English
During this unit, our studies, activities, and focus was on the book “I Am David” (written by Anne Holm.) The main theme of this book is escape & identity. David was a boy who lived his whole life in a concentration camp, never seeing the other side of the fence. One day, however, he gained the opportunity to escape into the real world, an opportunity that was given to him by a man whom he hates. Throughout the book, David faces many different hardships. His life in camp had given him certain perspectives of the world, and has given him character. When he escaped the camp, however, David found a new perspective to view life. He learned many different things throughout his journey, and we find out about the lack of knowledge he had while he was a prisoner in camp.
What makes the book interesting is it’s abrupt beginning and end. At the beginning of the story, we find David in a room waiting for his chance to escape. At the end of the book, we find out many things about David, yet we know next to nothing about his past. This was the challenge that was given to us in our Creative Writing Essay. We had to write either a prologue or an epilogue that’s purpose is to tie some of the many loose knots Anne Holm left in her novel. I choose to write an epilogue because I found it as the best way to wrap up what happened to David, showing his emotional change, yet explain his history. In this assignment, I received the final grade of a 7/8, the reason for this was because I was not able to fulfill the entire 8 criteria. One part in which I was lacking was the detail and description of my assignment. In the future, I hope I will be able to give more detail to the things that I write.
Throughout this book, another major theme (as this book has many themes depending on the reader) was strength of character. How do you gain strength of character? This was the question we were asked to answer, and the book “I Am David” has certainly changed my view of strength of character. Prior to reading the novel, I thought that strength of character simply meant having an unwavering character no matter what the outside influences were. Now, my opinion on the subject has not entirely changed but it has been modified. In the book, David’s character he kept stubbornly, until he finally learned to change. If you asked for my opinion now, I would say that strength of character isn’t about keeping your character the same forever. It’s about learning how to become a person who gradually continues to improve their character and isn’t afraid to change for the greater good, who’s character can be viewed from a moral point of view and deserved to be boasted about.
Strong characters are hard to come by. The simplest yet most effective way to build character is through hardships. When we face hardships, we face a situation where we know what it feels like to have the worst of everything. That leads us to learn what we don’t want to be, so we treat others the way we want to be treated. Although it is the most effective way to gain character, one must not deliberately put themselves into hardships. Another way of gaining character can be as simple as reading a book, like we have now. People say that books bring you on thousands of adventures across time and space, and I would like to add that it also gives you a million experiences. Through these experiences we learn what it feels like to face hardships, and we learn about the character that we want to live by. Although character is hard to build, we must make it a habit for us to continue tweaking our character little by little, until we blossom into a person with a strong character that can be viewed upon by others.
English reflects the IB Learner Profile communicators because through language I learn to communicate my thoughts and ideas. I learn to share my perspectives with the world, along with stories that I would not be able to share otherwise. The IB Learner profile Communicators requires me to share my thoughts with the world, which I was able to do through this subject.
What makes the book interesting is it’s abrupt beginning and end. At the beginning of the story, we find David in a room waiting for his chance to escape. At the end of the book, we find out many things about David, yet we know next to nothing about his past. This was the challenge that was given to us in our Creative Writing Essay. We had to write either a prologue or an epilogue that’s purpose is to tie some of the many loose knots Anne Holm left in her novel. I choose to write an epilogue because I found it as the best way to wrap up what happened to David, showing his emotional change, yet explain his history. In this assignment, I received the final grade of a 7/8, the reason for this was because I was not able to fulfill the entire 8 criteria. One part in which I was lacking was the detail and description of my assignment. In the future, I hope I will be able to give more detail to the things that I write.
Throughout this book, another major theme (as this book has many themes depending on the reader) was strength of character. How do you gain strength of character? This was the question we were asked to answer, and the book “I Am David” has certainly changed my view of strength of character. Prior to reading the novel, I thought that strength of character simply meant having an unwavering character no matter what the outside influences were. Now, my opinion on the subject has not entirely changed but it has been modified. In the book, David’s character he kept stubbornly, until he finally learned to change. If you asked for my opinion now, I would say that strength of character isn’t about keeping your character the same forever. It’s about learning how to become a person who gradually continues to improve their character and isn’t afraid to change for the greater good, who’s character can be viewed from a moral point of view and deserved to be boasted about.
Strong characters are hard to come by. The simplest yet most effective way to build character is through hardships. When we face hardships, we face a situation where we know what it feels like to have the worst of everything. That leads us to learn what we don’t want to be, so we treat others the way we want to be treated. Although it is the most effective way to gain character, one must not deliberately put themselves into hardships. Another way of gaining character can be as simple as reading a book, like we have now. People say that books bring you on thousands of adventures across time and space, and I would like to add that it also gives you a million experiences. Through these experiences we learn what it feels like to face hardships, and we learn about the character that we want to live by. Although character is hard to build, we must make it a habit for us to continue tweaking our character little by little, until we blossom into a person with a strong character that can be viewed upon by others.
English reflects the IB Learner Profile communicators because through language I learn to communicate my thoughts and ideas. I learn to share my perspectives with the world, along with stories that I would not be able to share otherwise. The IB Learner profile Communicators requires me to share my thoughts with the world, which I was able to do through this subject.