Revised Essay - The Sun Gave Us Color

The following document is a revised version of the essay that we have been writing about of a topic from the book; The Secret Life of Bees.

Essay [revised version]

Practice Test

Below is answers to the article about water pollution.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZUUR4UVFQSzRoX0k/edit

Article #7 (Essay Exercise) Due to Nov 5

Article Annotations

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZNHdUS2NycU5CNVU/edit

Questions to article

Why is it not good to drink bottled water instead of tap water?

What do you think about buying and using water on bottle instead of drinking good tap water?

Can you tell me from where soil pollutants come from?

What do you think is the impacts from plastics on the marine system?

Summary of article

The article is about pollutant impacts on the environment and what impacts it have on the environment. Pollutant is released in the soil and in the water and impacts on marine and terrestrial life is severe. One big problem that is causing trouble is the plastic bottles. These do not only require big amounts of oil for their production but they also travel huge distances to reach their goal, the western countries with perfectly goos water in their taps.

In-class Exercise Oct 29

Questions and answers about articles

Questions about the article: India’s sex slaves face life-long time of abuse

1. From where do these young girls come from?
2. What can be done for these young girls, how can we, the society and the government help to prevent young girls from being sold, abused and discriminated?
3. Why do you think that young girls drop out of school and end their education before their brothers do?

Questions and Answers about the article: Top 25 worst passwords of 2012

Q: What is the main idea of the article?

A: The main idea of this article is about informing people of the top worst passwords under the year 2012.

They want to highlight which words that are the most common.

Q: Would this information be useful if you are in this situation?

A: Yes, If you are using these passwords you better change them due to the fact that they are most common and easily stolen.

Q: What would happen if your password would be stolen?

A: They will access my pages, my sites and have access to my personal information.

Article #6 due Oct 29

India's sex slaves face lifelong cycle of abuse

This article is about Indian girls that are forced to work in the sex industry. They are given opportunities in other cities such as regular jobs to earn money but instead they end up on the street, on brothels or sold to human traffickers. Some girls are being rescued from this horrible industry and is taken to transit homes for recovery. Though there is help to get some girls do not recover from what they been through, the process to get back to a normal life is long and these young girls are scarred for life.

Word 1
1. Word: Ordeal
2. Part of Speech: Noun
3. Definition/Synonym: Test, Trial

Word 2
1. Word: Turmoil
2. Part of Speech: Noun
3. Definition/Synonym: Chaos

Word 3
1. Word: Jostle
2. Part of Speech: Verb
3. Definition/Synonym: Push

Please see Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Questions about the article

1. From where do these young girls come from?
2. What can be done for these young girls, how can we, the society and the government help to prevent young girls from being sold, abused and discriminated?
3. Why do you think that young girls drop out of school and end their education before their brothers do?

Article Discussion Oct 22

Part II - Group analysis about article

• What is the article about and why did you choose it?

The article is about the banning of plastic bags from larger retails stores. Plastic bags are still allowed in restaurants and for fruits and vegetables in grocery stores but not at check out.

Why we chose this article is due to that it is local news and it is an important subject today. The environmental impact from us is huge and by banning plastic bags from one kind of market might set future motivation to get rid of all plastic bags in the future. It is a big step for Santa Barbara County in the run for making more conscious choices.

• What kind of news is the article?

The article is in the local news and goes under the subjects economy and politics because it is a matter of economic and political decisions.

• What is the news article about?

Big stores like Vons, Albertson's, Rite Aid, CVS etc. will no longer provide their costumers with plastic bags from August 22 this year. This is an action for making people stop using plastic bags and for saving unnecessary plastics. Restaurants are still allowed plastic bags but hopefully that will change after that these big stores have changed their plastic bag consume.

• Gather three word

Word 1: Implementation – noun – Execution/putting into effect

Word 2: Coalition – noun– noun –alliance

Word 3: Stringent – Adjective – compelling or urgent

Article #5 due Oct 22

Opening of Northern Ireland's first abortion clinic

In Northern Ireland abortion is not permitted and this article is about Northern Ireland's first private abortion clinic located in Belfast. This clinic will help women with information, advice, etc. and early medical abortion and vows to operate within the law.

