this drawing was souper fun and I enjoyed drawing my teacher a lot

Magna Carta FAME Notes

Tyler, Isabella, Hank, Nattiel

Welcome to the skit about the Magna Carta.

Here are some key things to know when learning about the Magna Carta

Each role in this brochure is a Character in our skit.

Key years:

King Richard came into power in the year 1189 C.E.

King Richard left for the Third Crusade in the year 1190

The Third Crusade dated from the years 1189 to 1192

King John took over the throne for his brother Richard in the year 1190

Robin Hood and his Merry men started robbing the tax collectors and giving their money back to the people of England around the year 1200.

The Magna Carta was Signed in 1215.

King John died in the year 1216.

King Richard died in 1199

Key people and how they are important in this skit/story:

King Richard (played by Isabella Pozzi)

King Richard, son of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Great Grandson of William the Conquer, and brother of King John, was powerful at a very young age. At the tender age of 16, Richard the Lionheart had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father, King Henry II. King Richard became King of England at the age 32. We received the crown when his father (King Henry II died in 1189). He left the throne (at first temporarily) to lead the Third Crusade. King Richard’s splendid leadership and military skills allowed Richard to acquire many military victories against the enemy Saladin. However, while at Sea, Richard was kidnapped. He would never return to the throne.

King John (played by Henry Sanders)

King John, brother to King Richard, was half the man his brother was. He is, both in History and in our skit, depicted as a lazy, greedy, petty and selfish leader. When his brother asked him to take over the crown while he was on the Crusade, John was determined to become an infamous and very wealthy King. He accomplished this goal by heavily taxing the people of England. That’s when the Barons come into the scenario. (John signed the Magna Carta beacuse he was blackmailed into it by the Baron’s of England.

Barons 1, 2, 3, and 4 (played by Natalie Dodson, Tyler Kropp, Isabella Pozzi, and Henry Sanders)

The Barons were the second most powerful people in England. Just like the Nobles in the Byzantine Empire, the Shogun in China, and the Daimyo in Japan, the English Baron was the group of people second from the top of the Feudal Pyramid. You became a Baron if you did something amazing for the King (loyalty of sort) and the King recognized this and compensated your deed with land. (Land was power in Feudal England). Although individually a Baron was not as powerful as the King, as a group they could pressure the King into doing their bidding. When the Baron’s started to notice that the people at the bottom of the Feudal Pyramid (Knights and Peasants/Vassals) were becoming poorer and poorer while the people at the top (themselves) were becoming richer and richer because of all the taxing King John put upon his people, they realized that the people of england were going to stage a revolt unless they could do something about King John’s tax calls. So instead of murdering the king and staging an all out coupe, the Baron’s decided to force John to limit his power by telling him that if he didn’t limit his power then the People were going to stage a revolt. John, wanting anything but to lose his Kingship, John agreed to limit his power to an agreeable level. The Baron’s decided to limit the King’s power by drafting a document called the Magna Carta.

Robin Hood (played by Isabella Pozzi) and His Merry Men (Tyler Kropp as Little John, Natalie Dodson as Will Scarlet, Henry Sanders as Friar Tuck)

In our skit, Robin and His Merry Men try to help the poor people of England by robbing the tax collectors and taking the money and redistributing it to the peasants. Although it is not clear whether or not Robin Hood was fictionalized or a real person, all I know is that Robin is one of the few men in history who looks good in tights and a skirt.

Peasants 1 (played by Tyler Kropp) and 2 (played by Natalie Dodson)

Peasants, being at the bottom of the feudal pyramid, had little control at all in England. However, in some ways the peasant were the most important people in England. First of all, they tended to make up the vast majority of the population. Second of all, peasants were usually farmers, making them the leaders of the agricultural and trade element of England. Third of all, they were subject to the most hardship, so they were most likely to uprise. This usually forced the King to think twice about treating the Peasants with disrespect. It is a good idea to keep the majority satisfied. Fourth and finally, the Peasants were the foundation of the whole feudal pyramid.

In our skit, the two peasants end up following Robin and becoming one of his merry men.

Eleanor, Queen of Aquitaine (played by Isabella Pozzi)

One of the most powerful women in History, Eleanor was married first to the French King Louis VII and then to the English King Henry II, a marriage that produced the two English kings Richard the Lionheart and John. Her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and her mother was Aenor Aimery, the daughter of Aimeric I, Vicomte of Chatellerault.

In our skit, Eleanor is seen giving John political advice.

The Magna Carta (played by A Few Pieces of Paper)

The Magna Carta was the first document ever drafted in English history that limited the King’s power. This is one of the earliest images of government for the people. Sound familiar?

