Thursday, March 28, 2013
Summary 5-9 Ishmael F.
In chapters five through nine and we find our how easily influenced Victor really is. Early on in chapter five a new kid from Boston recently arrived at Victors school he got to be really good friends with Victor and was able to connect to him. When he found out that Victor was Mexican their friendship took a turn for he worse once again Victor had someone calling him a dirty filthy Mexican. Victor was really depressed to here these word from his friend and was hurt deeply. The rest of Victors year in kindergarten was as horrible as the first days his teacher was still the same mean and Victor became a daily bed wetter. By this time Victor's families new house was under construction, and one day when Victors dad was working with dynamite he made a careless mistake and a big stump of a tree ended smashing the constructors car. Victor saw his dad apologizing and calling himself stupid something he had never seen before. Then that same afternoon he saw his dad go with him to the dealer and bu him a brand new truck. In this occasion Victor learned the importance of generosity and that if he knew who he had to be generous to it would help him in the long run. In the next chapters we find Victor finally enjoying school because he was good with numbers and all they were focusing on was math. This episode in his life helped rise his hopes up and gave him just a little more courage. But wen he found out that if he didn't catch up with his reading by the end of the year, he would have to repeat the class this once again brought him back down into the slumps and made him feel useless again. In chapters 5-9 we can clearly see how easily influenced of a person Victor really is and how it affects his personality thought the book.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Discussion Chapter 9-12
2. What obstacle do you think that held him back from getting better at reading?
3. After the lizard and snails incident, Victor has prayed God and the animals to forgive him. What respond did he get and what was the lesson/value that he achieved?
4. What was the irony that Victor was laughing about while he was watching his father and Ford?
5. How did Victor feel about his dad after his dad explained to him why he made the man ate his own tanates?
6. Why did Victor draw stars? What was stars symbolized in this situation?
7. Why did Victor conclude that he was the one that supposed to "leave" the Earth?
8. After the argument between Lupe and her husband and father-to-son talk, what do you conclude about Victor's family bonding ?
CHAPTER 12 IS SO SAD.
I'm sorry for the late post. Things have been going quite messy these days and there was many works to do. Don't be hesitate, we will finish this book hoho.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You see, to be a good hombre a las todas is to be - just like a man's balls - soft and tender inside your heart, and yes, easy to be hurt."
Chpt. 5-7 Travel Tracer/ Tracker
- Victor meets Howard, a white freckled kid that gave him the idea of carrying knifes to school.
-When Victor went home, he began to look at his family as "dirty, bad. people you couldn't trust", he didn't want to be a Mexican.
-At school Victor took two pocket knifes and was showing them to his friends.
- He was caught handling them and was accused of being in a knife fight.
-When he went home, he decided to run away.
-While trying to run away on his horse, he came across two cowboys who came from Arizona.
-He introduced the cowboys to his father and asked him if they could stay.
-The cowboys stayed for the night with the Mustangs they had.
-At school he saw Ramon carrying his fathers pocket knife and asked for it back but Ramon didn't give it to him. His dad ended up buying another one.
-When Victor went home, he began to look at his family as "dirty, bad. people you couldn't trust", he didn't want to be a Mexican.
-At school Victor took two pocket knifes and was showing them to his friends.
- He was caught handling them and was accused of being in a knife fight.
-When he went home, he decided to run away.
-While trying to run away on his horse, he came across two cowboys who came from Arizona.
-He introduced the cowboys to his father and asked him if they could stay.
-The cowboys stayed for the night with the Mustangs they had.
-At school he saw Ramon carrying his fathers pocket knife and asked for it back but Ramon didn't give it to him. His dad ended up buying another one.
