Cause/Effect

Author's Note: This is an analysis we were told to do in the Reading Lab that focuses on the cause an effect of an event in a book. In these paragraphs you will find out what caused an event and made an effect on the story Elephant Run by Roland Smith.

In the book Elephant Run by Roland Smith Taung Bow and ancient Chinese monk leaves an elephant plantation to explore what else life has to offer. Well once he gets to Japan he can't expect that the Japanese are going to take over the plantation when he becomes close friends with the leaders of the Japanese army. He only wanted to become friends with these people, who else would expect them to bomb their country and take over their home?

First, Hilltop (Taung Bow) leaves the plantation because things are going wrong. His better choice was to leave and come back when everything was in its proper place. Who wouldn't have? On his journeys through the lands he meets some friends. Colonel Nagayoshi and Bukong, who were to become leaders of the Japanese army later in the book. He told them, once he had to leave to that they should come and visit him at the Freestone plantation in Burma, he drew them a map to were it was and left to continue his journey. 

Then, a few years later there was a war, World War II to be exact. The Japanese were starting to attack just about everyone. Once they hit Burma they had one thing to find and they knew exactly where it was, thanks to Hilltop. They sent away most of the people who lived there and took over what they called Hawk's Nest. Which is where the Freestone family lived. No one could have expected this but everything was starting to get better in the end once the war was over. The Freestones moved to Australia and Hilltop stayed in the forest with one of the timber elephants. All he wanted was for his friends to come and visit him once he left Japan. Not kick him out of his own home, send him into hiding, and almost make him go back to the country he was born in. He said to everyone that he was born in China and he was Burmese and he wanted to die on his own land. 

This is one of the most prominent cause/effect events in this book. Among others this was one of the ones that stuck out to me the most. I would have never expected that to happen to me just inviting my friends to come and visit me in my own country at my own home. But it teaches everyone a valuable lesson, which is to be careful of what you give out to people because it may not always turn out in your favor. 

Poland

Author's Note: I wrote this essay as an assignment in the Writing Lab. It's about my three cousins who were adopted from Poland last October. In this essay I worked on using regular words to make them less basic. Let me know what you think.

Poland burns a picture in the back of all their heads. They don't want to go back. They don't want to meet the people who sent them here in the first place. They don't want to even think about what happened before they ended up in the arms of Carla and Ron Dul. But why? What happened to these three kids. I realized something after thinking about my question several times. Life isn't fair, it's a quote we all grew up hearing, and throughout life we learn, that in some extreme cases, it's exactly that.

Meeting them was an experience all in itself. Having them show up at my house, get out of the car, with the look of fear in all of their eyes. They were beaten, abused, had alcoholic parents. But no one would believe them. All of them are just like me, we share the same passions, four-wheeling, being in the woods, and just being loud and goofy. But they couldn't do that where they were before not at all not ever. Being on the four-wheeler with the two youngest of the three was a day I will never forget. 

“Dzien dobry” (Good Afternoon) as we are on the four-wheeler and Michal and Ola look at me and say this meaning good afternoon in our language. They start to tell me their story, not just bits and pieces there life stories. They were thrown, not just thrown onto a bed, or into the coach jokingly. No, they were thrown. Into walls. Into the floor. Into their dining room table. Crying, screaming, shaking were not allowed. If you did one of these things it was done again and again and again until you stopped crying or screaming. Pretty much until you collapsed onto the floor and then they were kicked, hard like a dog who just bit a little kid. Again and again and again but this time harder. I would never be able to take this, let alone having it done to me at 5,7,8 years old. I couldn't even imagine having this done to anyone. Let alone living through it, and telling the story. It was scary to hear this and it was only part of it, I stopped and hugged them both for a long time all of us in tears. I whispered in their ears “Ciesze sie, ze tu wszyscy teraz twoj.” (I’m so glad you’re all here now) 

After we sat there for a little while longer I had a couple of questions not about their lives in Poland, but actually about them. Since they had gotten here maybe a couple hours before I knew their names that was it Sylwia, Michal and Ola. They were adopted from Poland, that was it, all I knew,  nothing else. So I asked them when their birthdays where, if they liked school, what grade they were in and they answered me in perfect English they had been in our country for no more than a couple of months. I was so proud of them and it was really cool to hear their accents on English words. 

Having family adopt kids from Poland has been an experience. It has had its ups and downs but we have made it through it all, together. I couldn’t have asked for more well behaved kids or more fun. The more I get to know them the more excited I am that I have new family and it almost feels like I have known them forever. Their lives before this still weren’t fair. I don’t think they could have ever been. But, it’s one of those things, everyone has heard it one time or another. As much as people can wish that life is fair, in some cases it never really can be. So we move on and learn that life isn't fair.