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Written, edited, and printed by THINC (pronounced “think”)

THINC stands for Tyler Hank Isabella Natalie Corporation

Essay Like Neal Shusterman

The assignment was to write a short story or book chapter using the techniques of Neal Shusterman the Author. Here is my First Chapter:

Hank Sanders

Christa Kaainoa

English 7

November First, 2013

DeNial, the List, and a Pound of Wet Cement.

They call us Dyle. Why? Because we are always together.  And since my name is Danny and my brother’s name is Kyle, it works out.

You may be surprised about the the story I have to tell. But if you stick with me, this, I am sure, is a story that will interest you.

Ok. Let's get back to me and my brother. Although the few who know us call us Dyle, we call ourselves DeNial. If you don’t get this joke, feel free to get up and walk out of this room, leaving the book on your pillow without ever touching it again.

I am thirteen years old. My brother Kyle is fifteen years old. We live on the south side of Brooklyn. Actually, I guess I should just say we live in Brooklyn, simply because I do not wish to have myself confined just to the south side. And anyone who has been to Brooklyn knows that some of the best hoods are in the north side. Also, I don’t really live anywhere particular. See, I used to be raised by a single dad. My Mom left us when I was just a wee thing. My dad, he was a policeman. We had a house across the bridge in Manhattan. But when he died three years ago, my aunt sold our apartment and poured all the money into a college fund for Kyle and me. After that, we were forced to move in with our Aunt who although my life depends upon, is nothing but an absent minded grouch. So every night, at around 10 p.m., after all of our duties are done, and all of our associates are paid for, we sneak back into our aunt’s apartment and pretend that today we went to school.

For the past two and a half years, Kyle and I have played hookey. We have said to hell with studying and instead gone into business. Street business.

Now, when people ask the question “how smart are you?”, they usually mean what grade did you get on that math test, or what is your overall IQ. But when we think of the term “how smart are you?” we realize that there are many different kinds of smart. We streetsmart.

You may be wondering why we no longer value school. Well, there are two answers to this question. The first part in answering this question we will get to later...But the second part to this answer is that something happened when my father was killed. Something happened inside my and my brother’s head. It was almost as if we lost all dedication to what my father had worked so hard to teach us. Once we lost our father, we lost everything that he gave us.

You see, our father worked the twelve hour shift from 5 am to 5 pm. My brother and I would get home from school at 6: 15 everyday. As soon as we walked in the door, we were greeted by my Dad. He would hug us and then tell us to get dressed for dinner. The dinner usually consisted of three or more courses, all very nutritious and all very delicious. Over dinner, we would discuss what was going on in politics in the world. My dad was my NPR, New York Times, and CNN. He taught me everything I knew and still know about politics. When all was said and done, dinner was over at 7:30 pm, at which point my brother and I would do our homework. If we needed anything, anything at all, our dad was here to solve all of our issues.

Once we were done with our homework, our dad would tell us about his day and we would tell him about ours. Every once and a while, Dad would find a life lesson in our everyday life. He would teach us about the importance of this lesson. The most important lesson that he thought he would ever give us was school doesn’t hurt. “No one expects a man of nine years old to solve the world’s problems,” he used to say to us, “they expect him to go to school, then solve the world’s problems.” He distilled in my brother and me the importance of learning at an early age.

My Dad wasn't just the only senior in my house, or the one who cooked my food, brought home the bacon, did my laundry, paid our bills. He was more than just the family leader. He was my personal leader and teacher. He was my moral north star. And above all, he was the reason I had been so committed to school. So, when I lost him, I lost everything he gave me. And all the sudden, I no longer felt so committed to school because there wasn’t a person in my life to teach me about what learning does to a child.

Am I blaming my absence in school on my dad? NO. I’m blaming it on my Aunt...

This morning, I woke up to the smell of pancakes. It was a Tuesday, which means I cook breakfast, which means my brother cooks breakfast because I am too lazy to and also because Kyle loves to cook. Now, when I say I woke to the smell of pancakes, I don’t mean I smell oil and melted butter and warm maple syrup. I mean that I smell the smell that you get when you cut a hydrogen atom in half and drop it in a Californian birch forest. Smoke. I mean seriously, Kyle should bottle up these fumes and take it to the FBI.

My brother and I left the house at 7:30 and wrote a POST IT note on the fridge for our snoring aunt telling her that we already left for school.

“Where are we headed?” I asked Kyle.

“7th Ave and Union St.” He replied.

“Oh. Why are we seeing Scar first? Don’t we need to speak to Giovannini too?”

