Nonfiction Reading Response

"Fall is upon us, and that means the school year is in full swing. Along with the stress of homework assignments and extracurricular activities, unfortunately some students bear an additional burden -- bullying" (Goldman 1).

Carrie Goldman, the author of "Why Telling Bullying Victims to 'just fight back' Doesn't Work,"makes the title of the article self explanatory. She starts the article of how every bullied child starts the school year, and continues the school year. She explains the stress school puts on us and the more stress bullied children go through. The author talks about how just telling children to fight back isn't enough. Telling someone to 'fight back' just confuses the person. How does he/she 'fight back'? Verbally, or physically? Some people just ignore this "advice" because it isn't giving them any courage or ideas at all. 

"Fighting back" is most people's way to approach bullying. If you tell someone you're being bullied, most of them will tell you to "fight back." The author talks about physical fighting. How fighting just worsens the conflict more.

"When multiple kids are targeting one child, the situation can feel completely overwhelming. Felicia Garcia, a 15-year-old New York student, threw herself in front of a train in October, allegedly after being taunted by multiple football players at her high school. How would it have helped her to simply punch one of them? It would not have done anything, except possibly put her at risk for physical harm.And earlier in October, Canadian teen Amanda Todd committed suicide after making a YouTube video detailing her history of being bullied mercilessly, online and in person. Both girls were allegedly the victims of sexually explicit bullying, which is not something easily combated by punching the bully in the face." (Goldman 1). The author here talks about how physically fighting back only will worsen the situation because no bully likes to be embarrassed.

Barbara Coloroso says: "As severe bullying continues, an element of terror is created. The bullied child is rendered so powerless that she is unlikely to fight back and she will not even tell someone that she needs help. The bully, who can act without fear of retaliation, counts on bystanders to either join in or at least do nothing to stop it." She talks about the actions that a bullied child is most likely to take because of the fear that's growing in the child. Fighting back doesn't make sense to a bullied child because the child already has this idea that the bully is always stronger. 





Works Cited

Goldman, Carrie. "Why Telling Bullying Victims to 'just fight back' Doesn't Work." CNN Living 31 Oct. 2012. Living. 30 Jan. 2013 <http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/31/living/bullying-fight-back/index.html>.

Looking For Alaska

Reading Response

I haven't gotten that far in the book, but in Looking For Alaska, by John Green, the main character is Miles Halter. It starts with Miles going to boarding school and saying goodbye to his parents. He then meets his roommate, Chip Martin. He meets Chip right after he exits the shower, with just a towel.

Chip starts to make himself comfortable with Miles and then they go to Alaska's room to get some cigarettes. [14] I haven't read anymore than that. From what I have read, and from what the title is, I'm guessing Alaska will show up in the book more than once. Looking for Alaska can mean many things, either she was kidnapped, she was killed, she was lost, or she was spiritually lost, as in she's not the same person she used to be, or she lost her memory.

What I think will happen in the story is that Alaska will get kidnapped. Miles and Chip would most likely go find her, since on page 13 she's the one chip goes to buy cigarettes. On page 14-15, Alaska tells chip a story about how she got honked. She also said she was thinking about how she's gonna "tell Takumi and the Colonel [Chip]" [15] which makes her and Chip seem really close.