I thought that the article in Upfront magazine about if Edward Snowden is a hero or a villain was interesting, because on so many news networks when this whole Wikileaks situation was going on all of the stations immediately described Edward Snowden to be a villain, but now I think that all of those news stations were very biased in so suddenly categorizing him a traitor and a terrible person.  Though I don't know the entire story about Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and how exactly this went down but I do think that it was wrong of the two of them to uncover government secrets and then hand them to the public.  I do think that if you were to ask either one of these two they would say that they were just giving the public what they wanted and that is why the government started looking for them, that is also why they fled the country, to try and escape prison.

The poem "Please Don't Take My Air Jordans" by reg e. gaines is a very sad and serious poem.  reg e. gaines uses many different kinds of literary devices to show just how serious this poem really is.  One example of a literary device used throughout this poem is simile, an example of simile in the poem is "They were q-tip white bright and blinded my eyes the red emblem of michael looked as if it could fly not one spot of dirt the airs were brand new had my pistol knew what to do."(Gaines 10)

Another type of literary device used in this poem is imagery, an example of that is "My crew's laughin at me cuz I'm wearing old gear school's almost over summer is near and I'm sportin torn jordans and need somethin new there's only one thing left to do."(Gaines 6)  That quote represents imagery because how how the speaker talks about what he is wearing, what his crew is thinking of him and also what place in the year they are in.

The two biggest types of literary devices used throughout this poem are rhyme, and rhythm which are used throughout most of the poem.  The poem "Please Don't Take My Air Jordans" is written like a rap song and is meant to be read like a rap song.  The writer reg e. gaines wrote this poem like a rap because he wanted the readers to understand the place of which the speaker in the poem came from and he also wanted the readers to understand how self-absorbed and also how self-conscious the speaker was about how he looked and what he wore.  reg e. gaines also wanted the readers to understand the lengths at which that the speaker was willing to go to get new clothes.

In my book is "It's King of a Funny Storry" by  Ned Vizzini, Craig is trying to plan out his life thinking that he needs to get into a good high school so he can get into a good college to get the right job.  Craig Gilner is a New York City teenager who is super anxious and determined to succeed in life.  He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.  Craig's suicidal thoughts gets him checked into a mental hospital where his new neighbors are a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has cut herself with scissors and so on.

Craig is really dealing with some problems in his life, but he can finally comfort the sources of his anxiety problems.  In the hospital Craig feels comfort because aside from the padded walls and the limited outside time Craig has truly found people that he can talk to and be comfortable with.

I believe that Craig will be asked to leave the hospital and then he is forced to do something that he doesn't want to do in order to stay with his friends.  I think that Craig's anxiety problems will stay with him for the remainder of this book and I think that all of his expectations will go away completely.

I chose too write about an article in Upfront magazine named "The Death of a President" the article is about the 50 year anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination.  The reason why I really wanted to read this article is because for many years I have wondered about the famous killing of President Kennedy and I never truly knew what had really happened that day on November 22, 1963.  When I read this article I learned so much on what had taken place.

I also learned about many new facts about his killer Lee Harvey Oswald who was a massive enemy of the United States at the time.  Oswald was dishonorably discharged from the Marines, he also defected to the Soviet Union in 1959.  He had also spent quite some time in Cuba.  Two days after the assassination of the President Lee Harvey Oswald was shot a and killed by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby, who died of cancer in prison in 1967.

Overall I thought that this article wasn't only very informational but now it has taught me many things about the President's death and his killer as well as his killer's killer.  This article was also very sad because in the beginning of the article it talks about this woman named Jenyce Gush who was at the scene in Dallas where President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, it also talks about how she felt at that very moment when that tragic moment occurred.

Luca Sarno
class:808





                                                                 Reading Response


In my book Allegiant by Veronica Roth the main character is Tris a young woman who has been running away from enemy forces and fighting for her life.  Tris is dealing with seeing one of her very good friends die right before her eyes, and on top of that most of her friends believe that it was her who killed their good friend.

So far throughout the book Tris has been struggling to survive living off the berries that she finds in the forest and now Tris believes that it would be best if she parted ways with the group.  "I know I should leave, but I have to stay in this moment for a little while, feeling its significance."(Roth 81)  Tris' goal is to shut down the entire dauntless operation "It's nine o'clock.  They could be deciding Caleb's verdict right now, as I tie my shoes, as I straighten my sheets for the fourth time today.  I put my hands through my hair.  The factionless only make trials private when they feel the verdict is obvious, and Caleb was Jeanine's right-hand man before she was killed."(Roth 52)  This quote shows how much Tris cares about the people that she knows and the people that have helped her over the years and over the duration of her long journey.

I chose to write about this book because it's genre and story line are two things that really drew me toward reading this book.  Also I have read the other two books in this series and I really thoroughly enjoyed reading them so I wanted to give the next book in the series a try, and I also did enjoy reading this book.