Reflecting On The 2011 NJ ASK

     This month, my sixth grade level has completed the NJ ASK (New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge) about a week ago. Looking back on taking the NJ ASK, I remember being worried when the test packets were handed out, but I was disappointed when I saw that most of the questions in the math section and some in the English section were way too easy for me and most of my classmates. The questions were the type of questions we would find somewhere between easy and hard in fifth grade, noting that the NJ ASK hardness had not increased by much. However, recent studies show that the academic achievement level of teenage kids, especially middle schoolers are decreasing, so there may be a cause for this sudden easy drop. This year, we mostly did review work in math, and the math NJ ASK seemed even more easy than in fifth grade. In English, we did work that was sghlightly advanced, but the English NJ ASK was very different in some areas: the multiple choice questions were easy, I wanted more room for the open-ended response, but it was hard to fill up the many pages of the long responses.

The Ticket Dilema

    "Come on, Daniel!" his sister Amy shouted "We're going to miss the bus!"
    "I dropped my lunch box!" he cried in exasperation. Finally, he found his lunch box behind a tall eighth grader and ran onto the bus.
    "You've got to be less clumsy." Amy told Daniel, sitting on the leathery bus seat.
    whatever... Do you know that it's his birthday today?"
    "Tomorrow!?", Amy asked. "But then we wont be able to get dad a great gift in time!"
    "Sure we can." Daniel answered. "How about a fishing trip?"
    "Nah, dad will get bored after half an hour and leave. We need to do something he likes." Amy stated.
    "How about we go to the movie theater?" Daniel asked. "Dad will love the new Indiana Jones Movie."
    "That's perfect!" Amy cried out. "Now all we need to do is get the movie tickets."
    As soon as Daniel and Amy got off the bus, they ran home, took of their book bags and quickly grabbed all of their money. Because they saw they had $60- just enough for four tickets, they got on their bikes and pedaled to the movie theater.
    "Indiana Jones...No!" Amy cried. "They're all out of tickets"
    "Now there's only one place to go." Daniel said, trying to sound triumphant.
    "Where?" Amy asked him.
    "To Biff Jenkins." Daniel answered.
    Amy shuddered- Biff Jenkins was a movie ticket collector, but he was quite creepy. And worst of all, you had to pay him a week of doing his chores for him: Biff was the laziest boy on Earth.
    "All right, but you have to do two thirds of the chores since it was your idea." Amy told him.
    "Fine." Dan answered. "Lets just get this over with."
   They quickly pedaled to Biff's house. The Halloween  decorations were still up, like always. They found Biff at the front door and asked him their offer.
    "Hey Biff, can you just give us any chores except for raking the leaves? I hate raking the leaves." Daniel asked Biff with a twinkle in his eye.
   Amy smiled. Daniel could be sly as a fox when he needed to. Raking the leaves was actually their favorite chore. The neighborhod kids were lucky that Biff was only about seven years old and very gullible.
    "Sorry, but this week, you'll have to rake the leaves." Biff answered. "No refunds."
    "Come on, Daniel." Amy  told him. "We have to go home now.", she told Biff, leading Daniel back to their bikes, a smile on her face.
    They quickly rode towards home, but they suddenly spotted a road block on their usual road.
    "Oh no..." Amy frightfully muttered. "We're going to have to go through Whirley street."
    Whirley street was known for being dark and scary, and for its bullies.
    "Come on, Amy." Daniel reassured her. "I have a plan."
  So, the only thing noticed on Whirley street was an extremely fat lady, who looked as if she had wheels under her skirt. This of course was Amy and Daniel, riding their bikes in Amy's nightgown, with Amy's head with a hat on it poking out the top. They slowly rode past Whirley street, and managed to get to their house after dark.
    "We made it!" they both yelled, as they could see their house in the distance.
    They ran into the house, just as their mom was bringing out the birthday cake.
    "Wait!" Amy yelled. "We have a last- minute birthday gift!"
    Daniel quickly took out the tickets and handed them to his dad.
   "But I though that there were no ore tickets. How much trouble did you have to go through to get these?" he asked. "Anyway, this is incredible!"
    And Daniel and Amy just looked at each other, their eyes twinkling like stars.

