Explorer

Author’s note:  This is a made up scene from my speech.  I am doing this piece to get a 10 on prediction.    

"Congratulations you all are now adults and will be getting your very first jobs, I would like to start off with Loon" said the mayor.

Loon came up to the mayor's bag and picked out a little piece of paper that said explorer.  This was a new job in the City of Ember so no one knew what it was. 

Loon looked up at the mayor and asked "What does explorer mean?" 

The mayor just shook his head and said "You have got to be joking how to you expect me to know all the definitions of all the jobs in this city I am just one person, find it out on your first day which is tomorrow so don’t be late."

Loon sat down and was very discouraged he thought perhaps he would like a job like this because he is a very courageous person.  But how is he suppose to know if the mayor won't tell him anything. 

"This mayor is not a good mayor he does not help the people of Ember all he does is sit and eat" said Loon.    

A few other students went and discovered what their jobs would be.  Next up was Dina one of Loons best friends.  Dina took her time picking and before she could pull the slip of paper out of the bag the mayor screamed "just pick a stupid card"

Dina looked up at him is fright and quickly pick a card out of the bag and ran to her seat.  She look at the card and she read to herself "explorer".  Dina thought "this is the same job Loon got this will be great we will explore together".

After class the two friends got together and thought of all the possibilities explorer could be.  They thought of "explorer bugs, what is in the river, survey people".  The next day Loon and Dina went to work together.  They got to where they were supposed to be but saw no one.  Finally they saw someone coming in the distance.  Their leader, before she could get one word out of her mouth Loon and Dina asked "what is an explorer what do we do?"   

The instructor said to them “it doesn’t matter.  The mayor and I have been think and talking about it and decided that it is way too frightening for anyone to go out there.  So we have decided to not have this job.  You both will be reassigned tomorrow.”

She then walked away before any of them could say a word.  “Oh I guess we will never know what is out there”

They were so discouraged as they walked home together.   

Ember Government

Author’s note:  This piece on how all the citizens of Ember feel about their government. 

Have you ever disagreed with a person who is in power?  In the novel The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, Lina and Doon the main characters in the book do just that.  They so strongly feel that the government is not right that they feel they need to take it into their own hands.  The government in Ember is appalling and all the mayors in the past have lead the city to disaster. 

In the book “The City of Ember”, the reader can discover that the government does not help and support the city.  A quote that helps support this though is "Something is going on that we don’t understand.  They say the builders made the city.  But who made the builders?  Who made us? I think that the answers must be somewhere outside of Ember." said Clary page 68.  This quote represents the troubles that Ember’s government has.  No one in Ember quite knows how the city was built or a way out of the city or even how they themselves were created.  Also Ember’s government lies about almost everything.  The Citizens of Ember never know whether the government is telling the truth or not.

Also "Some paper with writing on it.  I think it might be important." said Lina page 97. This quote also has to do with the government but more specifically the mayor’s of Ember.  This quote is referring to a piece of paper that has directions of how to get out of Ember.  Lina, one of the main characters, thinks that this piece of paper is very important however; she does not know what it is because her sister ripped it into pieces.  Lina tries to show the mayor but he doesn’t seem to care, neither do all the adults she shows.  The only people who care about this piece of ripped up paper are Lina and her two friends Doon and Clary.

Both of these quotes have an enormous impact on the novel in the sense of how the citizens of Ember feel about their government.  These quotes are a great example of how the citizens feel about their government.  The citizens in Ember don’t really know much about their history or how to keep the city running.  Also both of these quotes have something to do with getting out of Ember and the city knowledge about what is beyond where they live. 

The government in Ember does not have all the citizens to back them up on anything.  In these quotes no one knows what to do.  They have no one leading them and they don’t know much about anything outside of Ember.  All they know is what is happening now.  The mayor in the city could care less about helping anyone or giving direction on what to do with the problems in the city.  Overall these two quotes are great examples of how the citizens feel about their government.          

       

A City with no Sun

Author's Note: This is a piece that is about two quotes in the book The City of Ember and how they are very important to the story.

Quotes are very important to stories.  If there were no quotes then it would be hard to know what the characters are feeling and thinking.  The two quotes in this short response really stood out to me with their importance to the story.   