Word 1

1. Word: Contraception

2. Part of Speech: Noun

3. Definition/Synonym: Birth-control

Word 2

1. Word: Grueling

2. Part of Speech: Adjective

3. Definition/Synonym: Exhausting

Word 3

1. Word: Precious Life Movement

2. Part of Speech: -

3. Definition/Synonym: Precious Life Movement is an organization that is working for keeping abortion out of      

Northern Ireland

Please see Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Essay Writing due Oct 17

The following documents are related to the essay we have been writing about of a topic from the book; The Secret Life of Bees.

1) First draft
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZZkFwRy1naFlWLXc/edit

2) My own checklist
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11matOLu--NA3b8a2SfzBhWF9x9_9FKCBomc1nibt7Oo/edit

3) My class mate checklist
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQVfRUZtEE-9Ap7KLOHtitoQPosnmsun0cwkZ2UIE3c/edit

4) Final version
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZTlN3WGFGa1k3T3c/edit

Homelessness - Mind map

During today's in-class exercise we were suppose to do a mind map with the knowledge we'd gathered for today's homework.

Research about Homelessness Due Oct 15

Homelessness walks beside you on the streets

Example 1

Information

Example #1 is from Wikipedia’s source about homelessness.

The number of homeless people worldwide has grown steadily in recent years. In some Third World nations such as Nigeria, and South Africa, homelessness is rampant, with millions of children living and working on the streets. Homelessness has become a problem in the countries of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines despite their growing prosperity, mainly due to migrant workers who have trouble finding permanent homes.

Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness

Why is this important to you?

This piece shows that homelessness can be found in developing countries where the social system and the welfare is not working and collaborating. These countries are on the developing stage and do not have the methods to keep everyone over the surface, some is between the gaps. There also exist huge class differences in some of these countries that allow people to fall down low. A solution for taking homelessness of the street is to end this huge class differences, making people come together and to a similar level. That will not only be good for the low life people but also to the welfare due to the fact that more people will live better, probably work and get salary and then contribute to the country’s economy.

Example #2

Information

Example #2 is from the United Nation’s declaration of human rights.

Article 25:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Source

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25

Why is this important to you?

This piece is important because it shows that it is a human right to live an adequate life. It is a human right to have food and shelter over the head and the right to medical care. Unfortunately that is not what is practiced in reality, there are still a lot of people that do not only are homelessness but also do not have those possibilities and those rights. Countries are not focusing on this problem enough to so something about it, homeless people are the dark side of society that society do not want to take care about.

Example #3

Information

Example #3 is from an article from New York Times, Dec 12 2010.

“For national organizations trying to eradicate homelessness, Los Angeles — with its 48,000 people living on the streets, including 6,000 veterans, according to one count — stands as a stubborn anomaly, an outlier at a time when there has been progress, albeit modest and at times fitful, in so many cities.”

Source

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/us/13homeless.html?pagewanted=all

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece from the article shows that there is not only homelessness in developing countries but also inn leading economic states. This article shows how many people that are living on the streets of Los Angeles. Homelessness shows a lack in the social system and as I earlier said, lack in the welfare system. Meanwhile a country, here America, thrives and plays a great part in the current economic status it still has a less developed side.

Preparing for the Exam

Answers to questions about the article Franken Fish

How Genetically Engineered Salmon Could Hurt our Health and Environment

Knowledge

1. Genetic engineering is a method by that you manipulate the genes in an organism to get a specific trait. That trait could either be for growing faster, out stand diseases, etc. This is done for economic advantages and for trying to solve world problems.
2. According to Aqua Bounty, The GE salmon is a technological solution for reducing fishing pressure on wild salmon, creating jobs and reducing the carbon footprint of producing seafood.

Comprehension

1.  If 5% of the GE salmon is fertile, when escaping to the oceans, they can reproduce, even if little and slowly, and be of great danger to the native fishes.
2.  “These gaps in the safety assessment for GE salmon are crucially important because a single GE-salmon escape event — involving only a few fish — can decimate wild populations.” – Paragraph 20
3. The GE food products out competes the ordinarily food production. It, with its genetically modified genes, grows faster and have better, in a quantitative way, circulation than the ordinarily products.
4.  The article is about how genetic engineered salmon should or should not enter our world and what consequences it would have on other life elements.

