Journal 07

"Use Perry’s sister’s letter on page 140 to explain what is meant by, “It is no shame to have a dirty face, the shame comes when you KEEP it dirty.” What is she talking about and why does she say this? Be specific."

What Perry's sister means is that, if you get in trouble, learn from your mistakes and don't do it again, or try and make it better.  "Clean" your face by staying out of trouble afterwords.  She's saying that everyone makes mistakes, but if you continue to make the same mistakes and you just don't care about yourself or other people, you should be ashamed.

Journal 06

"Look back on your Venn Diagram of Dick and Perry. What else can you add? Comment on their backgrounds and new information you’ve learned about them."

Perry had a very hard upbringing.  His life was hard even before his parents started fighting, because traveling around in truck with three other kids cannot be enjoyable.  When his mother became an alcoholic and moved out with the kids and let them run around the neighborhood, he had plenty of opportunities to get into trouble.

Dick had a fairly normal upbringing, as far as I can tell.  He had a normal family and his parents loved him.  He's just a bad person, in my opinion.

Journal 05

"Comment on the crime scene and reaction to the crime."

The crime scene was bad, but it could have been worse.
The fact that everyone was tied up before they were shot was pretty bad, because it meant that all the family knew that they were going to be murdered.  It's weird that Herb's throat was cut before he was shot.
But, at least none of the family was tortured or molested.  They all died fairly quickly.

Journal 04

"Give your reaction to Dick and Perry. What do you know about them? How do you feel about them? Make predictions about them."

I don't like them, at all.  They're weird.  Perry is incredibly smart and also really stupid at the same time, and Dick's just kinda stupid, but he still loves his family.  The way that they plan to - and do - kill the Clutters with no remorse, and without any apparent reason, is also really odd.

I predict that they'll make a mistake somewhere along the line, or get in over their head.

Journal 03

"What is and is not effective about Capote’s style of writing? Compare In Cold Blood to his writing of “Miriam”. What do you think about the novel so far? Please be specific."

 Capote's descriptions are very well written and effective.  He sometimes goes off on tangents in the middle of sentences, which can be confusing, though.  In Cold Blood and "Miriam" are very similar, in both the tone and the writing style.  I'm liking the book so far, but it is moving rather slowly.

Journal 02

"As we talked about yesterday, Senior English B is a required class for graduation!! With that being said, what are your goals for this class? Why are these goals important to you? How do you plan to achieve them? How can I help?"

My goal for this class is to do well and have fun.  I want to achieve good grades because I enjoy this class, and I want to have fun because having fun is part of why I enjoy the class.  I plan to achieve them by doing my assignments and spending time doing them.

Word Cloud!

Journal 01

Hey, hi, I'm Jessica!