“Well Giovannini is busy at 8, so might as well meet with Scar. He's always good to talk to,” he said looking like a deer in the headlights.

“Giovannini will meet us whenever we wish to meet with him. Keep in mind, he works for us. We need to keep the evidence flowing. Remember, Giovanni is the man who’s gang’s turf covers the linden park area. He is the most important piece of evidence we got.”

“Danny, I don’t think that that is necessary. He can meet us at 11,” Kyle said, looking skittishly at me.

I gave no reply. That was one of those times when you don’t have to give an oral reply while still getting across your point.

“K. I’ll call him”, he said.

Ever since my dad died in 2010, my brother and I have made it our goal to avenge his death. And not in the silly Harry-James Potter magicy way. ‘Cause that’s just tacky. No. Our dad died by one of the worst ways ever. Here he was patrolling the streets of Stanley and Vermont, the Linden Park area, looking out for any signs of gang activity. Then all of the sudden, as my dad was walking back to the squad car, three shots were fired and my dad slumped to the ground and was dead. There are no suspects in jail, because there were no witnesses. But because of the caliber of the bullet and the kind of makeshift weapon that was left at the scene, we are sure that the death was gang related. So, Kyle and I have made it our goal to bring justice to this never closed case. And the way only way we would ever be able to get the facts and evidence we need out of the secret societies is to immerse ourselves into the gang world. AKA start our own undercover gang. Just me and my bro, innocently working with people undercover with people who God know’s why, aren’t in jail.

“Danny, Giovannini is on the phone. He can’t meet with us until 11.”

“Put me on the phone,” I tell him. “Giovannini. I hear you can meet us at 8:00. That’s awesome. See ya then. Remember that if ya don’t show, you get put on the list. We already went over the whole cement thing.” And without letting him get a word in, I pass the phone back to Kyle.

Thirty seconds later, Kyle flips the phone closed.

“Well?” I ask him.

“It's weird,” he told me, his eyes squinting and his head tilting towards the sun, “he said he would figure out a way to meet us.”

The only reason we are in the gang business is simply to collect evidence about our father’s business. We don’t sell drugs or kill for money. The only man I’ll ever kill is my father’s murderer….

When we started this whole fake gang thing, we never thought that it would take this long, or even change our personalities this much. But we were totally wrong. The tricks of the trade, the threats, the slang, the smoking (we always smoke tobacco free cigarettes) and the tattoos (they don’t need to know that these are the bathtub tats). But worst of all, the way we treat people. The list, of course, is a reference to the list we are sure to tell all the associates is too important for anyone but us to look at (which is because we don’t have one). Whoever is on the list is destined to wake up in the back of a pickup truck with their feet in hardened cement headed for the river. We've never followed through with this threat. I guess that that is why they call them empty threats.

For the past three years of my life, I have had many chances to kill human beings. But I never have. This is because I only want to go to jail for killing the murderer of my father. I swear to heaven and earth, that that man is the only man I will ever kill….

When we got home, the dinner was already laid out on the table. It was just us, no aunt. Kyle and I were of course, fine with this, because we didn't want to have to make up what our math teacher Cliff had taught us that day. As far as she knew, we went to school today, just like we had every day for the past two and a half years.

"The Schwa Was Here" Book Report

Hank Sanders

Christa Kaainoa

English 7 (Pink)

11/19/2013

The Schwa Was Here: By Neal Shusterman

Debrief Essay: By Hank Sanders

Take the word “special”. The word “special” is one of many words in the English language with a ‘schwa’. Schwa is the word for a vowel that goes unnoticed. In this case, the unnoticed letter is the ‘i’. However, the ‘ia’ sound is what gives the word that ‘sh’ sound. Without out that ‘i’, the word would sound like “spesal”. In fact, for this reason, the letter ‘i’ is one of the most important letters in the whole word. But no one hears it. Wierd. In the book The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman, the main character Calvin Schwa is a teenager who has an odd condition where he is functionally invisible. As someone in the book says about Calvin “If you stare at him long enough, you can see what’s written on the wall behind him. He is a “schwa”. He is unseen, but important. Unknown, but powerful. Anonymous, but very much familiar. How does this happen? How does something that everyone takes for granted have the potential to do so much? One does not need to be known to be important. What one does decides what others see.