Quote Explanatory

   Many people stress the importance of resillience: "Fall seven times, stand up eight." (Japanese proverb) If everyone gave up on doing something if they didn't do well the first time, the world would be full of losers, people who have never accomplished anything. The only reason the world is full of people with great accomplishments is because they learned from their mistakes and moved on: our world depends on resilience.
     Even after surviving terrible hardships, people still managed to emerge victorious. George Washington and his troops had to survive many hardships the winter before the Delaware river crossing: t they had to find ways to keep warm, they had to ration food down to the smallest portions, and many of the men died from the bitter cold. Although they ould have given up and gone back the way they came, towards food and shelter, the soldiers did not surrender: they kept on tolerating the cold, until the opportunity to cross the Delaware river arose. The soldiers immediately took it, and they soon saw the better side of staying in the cold camp and waiting for so lond: they were avle to launch a successfull surprise attack upon the British.
    When I started my table tennis lessons, I was horrible: I couldn't even bounce the ball on the paddle five times! But even though I was completely terrible at table tennis, I kept practicing, and I started getting better and better. Every time I dropped the ball, I would just pick it up and start again. Eventually, I could rally (hit the ball back and forth on the table) with an older player about fourty times if I tried really hard. From this expirience, I learned that trying hard and getting back on your feet to try again is the only way to learn or get good at something.
    Resilience is the only thing that keeps human beings in a constant path of progress: if we didn't keep trying after we fail, nobody would be able to accomplish or learn anything. Truly, standing up after falling in many ways is the key to progress and learning.

Should Students Be Issued School Laptops?

     Many schools issue their children special "school laptops". However, this is not the case at Herbert Hoover Middle School. Giving out laptops to children would have many advantages: children could do their homework on the go, parents wouldn't have to buy their child a computer, and it would be possible to buy costly computer programs with less hassle.
    Many middle schoolers go on vacations with their family in fall, winter, and spring break.But even though traveling is exiting, it does not give children many opportunities to do over-the-weekend homework. Many families have desktop computers, which have a longer guarantee but are not very portable. If the child had a laptop, they could bring it with them on vacation and finish any typed/group work. The opposition's standing point may be that children may have problems with wireless servers in a hotel room, but most hotels actually offer free wireless internet.
     Computers can be costly: A good computer and monitor can cost about $        . If students are given laptops, their parents will not have to worry about buying a computer for their child. In fact, some poor families might benefit from getting a laptop more than they ever imagined. Some people might state that most families have 2 computers already, but those families have two computers because the parent's jobs require them to be using computers. If both parents are using the two computers, the child will not geta chance to finish his or her homwork.
     Nowadays, computer programs are easier to buy, but they still are pretty expensive: the disk for the Microsoft Word program costs just about $300! An average school has just about that number of sixth graders, so if everyone chips in, each child's family will only have to pay about a dollar to buy the disk for the school, so the software could be downloaded to every computer. Better yet, with the help of the seventh and Eight graders, the school could buy software that is even more expensive. People might say that downloading the software minto each computer would take a long time, but if all grades paid about five dollars each, the school would be able to but about five or six copies of the program, making the downloading go faster.
     Issuing Herbert Hoover Middle School students laptops would have many benefits. It would help students do homework while on vacation, and it would save families a lot of money on computers and computer programs. Issuing Herbert Hoover Middle School Students Laptops is the right choice!

Uniforms Persuasive Essay

FCA’s                                                                Alisa Lytvyn
1. Supporting details                                            March 16, 2009
2. Parallel structure                                              English 6-1
3. Sophisticated vocabulary                                 School Uniforms

Dear Superintendent DiMuzio:
    “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.” (Charles Evan Hughes, US Supreme Court Justice, 1925) Schools around the United States often have problems over what their students should wear, because clothing can become a distraction from education. More and more schools are deciding to enforce dress codes to lower behaviour problems. However, in trying to solve one problem, uniforms create new problems, like disgruntlement among students. Uniforms are not a great decision, because they limit children’s shining creativity, they often cost more than regular clothes, and they will not improve, and even possibly worsen the behaviour of students.
   In a school, creativity is prized just as much as intelligence: art class, music class, and projects are places at least a little bit of creativity is required. Uniforms suppress the creativity of students by not letting them choose out outfits. Many children really like having their own sense of fashion, their own sense of style. Children also have pride in themselves if they have the newest pair of stylish boots, or a T-Shirt that shows a little bit of who they are on the outside. Many teachers say that fancy clothing can provide distractions, but distractions can also be open windows, pictures, or any thing around the classroom: children with wandering minds can find a distraction anywhere.
    “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” (Henry David Thoreau) Uniforms are likely to be costly, since many are specially designed. If you look at any designer clothing store, you will see that the prices of the clothing are sky-high compared to buying regular clothing at your average store. Even if you only have to buy two to three uniforms, you will also need to buy ten to fifteen sets of clothing to wear after school, instead of just buying ten to fifteen outfits to wear everywhere.
  Many people believe that uniforms will reduce bullying. But “If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” (Anatole France) Even if uniforms are enforced, bullies will find other reasons to torment people. Actually, bullying about clothing isn’t the main type of bullying right now: cyber bullying is, and cyber bullying happens because of bigger reasons, like religion or ethnics.
Some people argue that studies have been done about bullying, and that they showed that schools with uniforms had a reduced rate of bullying. However, this “reduced rate” was later proved to a minuscule difference.
    Enforcing uniforms is not very wise, since they limit creativity of students, and they cost more than regular clothing. Some people say that making children wear uniforms can reduce bullying, but that is not necessarily true. Uniforms go completely against the American beliefs: “America has believed in differentiation, not uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief, it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.” (Louis D. Brandeis)