Application

1. I think that the idea of GE salmon is good; we want to increase our food supply for more people to take a part of but at the same time, at what price? I do not want to eat genetically modified food even if it is safe at the moment. We do not know what will happen in a couple of years, what the consequences are and what consequences other living organisms on this planet will take.
2.  Question: How will the human body react on modified food in the future, is it safe for our health to eat modified food?Reason: I would ask this question due to the fact that we do not yet know what will happen, we can’t go forward in the future and see what is happening to later go back and change it. What if modified food is a danger to our health?

Analysis

1. The problems that might be by relaying on this study from Aqua Bounty are that it is not that qualitative with information. It gives you information but not all information that applies to you and the information that is important to you are scarce. For you to take a stand, you need all the information to choose between what you think and think not. This takes more information to think about.
2. The main reason why we shouldn't grow GE salmon is due to its “better” traits, it has bigger advantage over other fishes. If the GE salmon escapes, the consequences of this could be that it, due to its advantages, can out compete and drive other fishes to extinction. It due to its size and growth eats much more than other fishes and will with that eat other fishes food source. I also think that growing fish on a fish farm is on ethical. Fish do not primarily exist for our entertainment or as our food supply. They are a living organism too and not an object to our science department. We shouldn't experiment and release something that we do not know of.
3. The worst case scenario for the environment would be the best case scenario for Aqua Bounty due to the fact that if non-modified fish gets out compete and is on their way to extinction the pressure for GE salmon would increase. People want to eat salmon and if the regular choices of the fish vanish they will find another choice. And in this case, the GE salmon which is a salmon, though modified.
4. If Aqua Bounty does not get approved by the FDA, they will probably go bankrupt due to the fact that their business does not go well.
5. The implications for genetically engineered food is that we are creating a substitute to the ordinarily food and at the same time leaving a stable and knowing business for a new and uncertain one. We are at the same time testing the new technology and watching how Far we can go with it. We also jeopardize the environments resources and the ecology. What will happen when we are letting modified productions enter the world market and the world’s environment?

Synthesis

1. The action you would do to stop the GE salmon from entering the real world (oceans) is to have really good containers and to work with it extremely carefully. You would have to experiment with the safety and have several escaping levels so it could not, under any circumstances, be able to escape into the real world and do harm.
2. The best method for spreading information is to acknowledge it in papers and on the news. It is from the news where people get the most knowledge of what is happening in the world. Informing people that there are problems with genetically engineered products, not only salmon, allow them to take a stand and decide what choices and actions they will take, if they support genetic engineered products or if they are against products that are modified , primarily, for economic purposes.

Evaluation

1. We shouldn't give Aqua Bounty approval due to the fact that if the GE salmon would escape this may cause extinction to not only other native salmons (by competition over resources) but also other smaller native fishes because of the GE salmons eating habits.
2. The global fish market would also suffer when there would not be any wild fish left and if the GE salmon would escape this would also cause environmental instability. Over one billion people are depending on fish as a food supply, it would be devastating if the balance of fish would be disturbed.
3. One other consequence of letting the GE salmon into the wildlife is that it can spread diseases and once again the native fish stability would be jeopardized.

Book Report Due Oct 3

The Secret Life of Bees

By Sue Monk Kidd

Main Events

The first important event that happens in chapters 9-11 is when The Boatwright sisters, Rosaleen and Lily is having a really hot day and a water war is initiated. During this event Lily leaves all of her sense and hoses June with water. They end up wrestling in the water over which of them that will have the sprinkler and in the end June hugs Lily. This is important due to the fact that Junes sort of dislike towards Lily now releases and they start a new way of connection.

"... June stepped over them, too, ant hen, to my shock, she hugged me. June Boatwright hugged me while our clothes made sweet, squishy sounds up and down our bodies." – Page 170

Next important event is when Zach is thrown into jail, for doing nothing than keeping silence when a friend of his throws a coke bottle on a white man, and the family's situation gets out of balance.

