Journal 4 Crystal Waterer

1) A scene I feel is important is in chapter 15 is when the lieutenant picks Beah and a few other boys to leave the camp. Beah and his friend where doing what they normally do when they are not taking over villages, as they where sitting there doing there drugs a truck came and men jumped out with the word UNICEF on their clothing. The men went to talk to the lieutenant, and when they where done beah and all the other boys of the camp had to stand in a line. The lieutenant says “When I point at you, fall out and form a line by the private”(Beah 129). As the lieutenant goes down the line he picks Beah out and a 14 other boys. The lieutenant gave them instructions on removing the ammunition, put on safety and place there weapons on the ground. The boys where told to follow the lieutenant, and when the came to a stop they where at the truck the people with the UNICEF clothes came in. The lieutenant then looks at the boys and tells them how much he appreciates them and everything they have done. He also states that he has to let them go and let them live a better life going to school and such things. Beah began thinking “we thought we were part of the war until the end. The squad had been our family. Now we were being taken away just like that, without explanation” I think Beah dramatized this because he wants the readers to know how used to being a soldier was, how it made him feel when he finally had a chance to be free of the war. I feel empathy for beah because he is so used to the war that now he is mad that he is leaving.


2) How would you feel about Beah if you were a family member of someone that this young boy murdered?

I would feel very angry at first, he rated a village to Kill my family member and take everything. After giving my self a few minutes to recoup, I would probably go to warn the next village he could be attacking next and maybe come up with a plan of some sort to capture him with the help of the villagers. After capturing him I feel that I would try to help him, but if he fights he would have to be killed for my safety, Kill or be killed

chpater 14 journal four shae

Chapter 14

“The Winner”

In chapter 14, in the book A Long Way Gone, the most important part to me was on page 124. In this chapter we see a different side of Ishmael and I don’t think that any of us readers were expecting what he didn’t mind doing in this part of the book. In this chapter there are five prisoners. The lieutenant chose 5 boys to kill each of the men. The way they had to kill them was by slitting their throats on the lieutenants command. Beah wrote, “ We had our bayonets out and we were supposed to look in the faces of the prisoners as we took them out of this world.” (Beah 124). Ishmael had become a killer and he didn’t mind which I found very important in this chapter. The way Beah wrote about Ishmael killing the prisoner on page 125 was very in depth and cruel. I think that Beah wrote this and dramatized this part of the book to show that Ishmael is not the same boy he used to be in the beginning of the war. When Beah wrote “ I slit his throat and one fluid motion. His Adams apple made way for the sharp knife, and I turned the bayonet on its zigzag edge as I brought it out. His eyes rolled up and they looked me straight in the eye before they suddenly stopped in a frightful glance, as if caught by surprise.” (Beah 125). This made me feel sick to my stomach to listen to all of the stuff that Ishmael has gone through and now he is doing the same to others. 

The transformation of Ishmael in chapter 14 is just crazy to me he is a whole different person now. Just reading that Ishmael is proud of the kills he makes and how he enjoys competing with the other boys seeing who can kill someone faster just wows me. I feel that Ishmael is a changed person and I don’t think that he can honestly go back to the boy he was after what has happened in these last few chapters. Ishmael isn’t afraid anymore and that’s very scary. He had said in this chapter that killing someone was almost as easy as drinking water and that is definitely something that has changed for him since he became apart of the war (actually fighting in it). This chapter definitely shows how much Ishmael has changed and I personally think he isn’t gonna change back to the innocent little boy he was before. He might stay this way forever….

Journal 4 Michael McGinnis

Journal 4 Michael McGinnis
I think a scene that Beah chose to over dramatize in Chapter 15 is when UNICEF shows up to the government camp and took some of the child soldiers away. Beah talks about how mad he was when he got selected to be taken away by them. He also talks about how he and another boy tried to plan an idea as to where they could kill all the soldiers guarding them and the truck. Then go to the base camp where they came from and continue to fight. This scene in the book is completely dramatic and dramatized by Beah. He will figure out that it will be a good thing for him and that it isn’t the end of the world. However his mind has been brainwashed by the government army and that makes him angry. It makes hum angry because he wanted to keep fighting in the civil war and try to help them win. Yet deep down and we know that it will work a lot better than it would have if he was still fighting. We see a dramatic change in character in Beah in chapters 12 and 15. Beah goes from an innocent kid trying to survive a war. To all the sudden being a child in the exact war that he was already trying to survive. I think that Beah’s shift in character was so sudden, due to the fact that he had to grow up. This was it, he had to grow up and learn how to survive and that so happened to be in the military’s army. He let himself become a killer because the military government brainwash kids into thinking that this was right and that it was fine. He let himself become one only to survive. He knew that at some point it was either shoot your shot or be shot. A lot of that is what we see in these 3 chapters and a lot of that would continue as the war progressed. It will be interesting to see how this will affect him as we read more of the book.