Boardroom Persuasive Essay

     Parents often don’t allow their child to keep a pet, and simply because the child is too young. Even if the kid cries and begs and pleads, some parents just say “You’re not responsible enough to take care of a pet.” But that isn’t a problem with Amazing Pet Chubs! Pet chubs are cute and funny, and they are also easy to take care of, so they will appeal to both children and their parents. Chubs are completely child safe, and they will make any kid laugh after a hard day. Amazing Pet Chubs are the type of pet that will please everyone!
    Chubs are easy to take care of, because they only need to be fed once a week. If their owner still forgets to feed them, they will make little “meep meep” sounds to remind them that they have pets to feed. About 50 percent of all pets are obese. Pet chubs do not get obese, because they only eat as much as they need to stay healthy. Chubs also do not require their  their habitat to be cleaned, because they do not extrude waste. These easy things a child has to do to care for pet chubs will start them on a path of responsibility. Other pets might prove too challenging, and the child may stop taking care of the pet, leaving their parents with the long-term commitment of caring for a pet.    Many parents worry about their child’s safety when buying a pet, but this won’t be a problem with Amazing Pet Chubs! Pet chubs will not try to get under a child’s clothing or inside their ears or nose, like some nose-licking dogs, because they prefer to ride around on a child’s shoulder, where they feel most safe. If a child squeezes their pet chub too hard, they won’t cause any harm to the chub, like with other small pets like hamsters or birds. If an accident happens and a pet chub is swallowed, the pet chub will not cause any internal harm to the child, because chubs will be broken down into normal waste material once they enter the stomach and are digested.    But pet chub’s most alluring quality is that they can make any child happy after a rough day. Pet chubs naturally give off a sweet-smelling scent which will relax a person’s mind when they walk into the room. When they notice the person walk in, the chubs will softly “coo, coo”, drawing the person closer. Then, they will suddenly unfurl their acrobatic talents and do all kinds of tricks until the person is laughing so hard that the tank walls are shaking. Pet chubs have the ability to cheer up everyone, even a person who has had an extra-unhappy day.    Chubs are easy to take care of, they are child safe, and their hilarious antics will cheer anyone up: what else could a pet owner to be ask for? The Amazing Pet Chubs will appeal to both children and their parents. The only people who don’t like chubs are the type of people who do not like cute little pets: and who doesn’t like cute small pets?

Looking Back On My Commercial

   Recently, I had to work in  group to create and act out a commercial in my English class. After I reflected on the commercial, I noticed a lot of things.
   I did a commercial for Iphones with Wamia and Hadia, and the first thing I noticed was that we were all a little shaky and nervous. The commercial didn't flow as good as we wanted it to, because we improvising most of the script. Wamia had written a script, but when we acted it out, it turned out to be very long, so the script was dropped. I wish we had enough time to edit the script in class, because then we would have learned our lines and known what to say and when to say it.
    I also would want to change the place we acted it out. We recorded the commercial in the hallway, and when we were finished with our first try, we had just started our second take before the bell rang and cut us off. I was unhappy that we wouldn,t get a second chance, because the first try was a little shaky, but on the second try we could improve.
   One thing that I liked about the commercial was that everyone got an equal part, nobody spoke more than somebody else. I think that Wamia got the smallest part, but that was balanced because Wamia worked on the script more than Hadia and I did. I also liked that we found a way to combine all of our products into one. Hadia and Wamia were doing the Smartphone and Iphone, so we combined them to make the Ismart phone, and we made the company Reunited Dumplings, because that was the company I used  to advertise Pet Chubs.
 Overall, I thought our phone commercial was good, and I was happy that a little bit of comedy was added (after I "saw the Iphone for the first time", Hadia and I resorted to a tug of war match with the phone while Wamia was talking about how great the Ismart phone was in the foregreound). I just hope I get to make comercials for English class in the future, because I had a lot of fun making the phone commercial.