"I saw Jackson bite down, causing a tiny ripple across his jaw. I saw him raises his R.C. Cola bottle over his head. And throw it." – Page 178

Here, the first step of difficulties begins that will give ammunition to the next main event that happens in the book; May kills herself.

This event turns the family’s life upside down and gives away for a change that will result in several actions. May, who takes on pain that is not hers, feels that life's all problems and difficulties are too much for her and decides to end the pain. She kills herself by putting a rock on her chest while lying with her back in the river. On her note that she leaves behind to her sisters she writes that this is not the end, the opposite, this is the time for them to live. She couldn't live in this world but her sisters can, and they will. 

Due to this the unintended consequence is that June says yes when Neil propose, something she earlier said no to.

"Dear August and June,

I'm sorry to leave you like this. I hate you being sad, but think how happy I'll be with April, Mama, Papa and Big Mama. Picture us up there together, and that will help some. I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.

Love May." – Page 210

Questions about the book

1. Why did June dislike Lily when she got there?

2. What was the problem with Zach getting in jail without doing anything?

3.If May hadn't answers the telephone and found out that Zach was in jail and if the suicide didn't happen, what might the ending been?

Words
Please see page Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Article Reading Oct 1

In-class exercise

Questions to ponder…

1. Have you ever wondered why you explain things to the teachers that they already know when you take an exam?
2. Have teachers ever graded you down for not writing something on an exam or for not answering the question event though you studied and know the material?

Answers 1

You explain things to the teacher because that is a way for the teacher and for yourself to see what you have learnt; if you have been listening and if you know the material.

Answer 2

That could have happened. Most of the times when I do not know or when I’m not a hundred percent sure about the answer to a question, I just write something anyway because I do not want to leave it blank.

How to study your material

1)   Identify the main ideas, highlight and underline

2)   Summarize main ideas. Select the most important paragraphs in the text and use the main ideas you underlined to help you write your summary (3-5 sentences about the main ideas in the article using your own words)

3)   React personally to main ideas – as Questions (at least three)

4)   Analyze the purpose to the text or the author’s purpose (PIE: Persuade – inform – Entertain)

5)   Evaluate the success of the text or the writer’s success emission

Highlighted text

“Humans need certain resources to survive at subsistence level – most commonly air, food, water and usually some kind of shelter. A sustainable habitat is one in which supply of and demand for these resources are balanced”

“How many beings can the Earth support before resources run low and nature take over, culling the human herds in order to reestablish a sustainable balance?. People in different parts of the world are consuming different amounts of those resources”

“Instead of technology allowing us to live better on less, we’re living better on more”

"We appear to be using technology in a way that defeats its purpose"

Summary

The way people are living today is not sustainable. We will soon outgrow the Earth’s resources and its capacity of reproduction. For humans to live at a sustainable level, we need food, water, air and shelter. Without these important elements we cannot survive and we cannot expand.
Today we are living beyond what the Earth can supply us with; we are ending the Earth’s resources rapidly and not thinking about the consequences. Everybody on Earth is living different and consuming different amounts of resources. One key element is that technology push us forward and gives us the tools to manipulate the world we are living in, the amount of resources and the progress in which way we get those resources.

Questions

1. What will happen to the human species when Earth reaches its carrying capacity according to the article?   
2. According to the article, how can people improve the issues of the Earth reaching its carrying capacity?
3. According to the article, will technology help solve the problem of overpopulation on Earth?
4. What are other examples of restricting population mentioned in the article (e.g., famine)?
5. Do you think if the earth reaches its capacity the government will need to limit the amount of children families have?