There are two quotes that are very important to this story.  The first quote is "Can you explain to me about the generator?" asked Doon page 48.  This is very important to this story in many ways one reason is because, Doon, one of the main characters wants to know and explore the generator to help the problem with the lights. The light problem is that the city is running out of light bulbs and the lights are dying, this would not be such a problem for our world because we have a sun but in the City of Ember the sun does not exist.  Unfortunately no one in the city knows how the generator works even the people that have been working there for decades.  Now Doon needs to figure out how the generator works on his own.  

This quote really affects the story, the reason that is, is because Doon is a very smart guy he knows how to take apart and put together almost anything by just looking at it.  The one thing he cannot figure out is the city's generator.  This really makes Doon mad because Doon asked "Can you tell me how it works?" page 48.  But no one who works of the generator could tell him a thing. All the workers do is replace and take off wheels, knobs and things like that when they are breaking.  

I think that the generator in these situations could be a metaphor for life.  When the generator dies; then Ember will die too.  This is why I believe that Doon is so interested in trying to repair the generator.  Also Doon is a very curios guy that wants to know how everything works.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  His curiosity might end him up in some trouble.   

What Happens with the Lights?

Author's Note: This is a piece for prediction on the book City of Ember.  I am going to be predicting what I think is going to happen with the lights.

For my book club book I am reading The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.  The City of Ember is about a city where the sun does not exist.  The only thing that produces light in this city is light bulbs.  Also the people in this city do not have very many rights.  One right that you do not have is that you do not get to pick your job.  Lina and Doon the main characters in this book just found this out when they were graduating school.  In this city how they determine your jobs is by the mayor coming to your class and one by one students in the class pick out of the mayor's bag.  His bag consists of little slips of paper that tells you what job you get.  After a three year period of time the mayor comes and sees if you are doing your job correctly if so you get to keep your job for another three years.  If not you have to re pick a job from the mayor's bag.  Lina picked pipeworker which she thought was the worst job.  Lina wanted to be a messenger in fact this is the job Doon got.  Doon was so upset he got this job because he thinks that the city needs help, the main reason is because the lights go out to much.  He actually threw a tantrum in front of the mayor.  After class Doon and Lina traded cards.  Now they both like their jobs appose to both not liking their jobs. 

I predict if nothing gets done with the lights very soon then the city will not last much longer.  The reason I think this is because you cannot last very long with absolutely no light.  Also with some of the lights going out and not coming back on for a few hours is not helping this problem.   What if that happens to all of the lights at the same time? People in the city would not be able to do their jobs.  If they needed something they would not be able to see a thing because again sun does not exist in this city.   I think one way they could get more lights would be to send one or two people into the darkness (our world) and explore.  They could find lights and bring them back.  Also they could make this a job for the newly graduated students.                    

The Revolutionary War Had an impact on everyone’s Life

Author's Note: In Social Studies we read a book and watched a movie both, happened during the Revolutionary time period.  In this essay I comparing the movie to the book.

 Imagine being in the time period where the Revolutionary War was going on.  This would have been a horrific time to have your childhood.  In social studies we were a assigned a book to read during this time period the book I read was War comes to Willy Freeman by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier.  Almost all of the books that we read were in the perspective of a child.  We then watched a movie call The Patriot by Robert Rodat.  Through both the movie and the book there were similarities and differences during this time period.     

First off the similarities, in both the novel and the movie there was at least one loved one who died because of the war that was going on.  In the novel Willy the main character her father died fighting in the war.  This made life difficult for her to live because then her mother was taken by the British.  In the movie Benjamin had multiple family members who died first in the beginning of the movie his second oldest son his name was Thomas he was shot by Colonel Tavington trying to save his brother.  Later in the story Benjamin's oldest son was stabbed by colonel Tavington fighting in the war.  In the beginning of the movie we were told that his wife died. 

Although there are similarities there are also differences, in the movie The Patriot it was in the perspective of a widow father of seven, his name was Benjamin Martin.  The novel was in the perspective of a little girl named Willy.  These stories took place at the same time however they are told from two different generations.  If both the movie and the novel were told from the other side of the war the British we might not have like the main characters.  Or if in the novel it was told by an adult or the movie if it was told by a child.  The perspectives of the novel and the movie would have totally changed the way you thought of the characters.  

Though both The Patriot and War Comes to Willy Freeman they are written in the same time period they had some differences and similarities.  But over all war had a big impact on both the novel and the movie.