Journal 4 Tyler Green

Ishmael Beah got his first taste of war. Seeing his friends killed left him numb to any regret he might feel over killing someone. Watching his friends die lit an angry fire in him that led him to fight back, killing another human for the first time. He was going around and showing people who the evil side of him really was and how powerful he can be. There is a part in the book where Beah is handed his worst nightmare and he has to go into the war. When he’s in the war he is faced with a tragic loss of his best friends getting killed by gunfire. In this case if I was in his shoes, the one thing I would do is also go into revenge mode and make sure the people that hurt my friends got what they deserved. And I would fight back. I would either do the revenge or quit and just not get revenge because I would be the one getting hurt. But if this was me in this situation I would want revenge. Beah really changes attitudes when he goes to war now. They say in the novel a long way gone that after the tragedy of his friends it’s now “easy” to kill. It’s crazy after one war he is able to kill men without a problem. If there was a time and place where one of my friends have been hurt maybe killed there would be a part of me that would be scared and a side of me that wants revenge.

Journal 4 by Will Cochrane

The scene that I feel is most important in chapters 14 and 15 was in chapter 14. It is the scene where Ishmael and two other boys are chosen for a throat slitting competition. Ishmael really dramatizes this scene to show how far gone he has become in this war. Ishmael is no longer the same person whatsoever. He does not feel for the rebel that he kills and has become there very thing he didn’t want to become in the earlier chapters. I feel Ishmael chose to dramatize this scene to show his state of mind and how the war took control of him. I was personally shocked when reading this scene. When looking into the eyes of the rebel he is about to kill Ishmael states, “I didn’t feel a thing for him, didn’t think that much about what I was doing” (Beah 124). It was at this moment that I thought the boy that we were first introduced to was gone for good and he has become nothing more than a vicious killer.

There is no real explanation of the change in Ishmael other than the effects of war. War is a terrible thing and it makes people do terrible things. Ishmael just fell under the pressures of war and had no other choice but to become that way. He tries to justify what he is doing it for his family. Personally I don’t see him as a bad guy whatsoever. I understand what he is doing and I get that war changes people. I don’t agree or think it's okay but I feel bad for him and still see him as that innocent boy with just twisted mind by the war. I don’t think Ishmael will ever fully recover but I feel when the war is over he will realize what he has become and try to rehabilitate himself. If i were in Ishmael’s shoes I think I would’ve done the exact same thing as him. I would’ve wanted vengeance for the killing of my family and the war would have eventually had its hold on me and I would’ve done the same things he did even if thinks its wrong right now. If I were a family member of someone that Beah had killed I’d never be able to see Beah as anything other than a killer. I personally never wish to lose a family member like that so I could never really imagine what I would do in that situation.

Journal 4- Technique and Theme Analysis

      In chapter 15 Beah writes about how four guys come to their village and bring them back to a
camp like area so they are out of harm's way. “You have been great soldiers and you all know that
you are part of this brotherhood. I am very proud to have served my country with you boys. But
your work here is done, and I must send you off. These men will put you in school and find you
another life” (Beah 129). This scene made me feel very emotional, after all the hard work and
trauma that he’s gone through he can finally live a life that a boy his age was meant to live. I
believe he dramatized this second because its a big step in his future, even though he didn’t like
the fact that he was leaving the army base it is still a big step for him in this life.

       Beah’s transformation as a person in the book doesn’t really change my perspective of him.
It’s not really his fault that he went from an innocent boy trying to survive day to day to an “ I don’t
care I’m doing this for me” type of person. Beah went through so many tragic events like losing
his family, seeing innocent people dead every village he went to, having friends die in front of
him, and him himself almost dying as well. Going through that much trauma will change anyone
honestly, and on top of that being put into the army will change someone dramatically, when my
fiancé came back from basic training he was a little ruder than what he was before he went in,
that’s because they are a lot more strict and rude to you. So, no Beah’s character change does
not change my perspective of him, he has all rights to be the way he is at the moment.

Journal 4 by Ashleigh

1.) A scene that I feel is important in Chapter 14 is when Beah and the boys are no longer scared to kill or have the guilt of killing, that feeling has all gone away. Beah has the mind track that these people are the ones that killed my family and that’s what makes him not care. Then there is also the fact that the boys do a lot of drugs to also keep their mind off the guilt of killing. Beah, page 122 “The combination of these drugs gave us a lot of energy and made us fierce. The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water.” Beah’s mind is so set and focused on getting back at the people who killed his family and stopped him from seeing them again. That’s a big change for Beah because when he first started to kill he was dramatized and became sick to his stomach whenever he would kill someone, and now after being in the war for a while and getting adjusted to the way things go such as the same routine. They watch war movies, do drugs and then go raid another village of rebels. In this point of the book Beah really changed.

2.) How does this transformation of character change your perception of Beah?

