filled with a blinding pain and I try to reach up to touch it but my arm doesn’t move. I look down and let out a gasp. My arms and legs are tied to my side completely restraining me. I couldn’t move anything. I felt something wet and sticky on my right arm, and realized my sleeve is soaked in red. Blood. I gasped again, starting to panic. My breathing becomes fast and sporadic. The woods disappear and I’m in a house. A man stands over me laughing. It was the cruelest sound I had ever heard. He had a black strap hanging from his hands. A child was crying somewhere. The black strap is lifted and comes down cracking on my shoulder. I shook my head screaming, then just like that, the dream was gone and I was back in the woods. Where was the man and that evil whip? I couldn’t think about that now. I had to get ahold of the situation. I didn’t want to close my eyes because that left me vulnerable to the woods, but otherwise I wouldn’t be able to calm down and concentrate. I had to take the chance. Struggling and losing my head would only be a disadvantage to me. There was nothing I could do about my arm right now, so I had to just forget about it. I breathed deeply and let my body and senses relax. And then I heard something. Someone was crunching the leaves in the woods. It wasn’t consistent like footsteps. More like rustling. It wasn’t right next to me but sounded a little ways away. I gave myself back the advantage of eyesight and looked around once more, this time with a clearer mind. I was laying four feet away from large fallen tree trunk. It was blocking my sight for my entire right side. I needed to see past it. I wiggled my body toward it and the pain was excruciating. My head pounded as I tried to breath through it. Gritting my teeth, I repeated the action. I had to rest after a few seconds but I eventually got close enough to the old trunk so that I could peek through a slit right at my eye level. I scanned the area left to right. Then I saw him.

– Hannah

November 19, 2013

NaNoWriMo!!!!

Dear Jerry,
This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and all of us in the class are writing novels! All this week we are going to be sharing pieces of our novels with you, so here’s mine!
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When my hour is up I rise slowly and walk back to the door. When it opens, there my keeper is standing in his black glasses as usual. This man does not seem mean enough to kidnap two teenage girls and keep them here against their will. “What’s your name?” I ask curiously.

“Booth,” he answers coldly

“Booth? That’s it? Come on give me a little more than that,” I say trying to get more out of him

“That is all you need to know ma’am.”

Ma’am? Had he really just called me that? What is going on? Why is he being so kind? As these questions raced through my mind, I notice that we are taking different hallways now, and we are headed to somewhere I have not been yet.

“Where are we going?” I demand, trying not to sound suddenly scared, but he does not answer. Had this been his plan all along? Calm me down enough so I get comfortable to talk to him then lead me straight to my death? My heart starts to race and my whole body begins to shake. Here we go, this is the end for me, I hope my new friend Margaret makes it out of here ok. Maybe if she just makes a run for it outside she can get far enough and people will find her. After all, someone has to be looking for us.

We walk silently down hallway after hallway until we come to a steel door at the end. My keeper, that I now know as Booth, unlocks the door, turns to me and gestures for me to enter. I drag my feet knowing this could be the end and close my eyes tight as I enter, waiting for a death blow or something. But it does not come. I hear water dripping and I open my eyes.

-Maddy