Wednesday, September 29, 2010

PLN #3

The short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell is intense and about very many different things and ideas. It is a story about survival, hunting, trickery, and so much more. The characters are battling each other in so many ways both physically and mentally with each other throughout the story. The General is constantly trying to capture and most likely kill Raisford. At the same time, he is also trying to break Rainsford by confusing him and challenging him to stay alive. Rainsford is trying to do the same thing to the General as well by staying alive. It challenges the General in a way that he has never been challenged. He is used to being able to catch his prey very quickly. When he can't do it this time, he gets confused and tries strange tactics. And obviously the winner of this game was Rainsford, because he did not ever break.

Monday, September 13, 2010

PLN #2

In A Smile As Big As The Moon by Mike Kersjes, like anywhere else, even the nicest of people sometimes get caught doing bad thing, though their intentions can always good. For example, one of the special education teachers had an idea to take their students on a fun filled trip to space camp but the other teacher thought it was a bad idea. She was doing something bad because she didn't want her children getting embarrassed from not being capable to participate in the activities that the space camp program offers. Another example is that a special education student would defend a person being tormented by making fun of the person doing the tormenting. He was doing something good for one person, but as a result, another person got hurt. One last example is that the principal makes the special education kids become main streamed. He believes that the students should be getting more comfortable with "normal" people, but they all get shut put from everyone. This evidence shows that bad things can always be lead by the best intentions.

Monday, September 6, 2010

PLN #1

A Smile as Big as the Moon by Mike Kersjes is about a special education teacher taking a group of 20 special education students to a space camp intended for manly "gifted and talented" students. The first and second chapter of the book is about this teacher trying to make a deal to make this dream come true. All the people that he has communicated with think that this field trip is a bad idea. All of his co-workers think that all the kids would get embarrassed if they went because they wouldn't have the ability to do anything at the camp. The people that work at the space facility don't think any special education kids could make it in their camp either. The last part of the book that i read was a scene where the teacher had a breakthrough of how he could get all the opposer's to agree that the special education kids could go to the space camp. He noticed his very young children playing with space toys and thought to himself, "if they can do it, so can my students."