This transformation changed my whole perception of Beah and who he is. Beah at the beginning of the story was this little boy who was scared , caring but also strong. He pushed through so much to be able to become at least a little happy, and now in the story Beah has completely changed. He isn’t scared anymore, he doesn’t care, and he has just lost all hope in becoming or finding anything that he has just become a killer. The hero at the beginning of the story isn’t the same because he has become a killer.

Journal 4: Taylor

          A scene I thought was important was in chapter 14, page 124. It was the scene that the five boys picked had to "practice" killing the prisoners. I thought this was an important scene for the writer to dramatize because it continued to reveal that he is not this innocent, young boy anymore. A good direct quote from this scene, "I didn't feel a thing for him, didn't think much about what I was doing. I just waited for the corporal's order. The prisoner was simply another rebel who was responsible for the death of my family, as I had come to truly believe." At first reading this passage made me angry and disappointed. They chose 5 people to be practice for murder. 5 human beings. Then reading Beah's quote from above I became even more angry as he said he didn't feel a thing for him. I then took a second and put myself in Beah's shoes and became empathetic for him once again. He was brainwashed and trained to do anything the corporal says to do and it was easy for him to believe that every rebel was responsible for the death of his family. 

          The transformation of Beah throughout chapters 12-15 does not change my perception of him much. The things that he explains he did are very hard to read and hard to understand so I think it's important to put yourself in his shoes. He is a very young boy who is still deep down innocent and during the time he did not know any better. As a reader you can see that all the young boys were brainwashed into becoming what they are. Beah's whole family was murdered during this war. He's angry, lost, and afraid. Along with having to deal with the death of his family, he has also witnessed his friends die right beside him. So in the end, how else would you expect a boy his age to react when the war is all around him and soldiers are influencing him?

Journal Four By Payton

1) A scene that I feel is super important in chapter 15 would be when the people come to get some of the boys to take them to rehabilitation. The boys have no idea where they are headed or if they will ever see the other soldiers again. Their lieutenant states “ You have been great soldiers and you all know that you are apart of this brotherhood. I am very proud to have served my country with you boys. But your work here is done (Beah 129)”.I think that Beah dramatizes this because he wants the reader to know how used to being a soldier he actually was and how important it was for him to kill all the rebels. Beah knew that those rebels were the people responsible for killing his family and he wanted to make sure none were left. I also feel that this scene may give a little hope that Beah may be able to become a regular fifteen year old boy and not have to worry about killing anyone or staying alive anymore. As I was reading this scene and the chapter as a whole I felt very happy that he was finally getting to leave the war scenes. I thought that maybe this meant Beah was going to get to start a new life.

2)  “ Do you think he can be truly rehabilitated?”

I do not believe that Beah can truly be rehabilitated. I think that he may improve some but I don’t think that he will ever be the same again. The things that he went through at such a young age will scar him forever and I feel that he will also have PTSD from this. He was twelve years old when he was on his own with no family and had to learn to survive. He went through this for many years until he was fifteen and went to rehabilitation. The first day Beah was there he threw a grenade at a group of boys. This shows that it may be hard for him to ever be normal again. I think Beah may get a little better but I do not think he will ever be the same.

Journal Four by Bekah

The scene I feel is important is the scene in chapter fourteen where Beah participates in a competition to see who can kill a rebel prisoner the fastest by slitting their throats. I believe that Beah chose to dramatize this particular scene because it shows the true horrors of what war can do to anyone’s morals. Although it’s one moment in a thousand events of the war, it’s a crucial part in the story because it paints a gruesome picture of how easily children are manipulated, especially when exposed to trauma. When Beah wrote, “The corporal gave the signal with a pistol shot and I grabbed the man’s head and slit his throat in one fluid motion...I dropped him on the ground and wiped my bayonet on him” (Beah 125). I felt truly disturbed. Even though we’re exposed to death more often than not these days, to remember that a child did this with no remorse or hesitation, is a whole other level of shocking. 

    If I were a family member of one of the men Beah killed, I would like to say I would be forgiving and understanding, but in reality I don’t think I would be. I can’t imagine one of my loved ones dying prematurely, let alone being murdered. The anger and pain I would feel would overshadow the part of me that would be understanding of the fact that it was kill or be killed, that it’s war, and that both sides of the war are basically fighting to survive.

Journal 4, David Gray

1.) A memorable moment in chapter 14 & 15 was on page 124, chapter 14. This scene was when Ishmael Beah and a few other guys raided a village, and took there supplies including food, water, clothes, and even drugs. The group shot there guns at anything that moved. After all of that, Beah and the group then tied a few people up that lived in the village. Beah then relates in his head about why his lieutenant gave them tasks without an explanation given. He just wanted the job done right once, and quick. Shifting back into the tied up people, lieutenant made up a competition for the group. This competition isn’t a normal one either. The goal was to slice the tied up civilians once, and wait till they die. The first person to drop was the winner. Lieutenant shot in the air to start the competition. Beah sliced his person across the neck, slicing his Adam’s apple with his bayonet on the gun. “The prisoner leaned his weight on me as he gave out his last breath” (Beah 125). Beah won the challenge, and everyone cheered him on. He was then givin a higher rank, and celebrated with doing drugs and watching war movies one again.
I belive that this memorable moment for the readers due to its visual explanation, and Beahs reaction. This reveals that Beah now isn’t scared of death, he wants to kill and survive. Back then, Beah would never shoot a gun. He would run away from the shots and be independent. With all of that being said, I feel disgusted. I understand that every human being has to change for war, but to make it a game was foul and unnecessary.

