DWA

Authors Note: This is my District Writing Assessment for language arts class.

Football is my all-around favorite sport.  I like everything about it.  But there are somethings that football teaches people that some people don't realize.  Football teaches kids and teens many things.  It teaches them discipline, motivation, maturity, and focus.  

The way that football teaches discipline is that the coaches will train you non-stop until you understand your position on the team and what you need to do every single play.  The coaches will holler at you until you do it right and if they have to, they will sit you on the bench and let the next person in line in that position do it for you.  Along with discipline, motivation is teached by football.  Football teaches motivation because you have to be motivated to do good at anything.  If you want to be good at football, you need to be motivated.  If you don't care about what you are doing, theres a high chance that you will do poorly.  You also have to motivate your friends and teammates no matter what situation you are in.

Football also teaches maturity and focus.  Football can teach maturity because football is like a teens responsibility.  The teen has to complete his responsibility in order to move on to his next task.  This teaches maturity because it helps kids and teens learn that they need to complete their responsibilities to amount to something.  The only way teens can mature at something, is if they have a responsibility to do.  Although maturity is one of the big topics that football teaches, focus is another one.  Focus can only be taught in football if you let it be.  If you want to pay attention to the plays and focus on your part in the play, than yes, football will teach you focus.  According to the article, “How does football help kids in school?” it says that most schools require a minimum level of performance to play football.  So one way or another, focus is connected to football.  So, if you want to play football, you might as well focus while you’re at it.

Discipline, motivation, maturity, and focus are only some of the things that can be teached by football and most people don’t realize that football can teach so much.  These are only some of the reasons why football is my all-around favorite sport.

My Values of Physical Activity

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The values that physical activity gives me is health, enjoyment, challenge, and self-expression because it gets me to where I want to be, and helps me accomplish my goals.

 The way that physical activity gives me self-expression is that it makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel like I’m working towards something important, and it is. It helps me lose weight and when I realize that I have lost weight, it makes me feel great.

 Since the beginning of the year, I have beat all of my fitness tests by quite a bit which has made me very proud of myself. Self-expression really is a big part of my values in regards to physical activity. Along with self-expression, health is another one of my bigger values. Since I moved to Pewaukee, I have lost a lot of weight and have gotten a lot healthier, and I’ve gotten a lot stronger and faster. I have also started eating healthier, so that has also helped with my health.

 My other values of physical activity is challenge and enjoyment. Without a challenge in your way, how are you supposed to be able to achieve anything? When you have no challenge at all, it’s not really anything to be proud of. But when you overcome a big challenge, that’s when you should be proud of yourself. I beat my mile goal by two minutes; I should be proud of that. It was a challenge for me and I beat it.

 Enjoyment is pretty important because if you don’t like what you are doing, you shouldn’t be doing it. When I am wrestling or playing football, I love doing it. When I play football and I make a good play or am wrestling and I win my match, it brings a smile to my face because I am happy that it happened and I did it. When you like what you do, you will find enjoyment in it no matter what happens.

 Getting me to where I want to be and helping me accomplish my goals are the reason why self-expression, health, enjoyment, and challenges are my values of physical activity.

The Storm

Authors note: This is my figurative language piece that I wrote for language arts.

I was walking home after the game with my friends, when all of a sudden I felt a big gust of wind blow on me like there was a giant fan right behind me.  It was very strong, it blew my friends and I forward.  I look up at the sky to see if there was a storm coming.  The clouds were very dark.  The dark sky looked like ink had just spilled out of the bottle.  When suddenly a drop of rain smacks my face.  Then, the very next moment, a huge shower of heavy rain drops just came and poured all over us.  The rain was not stopping.  We were drenched it had looked like we just jumped and rolled around in puddle.  My house was the closest, so we decided to get on a light jog to my place.  When out of nowhere a loud, distant echo from the loud boom of thunder frightened us all.  A couple seconds after, a loud crack of lightning struck the ground miles from us, but we could tell it was close.  We were now on a full out sprint to make it home, it felt as if we were running at the speed of a tiger.  We were still a ways away from my house, but we were getting there.  When suddenly, another loud booming of thunder came like a cannon.  We were shivering, the wind blowing against are soaked clothes made it feel as if we were standing in the arctic.  The sopping wet clothes was really slowing us down too, but we were too frightened to stop.  There were only about 5 blocks left until we made it to my house.  Abruptly, we saw a bolt of lightning strike in the same exact area where we were only minutes before.  We then bolted all the way to my house and ran inside as quickly as we possibly could.  We were all standing by the front door breathless as if we just ran a marathon.  I was bent over with my hands on my knees.  After continuous minutes of breathing, I ran upstairs and grabbed some dry clothes for my friends and I to wear. Nonetheless, my friends and I were still able to have a good night.