Chpt. 1-4 Researcher
CATE- California Association of Teachers of English; a convention that took place in Oceanside where teachers from New York and Eastern States met together
Macho!- Victor's first published book. It was published after 260 rejections and he only got paid $4,500 for three years that it took to write it, which is like making $1,500 a year
vaqueros- Spanish word for cowboys
Army Navy Academy- the Middle School Victor went to in Carlsbad
Macho!- Victor's first published book. It was published after 260 rejections and he only got paid $4,500 for three years that it took to write it, which is like making $1,500 a year
vaqueros- Spanish word for cowboys
Army Navy Academy- the Middle School Victor went to in Carlsbad
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Summaries chapter's 5-8
5. In chapter five we see how easily influenced Victor really is. When a kid from Boston came to their class he got to be good friends with Victor but when he found out he was Mexican. He screamed in horror because he thought Victor had a knife. Of course Victor didn't have a knife but at the time he felt that if his friend said it it must have been true. At the end of this chapter Victor feels sick being a Mexican because we he was being persuaded at school that Mexicans were no good dirty people.
6.In. The beginning of this chapter Victor brings two knifes to school because he now believed that all Mexicans carried knifes. In school one of his knifes gets confiscated by his teacher and Ramon takes the other one. Victor gets in trouble with the teacher and gets taken to the office, with his parents being called to school. His mother gets mad at him while his father actually takes Victors side and exclaims that the knife was unusable in the first place therefore harmless. By the end of chapter six Victor is running away from home when he encounters two cowboys with a herd of mustangs on their way to Hollywood and he ends up leading them into his ranch so they can rest their herd. Victor learns from these two cowboys that Mexicans can actually be warm oving people and his faith in his race is partly restored.
7. In this chapter Victor learns an important lesson of generosity from his father and how one can never be to generous. He also learns that school didn't get worse and he felt really depressed about having to go back even refusing to go back to school shopping. Victor became a daily bed wetter and was terrified about school and worked very hard to keep up with the class to fit in but sadly he just couldn't. Victor realizes that he needs to really appreciate what he had and just slowly get better.
6.In. The beginning of this chapter Victor brings two knifes to school because he now believed that all Mexicans carried knifes. In school one of his knifes gets confiscated by his teacher and Ramon takes the other one. Victor gets in trouble with the teacher and gets taken to the office, with his parents being called to school. His mother gets mad at him while his father actually takes Victors side and exclaims that the knife was unusable in the first place therefore harmless. By the end of chapter six Victor is running away from home when he encounters two cowboys with a herd of mustangs on their way to Hollywood and he ends up leading them into his ranch so they can rest their herd. Victor learns from these two cowboys that Mexicans can actually be warm oving people and his faith in his race is partly restored.
7. In this chapter Victor learns an important lesson of generosity from his father and how one can never be to generous. He also learns that school didn't get worse and he felt really depressed about having to go back even refusing to go back to school shopping. Victor became a daily bed wetter and was terrified about school and worked very hard to keep up with the class to fit in but sadly he just couldn't. Victor realizes that he needs to really appreciate what he had and just slowly get better.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Chapter 1 Scene
An image that illustrating the situation happened in Chapter 1 of Burro Genius: A Memoir
Victor was criticizing English teachers for being cruel towards their students. One of the teachers was angry and left.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Critical Thinking Questions (Chapters 5-7)
1. Howard, the new kid at school, told Victor that he could not be around him anymore because Mexicans were bad, dirty, and untrustworthy people. What kind of effect did this comment have on Victor? Do you think Victor can be considered an easily manipulated and influenced boy?
2. Why do you think Victor's parents had different views and reactions on why Victor had gotten in trouble at school for bringing the pocket knives and "being involved in a knife fight?"
3. How did meeting the two American cowboys change Victor's mind about what he had heard in school about Mexican people?
4. Why did Victor's father decided to buy the man that was constructing their new house, a brand new truck, and what did he teach Victor and his brother, Joseph, about making mistakes?
5. Victor always finds new reasons to look up to his father, mother, and older brother, but when he goes to school, he is troubled because he hears all kinds of bad comments about Mexican people, to the point where he becomes confused and does not know what to believe or if he should look up to his family the way he was taught to. Why do you think this happens?
These questions are for chapters 5, 6, and 7. I know we have a lot of stuff going on the weekends so I tried not to fill us up with a bunch of reading.