2.) The second bullet point is talking about “How does this transformation of character change your perspective of Beah?” I believe that deep down inside Beahs heart, he is still the young, innocent boy he was always meant to be. I understand that war changes everyone in every way, but this is to far. He participates in a killing challenge that is brutal, and it has no bad effects on him. By Beah winning, it makes him better, and feels like he is the best. I want to feel sorry for Beah, but i just cannot. I feel confused but disgusted.

Journal 4 from Krosbi Clark

1.) A scene that I feel is important in chapter fourteen is when the soldiers practiced killing the prisoners. Beah dramatized this to show how the government soldiers brash washed them to kill. The government soldiers made the killings seem like the boys are doing this for their families, made them feel that they were doing the right thing. The government soldiers are supposedly the ‘good guys’, but turns out they’re just as bad as the rebels. The lieutenant lined up all the boy soldiers they had to practice killing prisoners they captured. The lieutenant made it a game for the boy soldiers such as the person who kills their prisoner the fastest wins. The boys didn’t care for the prisoners, especially Beah, they just wanted to win the game. This scene also shows how Beah has changed drastically as a person. He went from being an innocent boy trying to survive the war to being a murderer without sympathy. “I didn’t feel a thing for him, didn’t think that much about what I was doing. I just waited for the corporal’s order” (Beah 124). This demonstrates that the boys will do anything the government soldiers say, and that Beah has changed as a person. This scene made me question myself such as what would I do if I was put in this situation. What situation would push me to go against my morality.

2.) Beah has changed dramatically from chapter twelve through chapter fifteen because of brainwashing from the soldiers, from the loss of his family, and his first kill. He let himself become a killer because he was made to because of the government soldiers brainwashing all the boys. The government soldiers would tell them they need to fight for revenge. “This is your time to revenge the deaths of your families” (Beah 106). This is a manipulative way the soldiers knew would work on the boys because they all have lost loved ones from the rebels. With the recent loss of Beah’s family, he is willing to get revenge for his family. “Whenever I looked at rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family” (Beah 122). Beah killed a man for the first time during a fight and felt nothing. Beah having his first kill was a major event that changed him. He felt powerful and it gave him peace for his family deaths. “I was not afraid of these lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them” (Beah 119).

Journal Four Jeremy

Jeremy Masteller



1.  The scene I have chosen is in chapter 14 near the end of the book for page 125. The scene is simply put when they have captured a few rebels and they are now being timed on how fast they can slit a person's throat.  Why did Beah choose to dramatize it? Well, we know in this point of the book he is trying to show how brainwashed he has become. To the point where they are literally playing games to see who can kill the fastest then return to watching Rambo like nothing happened. Again it shows the reader that he has completely snapped with the mixture of brainwashing and hatred. This is now who he is, where war is his life. To be honest I'm not surprised at the things mentioned, after all, he was doing this day in and out for two whole years. He had to mention the things he did in-between even if it's just a day or two. "The boys and other soldiers who were the audience clapped as if I had just fulfilled life's greatest achievemnts" (Beah 125).



2.

A.  It's not like he really had a choice, to begin with. If the army was willing to kill a father and son for leaving the fort. I can guarantee you they would torture then kill him for deserting. On top of that, he would be leaving his brothers behind having to deal with the loneliness again. So he let hatred consume him and who could blame him?

B. It never really changed my perception of him. Humans have a breaking point and we knew he was going to, it was a question of when. As a 12-year-old he probably did better than what a lot of adults could do.

C. Depends on what we define as true rehabilitation? But truly usually has the same tone as truly omnipotent. So in other words, once he is done, he will be his old self. The answer is no. After such events, you don't just get over them or forget them. They just don't bother you to the point where it hinders you but that guilt/memory will always be there. The only way true rehabilitation could happen would be to either time travel to prevent the event or he has amnesia and never comes across anything that could trigger or tell him of his past.

D. The only realistic alternative for Beah would have been to convince his friends to raid their supplies and make a run for it. Even though at the time they were horrid with guns and two its would have been just a small squad against the army and RUF. On top of that in order to maintain them, they would have had to raid other villages or bases to survive such a lifestyle. Until they left the country entirely to start their new lives.

E. Would probably want to kill him at any cost

Journal 4

   In chapter 15 of A Long Way Gone a lot of important scenes are demonstrated. One in particular happens on (pg. 126). In this Beah recaps the past 2 years he was fighting for the army and goes to mention how he felt no emotion toward killing his enemy’s. He said “Killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone” (Beah 126). I believe Beah chose to dramatize this scene because he wanted to show the reader his transformation from an innocent young boy into the emotionless killer he became. I ultimately feel as if this scene demonstrates the moment Beah let go of his morals to become a pawn in a war he couldn't escape.