Favorite Sport

Authors note: This is my creative piece for language arts.

There are a couple of sports I enjoy, but the one sport that I like most is football.  Because it is hardworking and fun, football is my favorite sport.  Football can be very painful sometimes when teammates and even players on the other team get injured because some of the injuries are very gruesome, but the sport itself makes up for it.  It is full of excitement because you get to be violent and lay other people out without getting in trouble for it.  You can be as rough as you want and people can’t retaliate until the next play.  Football is a very adrenaline pumping sport.  The energy and the excitement that the sport gives you when you play makes you feel like no one can stop you: It all depends on who’s the better player at the line.

Football is probably the sport that is played by most guys in Pewaukee.  With 1600 students in Pewaukee High and Asa Clark Middle School, only about 150 students have the guts to play football.  Football is one of the most played sports in the United States.  Once most people start playing, they don’t want to stop.  Throughout the United States, football is loved by millions; including me.

My position on the football team was an offensive tackle.  My position is one of the most important positions on the team.  A lot of people think that the running back, and the quarterback are the most important because they're the ones who score the touchdowns, but how would they score the touchdowns without the linemen?  If I wasn’t there to block for my running back or quarterback, the defense could have been right in the back field destroying our quarterback/running back.  The other position I play is defensive end.  My position on defense is somewhat important because the defensive players that were on the line were the ones that determined if the other team got a big play or a small play.  If the rest of the D-line and I got through the other teams linemen, we would usually be able to stop the play.

If you are the one better at the line, you will be able to get the perfect block, or get through the others teams offensive line.  It all depends on how much you actually enjoy the sport.  If you keep the energy and the excitement with you in an actual game, you will almost always be the better player at the line.

The Perspective of Cole

Authors note: This is my point of view redo for language arts.  Look at how I explained the point of view of the other characters.

In the book “Touching Spirit Bear” by Ben Mikaelsen there was a boy named Cole Matthews.  His point of view was much different in the story then the other characters points of view were.  Cole Matthews point of view was dark and mean as the other characters were nice and happy.  The point of view from a different person can change the story completely.

When Garvey and Edwin dropped Cole at the island, Cole was furious.  His point of view was dark 

and mean.  No matter what, Cole did not want to stay on the island.  He was thinking to himself that he was going to escape the island and runaway somewhere where no one knew where he was.  He tried escaping the island a couple times but he couldn’t do it.  The tides kept bringing him back.  He got even more mad when he couldn’t escape.  He was so mad that he had to come to the island that he even burned down his shelter and burned all of his supplies.  Then that night, Cole saw the spirit bear.  The spirit bear stared at Cole and he got angry that the bear didn’t fear him.  Cole was so angry at the bear that he tried killing it.  The point of view of Cole is much different than the others.

Garvey and Edwin believed in Cole.  They thought that Cole was able to change his ways and himself.  They thought that the island was going to be able to change his ways and his point of view on life.  So Garvey and Edwins point of view was bright and good.  They always thought of the good that can come out of a bad situation.  They were very dedicated to the things that they wanted to do and change.  They won’t stop until they know that their client is happy and that they are not thieves.  Their point of view is much happier than Coles.

This is why point of view is such a big deal in a story.  If told by other characters in the story, the story can be much different than if it were told by someone else ,but since it was told by Cole, most of the book was very dark and mean.  If it were told by the point of view of Garvey and Edwin, the book would be much happier.  This is why point of view is so important.

Your Memories

Authors note: This is my themes piece for Language Arts.

Is change always a bad thing?
In the book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton change is a big part in the story.  Three people in this story are affected by change and are forced to change the way their lives are lived.