At the beginning of the book, Calvin Schwa is a distance image in the eyes of the teenagers at a busy Brooklyn Middle School. He is unknown, has no friends, and overall quite mysterious. On pg. 1, Ansty Bonanno (another kid in the book) says “I don’t really remember when I first met the Schwa, he was always just kinda there.” On top of all this, Calvin is totally unrecognized. Antsy goes on to say “He was somehow becoming invisible…”  But within the first ten minutes of reading the book, this all changes. A kid named Ansty Bonana begins noticing him. “The Schwa was about six inches away [from me],....in science class, but I had never noticed him.” Ansty tells us on pg 11. Before much longer, Ansty and Calvin are friends. This friendship comes at a small price (mostly for Calvin). Antsy informs his friend about his idea of how to make a little money off of this incredible invisibility-mind escaping trait that Calvin obtains. Calvin and Antsy start making money by doing dares for the kids at the school for money. Within days, Calvin was the go to guy. If any kid in needed anything that required some incognito surveillance, (i.e. going into the girls restrooms, scaring people, picking up classified information by listening in on conversations) Calvin was their man. However, despite all this, Calvin was no more popular, no less invisible, and had not a single more freind. When Calvin dressed up in a catsuit, an orange sombrero, and was singing “God Bless America,” the Schwa is “Barely noticed (pg. 27). This tells us that the Schwa, in terms of physical status, is unseen. But his actions, his business, his deeds are most definitely noticed.

In the book, a common metaphor is the “paperclip” idea. This is the idea that small things, things that people don’t think about, are sometimes extremely. In the book, Calvin Schwa collects paper clips. Tons of plastic baggies holding nothing but a single paperclip. These paper clips tell a story. They held together important parts of history. For example, “This [paper]clip held together pages of the Nuclear Arms Treaty signed by Reagan and Gorbachev” Calvin explains to Antsy on page 65. Another paperclip “was clipped to a mission manual for the space shuttle.” When others wish to have the first page of the treaty of the third page of lyrics to the original ‘Hey Jude’ song page, the paperclip is overlooked. The paperclip is what holds the pages together. The paperclip literally “holds history together.” The paper clip at one inch long is so important but at the same time, so neglected. So it is with Calvin Schwa and his family. Without Calvin, his family would fall apart. At a very age, his mom ran off to be with a day butcherer at the local market. A few years later, his father fell off a ladder and ever since then has (for lack of better words) lost his mind. Now Calvin goes to school, then cooks for him and his father, then does homework. Without Calvin, his father would be lonely and would be forced to take take of himself. For a man who can’t keep his own life together, no Calvin would be make his problems much bigger. But still, Calvin’s father does not recognize what he would be like without Calvin. In fact, he is so oblivious to everything his son does for him, he loses track of him to the point that he doesn’t know where his son is at any given point. This shows us that importance and recognition do not go hand and hand. Just because one is not recognized for one’s actions does not mean that their actions are not important. One does not become important through recognition. One becomes important through the importances of their actions.

These days many people try so very hard not to be a schwa. The thing they least want to have happen is life is to be not recognized for what ever they do, no matter how petty and small. They want to be credited and known at every turn in life. I know this from personal experience. I myself struggle with being recognized, something that people these days usually refer to as “being popular.” Everyday, people my age (including myself) struggle with the question “How do I become popular?” “How am I seen, and what can I do to make my self my visible?” Although while in the moment, these seem like legitimate questions, when we step back and look at the big picture, what we find is that these questions derail us from the questions that we should be asking. The questions that we should be asking are the ones that make a difference: “How do I improve as a person?” “What can I do to help others?” “What can I do now to achieve my future goals?”. But many are not answering these questions because they are stuck on asking themselves “How can I be Popular?”. If more people were schwas, then we would be more focused not on silly questions but on bigger questions. If more people were schwas, then more people would know that what matters isn’t what others see you as but what other see your actions as.

Although you may not be seen, you do have to be unimportant. Although Calvin Schwa was lost and alone at first, once he found his way, he became very much important. This is because he became noticed through his actions. Those who are unknown, are not forgotten. Their deeds live on.

My Third Art Project

I almost forgot to post a picture of my 3rd art project. But here it is

Here is my english teacher done in pencil. I had a lot of fun doing this. I think it's pretty tight, but that's just me...

leave your comments bellow...

Fourth and Final Art Project

So uh, some might say I am drawing God, but I am actually attempting my Chinese teacher....
Although this is kinda sad to say, my favorite media is definitely pencil. I'm not saying I'm good at it, but pencil is super fun!!
I like it because of how forgivable it is. You can erase, change and redo at your will...
Although I am not done yet, the shading and finding ht light source is extremely important in giving depth.
The blog has helped me get my thoughts on paper and brainstorm ideas about getting better.
Practice really helps and the more you do the more you learn and the better you are.

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Not much of a shoe guy, but these are pretty cool!!