Ultimately as a whole the dramatic changes Beah endures through chapters 12-15 stand as the result of brainwashing from the soldiers he was captured by. Beah never wanted to kill other human beings but it was through the manipulative tactics of the soldiers that made him do so. They poised his mind into hating the rebels and to seek revenge for the family he had lost. This as a result turned Beah intro a monstrous killer.

Journal 4 from Kayla

In chapter fourteen, Beah dramatized his first killing. It shows that Beah is no longer an innocent child. I feel that he takes a step from childhood into adulthood by murdering a defenseless man. He only able to reconcile this with his conscience by first conjuring up the image of his murdered friends, and attributing their deaths to the rebel in front of him. For example Beah writes, “Every time I stopped shooting to change magazines and saw my two lifeless friends, I angrily point my gun into the swap and killed more people”(119). The power of memory thus utilized is clear: by turning pain into hatred, Beah is able to kill more people. Beah uses this anger as a loss of childhood. I feel that Beah is in pain, and he is only trying to suppress it by taking it out on other people. 


Soldiers returning from combat often face a multitude of challenges. One challenge is adjusting to a civilian life with no violence.  In chapter fifteen of A Long Way Gone, there were riots at the UNICEF compound demonstrate how deeply-rooted the boys’ military “brainwashing” as Beah terms it truly is. When offered a second chance at a civilian life after two years of combat, with new clothes, a safe place to sleep, and people who care for them, the boys turn the situation into a military endeavor. Strange boys, no matter their affiliation, are a threat until their motives and loyalties can be determined. The fight with the RUF boys accentuates how deep the ideological chasm is between boys who have suffered similar traumas, but been indoctrinated by opposite political factions. Although the camp may not look helpful to the boys it actually is a new beginning. It is a gentle re-introduction to a world without constant violence and fear. It is the first step into a new life. It might take a long time to be rehabilitated in society, but I think that Beah will do it. 

Journal Three: Reading Response: Keeley Weaver

     My active reading is going great so far if I don’t know a word I underline it and write it at the bottom of the page, if I find anything interesting in the passage I highlight it and put why I find it interesting or give my opinion on the topic of the book. The only thing I’m really struggling with is remembering to put the characters on top of the page and putting what role they have in the story.

     Each book as a lot of strengths I believe, “The House On Mango Street” uses great metaphors for comparison of things to help really understand what Esperanza is trying to get at and it has a very good concept to the book In “A Long Way Gone” Beah is very detailed with everything going on so you can read and can picture what’s going on in your head. I don’t really think the books have a weakness other than in “The House On Mango Street “ I don’t like how short the chapters are, I think she could go more into depth on details of what’s going on and I believe that the chapters are kind of all over the place. The book I prefer out of the two would have to be “A Long Way Gone” because I appreciate how in-depth everything is in that book and you can really get a feel of scared and concerned is in the book and pretty much experienced everything that the 11-year-old boy goes through as well.

     One of the themes I found in “A Long Way Gone” was fear. Everyone in the story is pretty much on their toes and very careful with each and every one of their moves so they don’t get caught by the rebels. It is important to understand this because all the boys in their group aren’t even adults yet and they have to live in constant fear because they don’t know where their family is and if they are even alive. A direct quote I found to represent the theme was in chapter 5, “I couldn’t hear their word as because all I could think about was death.”

Journel Three by Michael McGinnis

Michael McGinnis

Journal 3

1) My active reading right now is starting to get a little better. I am not into a good habit of looking for the small things and highlighting key details. What is going well is that I am starting to read now and be more active in my reading as I go throughout the book. I am struggling with consistency while I am reading. There are little to no underling on pages and then on some half of the page is covered in underling. 

2) The strength in the book A Long Way Gone would be the overall story of the book. We see how war in other countries can be much more deadly then we realize. We will hear of a war in other country, but in this book we are truly seeing what the war does to people of that country and the economy of the country. A strength of the book The House on Mango Street would be that the author describes the characters a lot to start the book so we learn a little more about them on the surface level and then as we read we will learn about them on a more deeper level. A weakness of A Long Way Gone  is that he doesn't say how the war is going or who he wants to really win the war. A weakness of The House on Mango Street would be that while there are a ton of characters it is a very slow paced book and the story takes it's time developing. So far I would have to say that I like  A Long Way Gone more right now!

3) My theme for the book would be survival and we see that at the end of chapter four when he says "After all the trouble and risk we undertook to get the money, it became useless."(Beah 29) I think that this quote sets up a big idea that he wanted people to understand. When this brutal civil war happened his countries economy shut down completely to the point where all of your money was useless and to survive you either had to steal or go to market and try to bargain with someone. Then he talks about when he had to steal just so that he could eat. When he goes to the abandon village and there was nothing there even to eat. That is surviving and I think that is going to be a big theme later on in the book.