2. Why do you think Victor's parents had different views and reactions on why Victor had gotten in trouble at school for bringing the pocket knives and "being involved in a knife fight?"
3. How did meeting the two American cowboys change Victor's mind about what he had heard in school about Mexican people?
4. Why did Victor's father decided to buy the man that was constructing their new house, a brand new truck, and what did he teach Victor and his brother, Joseph, about making mistakes?
5. Victor always finds new reasons to look up to his father, mother, and older brother, but when he goes to school, he is troubled because he hears all kinds of bad comments about Mexican people, to the point where he becomes confused and does not know what to believe or if he should look up to his family the way he was taught to. Why do you think this happens?
These questions are for chapters 5, 6, and 7. I know we have a lot of stuff going on the weekends so I tried not to fill us up with a bunch of reading.
Summaries Chapters 1-4
CHAPTER 1
Victor is invited by his publicist to a conference for English teachers to meet authors, and his publicist asked if he would like a booth for him to introduce his new book, Macho, to the many different English teachers. At the conference, he volunteers to give the opening speech, since the author they had arranged to have got drunk at the hotel's bar before it was time for him to give the speech. Even though the lady in charge of the conference was not so confident about having Victor give the speech due to the fact that he was not a known author, and the way he was dressed, she agreed to have him give the speech. Victor was very nervous, and as he got to the podium, he became enraged at the fact that they were all English teachers, and gave a speech about the cruelty he faced while he was in school, and how teachers would belittle him because of his race. Some teachers were offended by the speech, while others listened to what he had to say and were proud of his courage. After his speech, many of the teachers started buying his book, and complemented him for such book. That same night, at the hotel's bar, he met a teacher, who congratulated him for his speech and book, and advised him to also talk about those good, and kind-hearten teachers that helped him, and had a positive impact on his writing.
CHAPTER 2
That night, as Victor rested on his hotel room, he thought about what the English teacher he met at the bar had advised him, and he had a flashback about the substitute teacher he had for about three days while he was attending military school, and how that substitute teacher had inspired him to write without limits. He also had flashbacks about how he was treated back in military school, and how he had decided to be free from all the unfair treatment, after he became enraged at the fact that his teacher had insulted his name, Edmundo, a name he was proud to have because his father had given it to him, because of a book his dad had read in jail. He also remembered how his classmates used to treat him and beat him, and how there was one that was nice to him. He also remembered how he caused a fight between two classmates to get back at the kid that was always bullying him, and how the guy that had beaten the bully up became friends with him; even though he became friends with a strong looking guy, his teacher still treated him badly, but he didn't send the other kids to beat him up anymore.
CHAPTER 3
Victor finds out that he is being requested to give other talks, and that he was going to get paid for it. He also meets the prolific writer Louis L'Amour, since L'Amour was having a speech at the luncheon. Victor met him before his speech and he gave him advice on what a writer is and how he should keep up his good work. Victor then went back home, thinking about everything that had happened to him in such a short amount of time.
CHAPTER 4
Victor describes his first day at school. He first talks about how the day before his first day of school, his dad gave him a talk about what he should do, and how he should always remember who his people were, and that he needed to start studying girls because he needed to find the right woman to marry. His dad told 5 year old Victor that he needed to act like a brave boy, and not like a little kid picking his boogers because the girls would not find that attractive. The morning after, Victor felt really nervous, and he didn't want to go to school. Once he got to school, he didn't want his mom to leave him alone, and he started hysterically crying, holding on to his mother's leg. Once his mom left, Victor and the other mexican kids in the class got in trouble because they were speaking Spanish, and the teacher yelled at them saying that only English was allowed in school. Victor ended up peeing his pants because the teacher didn't allow him to. Then, during recess, a teacher started hitting Ramon, another mexican kid Victor met in school, because he was the only one that would not stop speaking Spanish and he kept telling the other mexican kids that they should not be afraid of the teachers. After a horrifying day at school, Victor started having nightmares and wetting the bed in his sleep.