Answers

1. According to the article, when we run out of oil, we would probably freeze to death in winter and run out of food. We will at the same time advance in technology which also leads to air and water pollution as a consequence. Over and all we will destroy our necessary resources to live a healthy life.
2. The things we can do to improve the global issue is to shift to renewable and sustainable resources, buy and eat more locally grown food, reducing our ecological footprint and shower shorter. Since globalization is getting wider and wider, we share knowledge around the world and spreading knowledge over boarders which allow more and more people to focus on education rather than the making of babies.
3. We can, according to the article, help solve the problem of overpopulation with technology if we use it in the right way. Today we are using it in the wrong way which results in huge consequences. Technology allows us to invent new ways to improve the situation we are in today but at the same time we are destroying the purpose of that way.
4.  Examples of how the earth would restrict the population is by reducing the food supply, the energy supply (oil, natural gas, etc.), pollution of water (makes fish toxic) and pollution of  air (more diseases and other health problems).
5. The answer to that question is yes, especially in countries where the birthrate is big. It is not sustainable to give birth to more people than the earth can carry. If we stop producing children then fewer people will have to compete over the earth’s resources which hopefully will keep the carrying capacity from overshooting.

Article #3 Due Oct 1

Has the earth reached its carrying capacity?

In this Article by Julia Clayton, the Earth's carrying capacity is brought forward as a global issue. Here, Julia writes about what is happening, how the population grows each day and what we must do about the growing problem.

How many people can Earth carry before the resources runs out and the situation goes out of control?

What will happen to the human species when the Earth reaches its carrying capacity?

Most likely what will happen when the Earth reaches its carrying capacity is that the resources, food supply etc. will run short and the competition over these scarce resources will drive people to do unmoral things.

We are already living in a "this is mine, that is yours"- kind of world and that kind of thinking will continue with us through time and will not make the fragile situation better.

Hopefully, a disaster from nature will destroy us before we reach the point when this kind of horrific competition begins. This has already happen before, if not a meteorite, an ice-time. Earth itself decides whenever it's time to eliminate a specie and with that leave space for a new - maybe smarter and friendlier - specie.

Words
Please see page Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Article
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity.htm

Theme Discussion Sept 26

In-class exercise

Part I - Group talk

1. What do you think is the main theme in the book?
2. Why? Explain your answers using passages, sentences, etc. from the book. I this theme possible?
3. Record your answers below

My own thoughts about the book has already been shown in the previous post. Below you will see the thoughts from Lu Lin and Xinfa Zhou which they shared during class.

Thoughts about the theme in the book


Lu Lin and Xinfa Zhou both thinks hat the main theme in the book is love. Love between one or more persons, between family members, male and female and between parents and children. This was also the theme we later chose to present to the class.

Love is displayed in different ways and in different strengths. From the book we can locate love between the Boatwright sisters, the relationship between Rosaleen and Lily and then of course the connection between Lily and Zach.
All of these relationships show the element of love.
Some events in the book, that can show that these people love each other, is for example,the part when august tells Lily how it comes that they got a pink house - May wanted that color (page 147), the part when Zach gives Lily a notebook which she can practice what she loves the most - writing (page 135), and then of course when he explains to her what he thinks about her and why their interaction cannot work (page 135).

Another example of love is for other living organisms and abstract things.
The first example on that kind of love is August's love for her bees (page 149), this is a kind of love, love for other organism. It may not be as strong as her love for her sisters but it's love towards something that is not human and at the same time a love for something she loves to do.
Then there is also love for abstract things, like freedom. August tells Lily (page 146) that she once loved a man but she loved her freedom more. This kind of love is strong if you really believe in it.

Question: What can you do when you love someone but when your relationship is not socially accepted?
Message: Love is complicated

Part II - Presentation

Group 1
Theme: Change
Question: How do you think Lily has changed?
Message: Change is necessary

Group 2
Theme: Forbidden
Question: why did Lily and Zach fall in love?
Message: -

Group 3
Theme: Love
Question: What can you do when you love someone but when your relationship is not socially accepted?
Message: Love is complicated


Group 4

Theme: Hope
Question: If Lily didn't have any hope, do you believe she would have gotten so far?
Message: You can go anywhere and overcome obstacles as long as you got hope

Group 5
Theme: Love regardless of race
Question: How did people in the past deal with the friendship between different racial people?
Message: -

Book report #3 Due Sept 26

The Secret life of Bees

Neil (surname unknown) is, according to Lily, the tallest Negro man she has ever seen. He is a follower to June and a good friend to the Boatwright sisters.