JOURNAL THREE BY SHAE FITZPATRICK

My active reading is going good and I will keep up the good work for the rest of the year. My English teachers throughout high school taught me and my peers to always annotate and I have learned that I like to write in my books and it helps me relate to the story more and also helps me better understand what’s going on in the book. The one thing I struggled with was coming up with chapter names but I think that is a good idea and will try to get in the habit of it.

 I think that the chapters are very short in the House on mango street which is a weakness to me because there is more of a story in the chapters in the book A long way gone. The house on mango street has a lot of good metaphors and other ways that Sandra Cisneros brings your attention into her writings. In  A long way gone one of the weaknesses is that there are a lot of different things happening in the same chapters so it’s hard to remember what happens in each chapter. A strength that the book A long way gone has is that the chapters are very interesting and it is an actual story unlike the house on mango street. I like the look a long way gone a lot better it’s just more interesting to me than The house on mango street is. It’s also a lot less confusing. 

The theme that I saw occur in all of the chapters was losing hope. The boys in the story are doing everything to stay alive and will do anything to keep each other safe but they are losing hope and losing their connections which will make it hard for them to all survive in my opinion in the end. Since they are going through hard times together and seeing horrible things happen to the people in the community they should be sticking together and their relationships should be getting stronger but what is happening is the exact opposite. In chapter 5 Ishmael gets separated from his brother mentally and psychically. On page 34, chapter 5 before they had actually  gotten separated "it seemed as if our worlds were different now and our connection was breaking." This important part in the book shows that Ishmael is alone now and that having people to get through stuff which is needed and by this happening in chapter 5 Ishmael needs to gain his hope back. In the later chapters I hope he gets more faith back in finding junior and his family because he had lost it in these few chapters. This is important everyone needs hope in everything they do or they will not succeed.

Journal Tyler green

Tyler Green



1. For this active reading i have been highlighting and writing in my books because it helps me always stay aware of whats going on. The things that are working well is that i am not the greatest reader or like to read. Its a very hard read because the book can be very sad or action.

2. For mango street i think that i am liking the read better because its a very easy read. so that a strength. I am very good with having a good image what going on and how i am gonna feel after the chapter. And a weakness is try to keep up with the book and still understanding the concept of what we are  learning. It can all be very easy and hard at the same time as well as getting the correct things writing on the side when something gets interesting. In beah there are weaknesses. Those are very tough for the kids to find food as well  as find shelter

3. There was a very interesting yet brutal line in the first paragraph, It was on chapter 8 it says I had passed through burnt villages where dead bodies of men, women. children of all ages were scattered like leaves on the ground after a storm.That part was very weird yet interesting because it shows how bad the  war really is and how they can get through times so tough.   

Journal 3 by Will Cochrane

Journal Three

My active reading has definitely improved since I first started it. I figured out what exactly to highlight. The active reading is helping me know the main idea of each chapter and important events that happen. It’s also helping me remember all the characters. One problem I’ve had is constantly active reading. I sometimes go a couple pages in without doing anything or marking something. I’ve never read actively before so it is kind of hard to get used to doing it. I also have a problem of losing focus or train of thought when I’m active reading. Overall I think it's helping me and it will help a lot when we have to write about the books. I will be able to track main ideas and thoughts instead of re-reading chapters and pages.

I believe both of the books we are reading have their strengths and weaknesses but personally I think they both have more strengths than they have weaknesses. In Beahs book, his strengths are definitely in the way he depicts the violence and the pain of the victims of the rebels. He is able to make the reader feel so much sympathy for the victims and just have an overall sick feeling when they’re reading those parts. In my opinion this really stands out to me because I’ve never had a book be this morbid and graphic. A weakness that Beahs book has is that it can be hard to keep track of characters and he doesn’t go into detail on the characters. I wish he spent more time on them so the reader could easily identify them and have more connections to them. In Cisneros Book, a big strength I’ve noticed is that she describes settings and characters very well. A lot of the characters she introduces have very interesting backgrounds and are just overall interesting characters because of the way Cisneros depicts them. I weakness that the book has is that overall story can be somewhat hard to follow just because of the many chapters there are. I think both books are very could so far and don’t have many weaknesses.

In Chapter 6 of a long way gone, a big theme I’ve noticed is the lack of trust. The villagers have lost all trust for any outsiders and were going to kill the boys if it wasn’t for the boy who knew them and was already apart of the village. I think this them is very important because in the time of war it's hard to trust anybody. It’s very sad that villagers can't trust anybody that comes into the village. “People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy” (Beah 37). This quote is a prime example of the horrors and destruction of the war that is going on. This theme of the lack of trust is big in chapter 6 and I have a feeling it's going to be a big part in the rest of the book. `

Journal three: Jeremy

Jeremy Masteller





                                                                Journal Three


1. When it comes to my active reading it not to the level of what I normally do. While I find Beah worth having annotations, Mango is such a short book and very easy to read, that's a compliment though, that I really don't need to annotate any sentence that, not to be rude, a bloody middle schooler could understand. Beah needs it so that way you can keep track of what's going on in the story and big things of meaning happen but most books, as they supposed to do, is be able to be read by the masses so any "themes" don't really need thought since there right out in the open.