Victor is invited by his publicist to a conference for English teachers to meet authors, and his publicist asked if he would like a booth for him to introduce his new book, Macho, to the many different English teachers. At the conference, he volunteers to give the opening speech, since the author they had arranged to have got drunk at the hotel's bar before it was time for him to give the speech. Even though the lady in charge of the conference was not so confident about having Victor give the speech due to the fact that he was not a known author, and the way he was dressed, she agreed to have him give the speech. Victor was very nervous, and as he got to the podium, he became enraged at the fact that they were all English teachers, and gave a speech about the cruelty he faced while he was in school, and how teachers would belittle him because of his race. Some teachers were offended by the speech, while others listened to what he had to say and were proud of his courage. After his speech, many of the teachers started buying his book, and complemented him for such book. That same night, at the hotel's bar, he met a teacher, who congratulated him for his speech and book, and advised him to also talk about those good, and kind-hearten teachers that helped him, and had a positive impact on his writing.
CHAPTER 2
That night, as Victor rested on his hotel room, he thought about what the English teacher he met at the bar had advised him, and he had a flashback about the substitute teacher he had for about three days while he was attending military school, and how that substitute teacher had inspired him to write without limits. He also had flashbacks about how he was treated back in military school, and how he had decided to be free from all the unfair treatment, after he became enraged at the fact that his teacher had insulted his name, Edmundo, a name he was proud to have because his father had given it to him, because of a book his dad had read in jail. He also remembered how his classmates used to treat him and beat him, and how there was one that was nice to him. He also remembered how he caused a fight between two classmates to get back at the kid that was always bullying him, and how the guy that had beaten the bully up became friends with him; even though he became friends with a strong looking guy, his teacher still treated him badly, but he didn't send the other kids to beat him up anymore.
CHAPTER 3
Victor finds out that he is being requested to give other talks, and that he was going to get paid for it. He also meets the prolific writer Louis L'Amour, since L'Amour was having a speech at the luncheon. Victor met him before his speech and he gave him advice on what a writer is and how he should keep up his good work. Victor then went back home, thinking about everything that had happened to him in such a short amount of time.
CHAPTER 4
Victor describes his first day at school. He first talks about how the day before his first day of school, his dad gave him a talk about what he should do, and how he should always remember who his people were, and that he needed to start studying girls because he needed to find the right woman to marry. His dad told 5 year old Victor that he needed to act like a brave boy, and not like a little kid picking his boogers because the girls would not find that attractive. The morning after, Victor felt really nervous, and he didn't want to go to school. Once he got to school, he didn't want his mom to leave him alone, and he started hysterically crying, holding on to his mother's leg. Once his mom left, Victor and the other mexican kids in the class got in trouble because they were speaking Spanish, and the teacher yelled at them saying that only English was allowed in school. Victor ended up peeing his pants because the teacher didn't allow him to. Then, during recess, a teacher started hitting Ramon, another mexican kid Victor met in school, because he was the only one that would not stop speaking Spanish and he kept telling the other mexican kids that they should not be afraid of the teachers. After a horrifying day at school, Victor started having nightmares and wetting the bed in his sleep.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Critical Questions of Burro Genius
Critical Questions Ishmael F.
1.How many rejections did Victor Villasenor get until he got his first published book? Did or did he not get fazed after that many rejections?
2. What did Villasenor talk about in his speech? Who was his audience?, and how did they react?
3. In the beginning of the second chapter Villasenor has a flashback, what do you think sparked the flashback? Do you believe this flashback had a significant impact why or why not?
4. How was Victor's first day of class? How would you describe the teachers attitude towards the Mexican children in the room? With all chapter four in mind, what time frame do you think this scene was taking place?
1.How many rejections did Victor Villasenor get until he got his first published book? Did or did he not get fazed after that many rejections?
2. What did Villasenor talk about in his speech? Who was his audience?, and how did they react?
3. In the beginning of the second chapter Villasenor has a flashback, what do you think sparked the flashback? Do you believe this flashback had a significant impact why or why not?
4. How was Victor's first day of class? How would you describe the teachers attitude towards the Mexican children in the room? With all chapter four in mind, what time frame do you think this scene was taking place?
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