Quotations from the book that let us know about Neil’s appearance

“I found the tallest Negro man I’d ever seen working on the truck...” Page 102

“He wore blue jeans and an undershirt with grease smears on it, along with horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like a very studious mechanic.” Page – 104

June Boatwright is the middle sister in among the Boatwright’s sisters. She has very short hair and she seldom smiles. She is cautious and suspicious and very back drawn. She is musical talented and she works at funerals, playing music.

Her hair is cut short and she is unmarried. She is very serious and has her principles.

Quotations from the book that let us know about June’s appearance

“..Her hair cut so short it resembled a little gray, curlicue swim cap pulled tight over her scalp.” – Page 68

“Her face stared at us, suspicious and stern.” – Page 68

Best part

“– you know, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the color of s house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart – now, that matters.”

This is a fantastic part in the book. It shows so much love and sacrifice a person will do for another person’s happiness. Here August dislikes the color that May wanted for the house but because May really liked that color and makes her happy, August set aside her feelings about the color and put May's well being in front of some stupid non-important thing as the color of their house. Is that not love or what?

The Theme of the book

I think that the scheme in the book is search. lily's search for her history,background and identity.
Lily is on her own way trying to find out everything about her mother, how she was and what kind of person she was. She is at the same time trying to find her identity and her own place in life. When you are so young that Lily is, you do not know yourself and your place in life. And with your mother gone you have plenty of questions and loose strings that you want to attach.

"We're going to Highway Forty and thumb a ride to Tiburon". - Page

With this sentence we can see that Lily, that really do not know where she is going decides to go to the one place that has some kind of connection to her mother.
She then later, when she notice the label on the honey jars in a local market, finds out that these labels are the same labels as the one that her mother have written Tiburon on and which she carries around. At that point she decides that she has to go to where the honey is produced and ends up at the hand of three sisters, that, probably, in some way have some connection to her mother.

 P. 101 P.94 P.79

Newspaper Article Discussion Sept 24

Group Discussion 

In the group: LU LIN, Xinfa Zhou and Jose.

Himalayas avalanche sweeps away climbers in Nepal

Where did this happen?

It happened in the Himalayas in Nepal.

Can you explain what is happening?

A flood snow hit a couple of European climbers when they were climbing Mount Manaslu, the 8^th highest mountain in Himalaya

What would result if the avalanche never happened?

The climbers would probably, if no other problem occurred, reach the top without more difficulties and they would have a better chance to survive the adventure.

What conclusions can you draw about the expedition?

You have to be prepared for every occasion, everything that can happen during the climb – Change of weather, resources, accidents, injuries, etc. – and be aware of the consequences.

How can you change the plan?

Climb another day, look at the weather forecast more thoroughly and choose days when there is a very low risk of a snowstorm to sweep in.

What is the opinion of climbing high mountains?

We think that if you want to climb the 8^th highest mountain in the world you should prepare good, coordinate your expedition well and be aware of the consequences that can happen during the adventure.

The Civil Rights Movement Timeline

In-Class exercise Sept 19

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZZFBYWHNfVmd2eXM/edit

Article #2 Due Sept 24

Himalayas avalanche sweeps away climbers in Nepal

This article is about a couple of European climbers and guides that has been struck by an avalanche in Nepal. The climbers were climbing Mount Manaslu when a ‘flood of snow’ hit them and killed what is believed, nine persons. The number of dead can though be higher due to the fact that they do not really know how many climbers it was in the party. It is said that five climbers have survived and have been rescued and flown to the hospital for recovery.

Word 1
1. Word: Avalanche
2. Part of Speech: Noun
3. Definition/synonym: Snow Storm, Flood of snow

Word 2
1. Word: Deterioration
2. Part of Speech: Adjective
3. Definition/synonym: Failure

Book Reading #2 Due Sept 19

The Secret life of Bees

By Sue Monk Kidd

August Boatwright is the eldest of the Boatwright sisters. She is humble and generous and she is acting like the big sister she is and taking care of her younger sisters.

August is tall, has ginger eyes and she looks younger than she is except for her wrinkled face and her flour dusty hair.