2. When it comes to Mango it does a really nice job of displaying the setting of everything in said section really well and we can understand the life there well. My main issue is that the introduction is a snippet of another book goes into her life, which as a reader the only person I care about realistically is her. So I find it a waste to read a book that only goes feet deep into a story versus belly deep. An extra note, I'm used to reading long books so having a book be about 100 pages, considering 20 are introduction is unsettling.

2b. I really don't have an issue with Beah at all. The book is a memoir so I sometimes question the validity of the book. In Cold Blood is known to twist the story, I question how much of it is true. I will say a very larger percentage is true but at what point does he/editor change the book to sell better? Especially as finicky as memories are.

2c. The winner is Beah, by a long shot because to me it's actually worth reading. Beah actually makes me compelled to learn about what happens.

3. One of the main themes of these chapter ad realistically of the whole book is the strength of togetherness. What do I mean by that? Well, many of the tribes/people no longer trust foreigners even though we know that this was not the case before the war. Because of the war, people separate themselves and begin to lose sympathy for others for the sake of their own protection. "I was glad to see other faces and at the same time disappointed that the war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people. Even a twelve-year-old boy couldn't be trusted anymore." Thus rationality is thrown out the window and impulsiveness flourishes.

Journal Three: Taylor

Active reading is going very well for me. It took me a bit of time to really adjust to it but I do believe I'm retaining the information better than I would be without it. I believe it has also helped me with reading two books at the same time. To be honest, I was fearful of reading two at once because I thought remembering information from one book was hard enough for me to do but with writing down all my thoughts and key points in the chapters, I feel I have taken in more information than I would have with reading only one book and no active reading.

A strength I see in both books would be the way they make you visualize every event. Both authors do an excellent job getting the reader to see and feel whats really going on in a certain event or point in the story. A weakness I see in A House On Mango Street is how confusing it can get at times. I really enjoy the short chapters and how they really make you feel like you're there with her. But other times, it can get overwhelming. I'm trying my best to truly understand this book but I don't think I've gotten there yet.
I would definitely prefer the book A Long Way Gone. This book has me always wanting to read more and more. It pulls you in emotionally and makes you feel along with the author. At times the details can be hard to read but Beah does an outstanding job making the reader see the best we can what he saw.

A theme I have seen in A Long Way Gone would be loneliness. I think this theme is so important because any reader can connect to him on this level. Maybe not in the same circumstances, but I do believe everyone has felt a level of loneliness at some point in their lives. On page 47, Beah writes about him attempting to climb a coconut tree, "I tried again and again, but each attempt was more pitiful than the last. I hadn't laughed for a long time, but this made me laugh uncontrollably. I could have written a science paper on the experience." I thought this was a good quote from the book because without him saying he's lonely, you can tell by his actions, emotions, and reactions. 

Journal Three Reading Response from Ashleigh

1. The active reading for me is going really well. It really helps me understand the books more, and keeps me on track with what’s going on in each book. In high school I wasn’t much of a reader and when I would read I would always catch myself thinking about other things and not really paying attention to what is going on in the book, but with the active reading it really helps me stay focused and understand what I am reading because I’m focusing what’s going on and trying to write down new keys things.

2. Both The House on Mango Street and a long way gone are interesting books. In The House on Mango Street there are many different strengths, like how the book has many themes to show Esperanza’s life through her eyes and in first person to tell her identity as a little girl in a rough torn up life. Another strength about this book is that the chapter are short but are meaningful, when I sit down and read this book I’m not bored because the chapters are to long and don’t have enough description in them, I sit down and enjoy this book because there is so much to it. One weakness about this book is it kinda jumps all over the place, like the chapters don’t blend it to tell one big story they all tell their own little story so it can be confusing at times. In a long way gone there are also many strengths that make this book so good, Beah uses good figurative language to show how descriptive of Ishmaels story and how blunt he is about everything that happens. I like this book because I never get bored reading it and I’m always wanting to read more of it. Like we discussed in class a weakness of this book would have to be that the chapters don’t have titles to go with them and I feel that when a book has titles it helps the readers kinda know a little bit about what is happening. This far I prefer to read The House on Mango Street because I feel like I relate to that book more and I also can follow along better. The way that Cisneros just describes Esperanza’s life is amazing to me.

3. A theme I’ve noticed in a long way home is trust. Trust in this story is talked about a lot throughout the whole book, and in general trust in an important thing. With the war happening in this story it can destroy a person and how someone thinks. Like on page 37 “ People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became and enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.” It’s sad to think that people you used to trust and really knew became enemy’s towards you because of how war happened.