In The Outsiders, Darry, Sodapop, and Ponyboy are affected greatly by the death of their parents.  Darry, the oldest of brothers is changed because he was going to go to college with a football scholarship ,but he couldn’t after the death of his parents because he had to take the roll of being a guardian for his younger brothers.  Sodapop is affected because he dropped out of highschool to get a job.  Ponyboy, the youngest of the brothers, stays in school because both of his brothers force him to because they don’t want Ponyboy to be like them.

In this book, change is a huge part because everyone and mostly everything changes.  The way the three boys and the rest of their gang change their feelings about the Socs and the Socs even change their feelings for the Greasers and the way they are going to treat them from now on.  The Socs and Greasers aren’t going to fight anymore and will be nice to each other instead of wanting to fight them.

A lot of people can relate to change.  It can be good change or bad change.  In The Outsiders there were examples of both good and bad change.  When Ponyboy and Johnny killed Bob, they had to change the way they were living.  Instead of living in a nice home with good food, they had to live in an abandon church with almost no food.  Another change is when the Socs and the Greasers agreed not to fight anymore so now neither of the gangs have to worry about getting jumped out of nowhere.  These are both examples of good and bad changes from The Outsiders.

When a big change happens, good or bad, it can affect your life in ways that are memorable.  Whether you change good or bad, will direct your memories for the rest of your life.

The Change

Authors Note:  This is the character analysis I did for L.A. class.

Character Analysis

In the book Touching Spirit Bear there is a boy named Cole Matthews.  He has major anger issues and wants everyone to fear him.  He wants to be the top dog in his area.  Cole was abused by his father and his mom was a drunk.  Cole decided to break into a hardware store.  Cole then got ratted out by a boy named Peter Driscal for breaking into the store.  Cole got very angry at Peter and beat him up and smashed his head into the sidewalk.   Cole had to go The Justice Circle where he had to find out whether he goes to jail or a remote island for a year.   Cole ended up getting sent to the remote island to get rid of his anger.  Cole was still very angry that he had to go to the island.  The night he got there he saw what is called the spirit bear.  The spirit bear wasn’t afraid of Cole.  Cole got angry at the fact that the spirit bear didn’t fear him so he went to try and kill the spirit bear.  The bear attacked Cole when he went to stab it.  Cole was on the verge of dying.  As Cole lays there after getting mauled, he realizes what he was doing.  He realized that he was scared of the fact of being alone and he wanted to change.  His whole right arm was very injured he could hardly use it.  Cole went back to Minneapolis to recover in the hospital.

 After he recovered  he had to go back to the island to finish his year on the island.  That’s when Cole really wanted to change because he got a second chance instead of having to go straight to jail.  He went to a pond every morning to swim and to think even if the water was freezing, nothing would stop Cole from going to the pond.  After the pond he would get the same big rock every morning.  The rock was supposed to be his ancestors and his anger.  He carries the rock up a hill and then rolls it down.  It is supposed to roll his anger away.  He dances a dance every night on what he learned that day.  He even carves the animal that he sees that day into a big log.  This routine every day really calms down Cole and soothes him.  Cole is really changing the way he sees things on life.  Peter tried committing suicide twice during the time that Cole was at the island so Garvey decided to send Peter to the island to soothe himself like Cole does.  Peter stayed away from Cole because he was still terrified of him.  Cole tried his best to make Peter realize that he changed from his old ways.  Peter finally decided to start going to the pond with Cole.  Peter always pushed Cole into the water because he still hated Cole for what he did, but he always did it when Garvey wasn’t looking.  Then one day Peter decided to go to the pond with Cole without Garvey.  They went for the regular soak and then they got out.  Peter started to push Cole and Cole refused to fight back because he really did change.  Peter started striking Cole in the stomach and punching him in the face.  Cole still didn’t fight back.  He let peter beat him up without fighting back at all.  Peter eventually stopped.  Peter and Cole started becoming friends after Peter beat Cole up.  The time of being on the island was almost over and Cole carved anger into his totem.  Him and Peter carved a circle into the totem.  The circle represented that everywhere on the circle is a beginning and an end.  The following day they had to go back to Minneapolis.