Quotations from the book that let us know about August’s appearance

“She was almond-buttery with sweat and sun, her face corrugated with a thousand caramel wrinkles and her hair looking flour dusted, but the rest of her seemed decades younger.” – Pages 71-72

“She put down her glass. I had never seen eyes that color, eyes the purest shade of ginger.” – Page 74

May Boatwright is the youngest of the Boatwright sisters. She is not altogether normal and acts differently from everybody else. Though she is not like everybody else, she has a good intentions and a good heart. Due to earlier life event, May act differently from the rest and takes in all the bad things that is happening and gets affected. She is carrying around heavy feelings that are not hers.
May is in the book described as simple minded but at the same time intelligent in some areas.
May wears her hair in braids and

Quotations from the book that let us know about May’s appearance

“– I’m May Boatwright, she said. – I’m August’s sister, too. She smiled at us, one of those odd grins that let you know she was not an altogether normal person.” – Page 69

“May was simpleminded. I don’t mean retarded, because she was naïve and unassuming, a grown-up and a child at the same time, plus she was a touch crazy.” – Pages 84-85

Zachary Lincoln Taylor is a handsome young man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Zach is a well-mannered, thoughtful and a loving kind of person. He is very handsome and his skin shoots of mystery.

Quotations from the book that let us know about Zach’s appearance

“He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist and short-cropped hair like most of the Negro boys wore, but it was his face I couldn’t help staring at. If he was shocked over me being white, I was shocked over him being handsome.” – Page 116

“The dark, dark look of it. The mystery of his skin.” – Page 125

“..Zach showed up with the prettiest notebook – Green with rosebuds on the cover. He met me coming out of the pink house. – This is for you, he said. – So you can get a head start on writing” – Page 135’

Main Events

Event 1

“I walked toward black Mary with my hand lifted. But just as I was about to reach her, June stopped playing. She stopped right in the middle of the song, and I was left in the silence with my hand stretched out.
Drawing it back, I looked around me, and it was like seeing everything through a train’s thick window. A blur passed before me. A moving wave of color. I am not one of you, I thought.” – Page 111

It is during this event that Lily really feels the color of her skin. She feels like an outsider and like a person that shouldn’t be there and interact with these people.
She haven’t really experienced that before due to that she is white and now when she experienced it, she feels sad about it.

Event 2

 “That’s fine with me, –I said, a little annoyed. I’ve just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that’s all. You’ve got to hear of these things before you can imagine them.”

“– Bullshit. You gotta imagine them”

“I closed my eyes. – All right then, I’m imaging a Negro lawyer. You are a Negro Perry Mason. People are coming to you from all over the state, wrong-accused people, and you get at the witness stand.”

“– Yeah, he said,–I bust their ass with the truth. When he laughed, his tongue was grass green from Kool-Aid.” I started calling him Zach the ass-busting lawyer. – Oh, look who’s here, Zach the ass busting lawyer, I’d say.” – Page 121

This is the time when Lily and Zach connect. They interact with each other from this point and forward and it is now they feel comfortable together and a new time of discovery begins.

Best part from the book

The best part from the book and these chapters is when Lily cries and realize that the things she is doing is not sustainable, they are not going to last forever. She needs to catch up with the real life and realize that the truth must be told and the consequences of that action must be made.

“That night, when the darkness was weighed down with singing crickets and Rosaleen was snoring right along with them, I had myself a good cry. I couldn’t even say why. Just everything, I guess. Because I hated lying to August when she was so good to me. Because Rosaleen was probably right about dream worlds. Because I was pretty sure the Virgin Mary was not back there on the peach farm standing in for me the way she’d stood in for Beatrix.” – Page 123

I also liked the part in the book when Zack gives Lily a notebook to write in. It was really thoughtful of him to think about her and give her something she was interested in. From the earlier event when they connected, they have now a deep interaction with each other.

“..Zach showed up with the prettiest notebook – Green with rosebuds on the cover. He met me coming out of the pink house. – This is for you, he said. – So you can get a head start on writing.”

“That was when I knew I would never find a better friend than Zachary Taylor.” – Page 135