Conflict/Resolution

Author's Note: This piece is about the conflict/resolution in the story Elephant Run by Roland Smith. I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of my book.

In the book I have read Elephant Run by Roland Smith. The main conflict is that the Japanese have taken over Burma and the elephant plantation, and are holding people hostage in prison camps. This means that as the Japanese soldiers start to push themselves through Burma they are sending more people in to prison camps. If this is something that no one is going to be able to stop it could mean big trouble for all of Burma. This is a person vs. person conflict because you have one army fitting against another and ultimately come out with a winner on top.

This conflict could get resolved when the Burmans come together and break out of the prison camps all through out their country. They have built an airfield and a railroad, that the head of Japan has been making them run. They know all about what the Japanese are planning and are going to be able to take their country back once they realize that if they come together they can concur the Japanese. If the conflict doesn't get resolved nothing is going to go right for the Burmans, all that they will have left to look forward to is dying in a prison camp under the watch of the Japanese.

Courage, Hope, and Honor

Author's Note: I wrote this essay in the Writing Lab for a DWA piece. It is about people who don't know the real meaning of courage, hope, and honor. Let me know what you think. 

Courage, Hope, and Honor are hard things to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or mistake. You can have hope based on things you “need”.  You can have honor based on just history. You have to use all these things to make your own life yours. But, you’re not supposed to question adults because they have all of the right answers. Is that really true, it all depends on who you are, what you want to be and maybe where you came from. Sometimes no one understand the differences between these three words. That’s why life is such a tricky thing. Should you always do what the adults in your own life tell you to do, or should you make your own path. Take that path no one else is willing to take because if you make your own life decisions you will turn out better than the people who where dumb enough to follow everyone else.

But what are courage, hope, and honor are they really as tricky as people think they are or do you figure out what they are when you choose your own life path. Courage, is the ability to face fear. We all have fears in life but do we all really confront them? I will say that I claim that I face all my fears, I don’t. I am really scared of dogs, when I was three I was attacked by one. It gives me a good excuse to be afraid of them, right? Not really I should really suck it up and act like I’m 13 and move on but, I can’t get over that fear and I don’t think I ever will. When I was little my uncle told me that facing my fears proves to everyone else in the world that it is possible. My uncle faced his fears when he had cancer for ten years before he passed away in 2010. I will make sure that I eventually concur my fear of dogs, just like my uncle concurred his fear. All though it will take time for me to get over that hump, as much as it scares me. But being scared isn’t always a bad thing either is it? It goes with courage, you have to be afraid of something in order to have the courage to face it.

Even though courage is one thing some people don’t understand, I think a lot of people don’t understand the meaning of hope. Their meaning of hope is that they hope they get a car for their birthday, or they hope they get that shirt, or something that they really want or “need”. That’s not the meaning of hope. The meaning of hope is that something good will come out of something that isn’t going very well. Growing up I hoped two of my uncles wouldn’t die from cancer. Well you know what those kids got that car and got everything they wanted, and guess what I didn’t get my wish and I was really hoping that someone would finally give me what I wanted but, I learned something after they both passed away though,  it was that everything happens for a reason. You can hope for anything in the world and sometimes it’s just not good enough because that’s what happened in their life and you can’t change that, but the best part I got out of it all was that they were proud that they were themselves and lived their lives to the fullest and you know what the honor of being yourself is 100 times better than being the copy of someone else.

All though when I was thinking about hope I started thinking about honor. Honor to me means that you die trying for something important, or that you are your own person, then you have both honor and courage.  I hope that everyone understands the meaning of honor. All Americans had hope on 9-11-2001. All Americans had hope on the day Pearl Harbor got hit, and even though both of these were really sad times for our country we realized, that we are free and able to get through anything. That is why hope and honor fit together so well. Sometimes though I feel like our country is far from honored to be together as one, I hope that everyone in America is honored to be an American and be proud that we can make it out of anything together.  

That’s why courage, hope and honor are such tricky things. It’s not because of their meaning in the dictionary, but because of what they mean to each and every person in the world, and how they help make each and every one of us different by our meaning of what these words represent. But the question here is, should you always do what everyone else tells you to do. If I had to answer this I would say that I am going to choose my own path in my life, my other answer would be it’s up to the person you’re asking. You should hope for courage and try for honor, and maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do know what they’re doing before the choose your life story, or will you let them. So are you going to follow everyone else and listen to the people picking your life story for you, or are you going to make your own path in life, the answer is only up to you, no one else.