Journal Three Crystal Waterer

The active reading is going okay so far. I like the highlighting in the book but not so much the writing  in the book, I would rather write on a separate pages in stead of the book. The highlighting  is helping me remember the characters names and some events that happen throughout the book. I would say I struggle with finding the little things such as metaphors, because if I get really into a book I just keep reading and don’t stop.


I enjoy reading A Long Way Gone,  I like how the story s being told in his point of view.  One thing about the book that shocked me is that even though the chapters are short, you still get a lot of information, I thought the book would be difficult to understand because of the short chapters. I feel like the weakness of the book is the chapters have no names, titles to tell what the chapter is about. I also enjoy reading The House On Mango Street, one of the strengths is the story is being told in Esperanza's point of view one weakness is there are many characters within the short chapters that describe only certain things about the characters, and I would like to know more things about some of the characters. I prefer to read to the house on mango street just for the fact that it is something new, I have already read a long way gone my sophomore year in high school.


One major theme I see in the book A Long Way Gone, is survival mode. The group of kids had to walk for days, scavenge, and learn how to service on there on own. Also they steel food from people who are sleeping just so they are able to eat.

Journal Three by Bekah

My active reading is going pretty well. I believe I develop more of an understanding when writing out margin notes and highlighting key passages. At first, I had many hesitations. I read a lot, sometimes so much so that I forget I also have to keep up a social life, so writing in the books, especially highlighting, was very hard to start doing. Currently, I don't flinch every time the pencil or highlighter touches the paper, but it's going to be awhile before I get the courage to use a pen.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah does an amazing job at imagery and being able to move the reader with his words, the sentence lengths, where the paragraphs pause, etc. He is an extremely talented writer, although I feel that the book would be somewhat stronger with chapter titles. Sometimes it's hard to pluck out the meaning/topic of the chapter, so titles would help anyone who is reading it either just because, for research, or for a class. The House On Mango Street has many strengths, but the biggest one is most definitely the figurative language that Cisneros loads into each chapter. Another strength I believe that the book possesses is the creativity of the chapter titles. They're so unique and tend to summarize the chapter perfectly. A weakness in the book is the voice. I feel that the voice of Esperanza isn't as childish as it could be.

One of the themes I noticed in A Long Way Gone was trust. Trust, or lack thereof, was the focal point in chapter six. I feel that this theme is specifically important because it shows how quickly one's trust can disappear in either trauma, a pressuring situation, or just in general. Family can turn on family, friends on friends, neighbors on neighbors. On page 37, Beah writes "People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you." I believe that quote captures the theme perfectly.

Journal Three from David

1.) While reading the two books every other day. I feel like I am becoming a better reader already. Every time I start to read with a highlighter, I know I am going to comprehend more smaller details then before. By writing new characters, new settings, and new descriptions about a character in the upper margins. It helps me see the book in a whole new perspective by me visualizing a place or a person. Before, I didn’t even take that much notes, and sometimes I didn’t even know what was going on due to the lack of note taking. With all of that being said, I am starting to enjoy reading a lot more! Sometimes in the book “The House On Mango Street”. It’s hard for me to keep up taking notes of the characters, places, and little details because there is an excessive amount of detail to pay attention to. You also have to look at it this way. You need to take excessive amount of notes because it will help you understand better and the book will become more enjoyable.

2.) Every book is different and it has its own touch to make the book its own on of a kind. With “A Long Way Gone”, I feel like its hard for me to figure out if a chapter is past tense or present because the main character might have PTSD. I’m just inferring he has it due to the excessive brutal flashbacks he always talks about. On the flip side, the main character does a fantastic job on putting the reader in his shoes. He explains everything in such detail and tells us what he is feeling. Next, the book “The House On Mango Street” is a very interesting book to digestive due to its fast past and crazy amounts of figurative language. In the first paragraph, I mentioned my weakness is “It’s hard for me to keep up taking notes of the characters, places, and little details because there is an excessive amount of detail to pay attention to.” Elaborating on that. I wish its pace was down a few notches because I want to know a little more about the crazy cat lady or Louies other cousin with the yellow Cadillac. A strength for me is the use of figurative language. I don’t know why but I really think using that type of language just brings more readers in. It makes me understand things that normal words can’t describe!

3.) By reading chapters four through seven, Ive noticed multiple themes that came to my mind, but only one stood out to me and that is war has no limit. Starting off with the work War. War is very powerful to say and even to think of. No one wants war, it destroys peoples lives, the economy, and even the agricultural. All four chapters have at least one or more sentence describing war. “My heart throbbed with pain as I watched my brother lying on the ground, pretending to be one of the dead bodies” (Pg 28). Kicking it off with the no limit part of the theme. War can even change people. No one ever steels, unless you are a horrible person, but anyways. Ishmael B and his group go into a small village with money looking to buy food. Turns out the money there is worthless, so they go to the last resort and stole food from a sleeping family! This all is important to understand because war can change anything in any way.