Resilience Essay

Resilience
By: Sarah Ballard
Life is like a roller-coaster: there are so many ups and downs but by the time it is over you fear nothing because you came out with more courage than even going in. Cancer is like a roller-coaster, too. You are terrified of the drop, in your mind you always know that something could go wrong. Breast cancer affects countless women every year. Anita Ballard, my grandmother, was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago when she was 76 years old. Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts of America, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 63 years of age. Both women are the perfect representations of resilience. Breast cancer is one of the hardest things to go through, and both women went through it with a positive attitude and never gave up. If I ever go through a hard time such as breast cancer, I will have the same hope and courage as they did and never give up, just as these two inspiring women did.
Anita Ballard, my father's mother has always been a kind, loving woman. Always an optimist and never says never. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago, it was a shock to our whole family, because she has always been so healthy and lively. Even though finding out that she had breast cancer gave us all a scare, my grandma insured us that she would be okay. The more tests she took, the more bad news followed them. Our hope was slowly fading away as she grew sicker and sicker. But she kept assuring us that everything will be okay, and not once did she lose faith.
Just as my grandmother stayed strong, so did Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts of America. Juliette Gordon Low, also known as “Daisy” was born on October 31, 1860 in Savannah, Georgia. She grew up in a happy, wealthy family and was always helping others and putting others first. She was a very caring and loving child. In 1911, she met Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. She was immediately interested in the new youth movement. Less than a year later, she made her historic telephone call to a friend saying, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!" On March 12, 1912, Juliette Low gathered 18 girls to register the first troop of American Girl Guides and she changed the name to Girl Scouts the next year. Just like Juliette Gordon Low never let deafness, back problems or cancer keep her from full participation in life, she showed all the Girl Scouts how to do the same. Girl Scouts have grown from those first 18 girls to 3.7 million members. It is the largest educational organization for girls in the world and has influenced more than 50 million girls. This just shows that even though her life ended, she is still resilient because she created such a huge organization and established an incredible legacy even while fighting cancer.
These two women are two of the most inspiring women I can think of. They both went through the toughest of times, and still never gave up hope. And that is part of the reason why I think they made it through. Juliette Gordon Low created one of the biggest organizations in America today, and at the same time, was struggling with breast cancer. Even though she lost the tough battle against breast cancer, in the end she is resilient because she was so successful, and still is. My grandma is resilient because even at an old age, she went through breast cancer and is better then ever, and free of cancer. These two women rode this wonderful roller-coster that we call life in such an inspiring ways. We should all learn from these two amazing stories and grow from them, just as Anita Ballard and Juliette Gordon Low did.

Lord of the Flies Trial Reflection

During the Lord of the Flies trial, I had some strength and some weaknesses. One of my strengths was that I always understood what they were talking about, so I never was lost. One of my weaknesses was that I had to pretend that I didn’t read the book, even though I did. I had to pretend that I didn’t know what had actually happened on the island, and the facts in the trial were the only things I had heard about it.
During the actual trial, I thought that Jack was guilty for both counts of man-slaughter, but during the deliberation, I started to think that maybe, Jack didn’t have anything to do with Piggy’s death. I strongly thought that it was Jack’s fault that Simon died because he obviously had so much power and control over the group of boys, that if he decided that killing Simon was the wrong thing to do, he could have easily commanded them to stop and they would have followed his orders because they looked up to him. But he didn’t. He made a decision to not command them to stop and otherwise, just kept stabbing at poor Simon. In the end, we found Jack guilty for Simon’s death and we had a hung jury for piggy’s which means we couldn’t all decide on one verdict.
Overall, I think I deserve an A- on this project because I didn’t get to do as many things as say, an attorney did, but when I did do things, I did them to my fullest and out my best effort into them.

Short Story Project

Title: No Fame No Game
Author: Sarah Ballard
Genre: Teen Issues
Pages: 3 1/2 pages
Mentor Texts: I read a book where a nerd became famous and I thought, if she made that much of a change, she might as well become famous. So I decided to write my story about that topic, a nerd becoming famous.
Audience: Teenage Girls
Writing Process: I wrote my first draft, and it wasn't very long so I decided to make it longer. Then, ms. staff told me to add more dialog, and then it became 3 1/2 pages long.
Publishing Process: I made a cover on photo shop with a nerd and pretty girl. They were supposed to represent Amy and Halley, in my story. Then I put the cover, the dedication and the final draft of the story into a binder thing and that made it look very professional-looking.

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Featurecast From the Past

Project Purpose:
To understand the difference between Cause/Effect Relationships and Correlations. To understand how and why major events in history are connected and intertwined (think yarn activity!). To research a major event from U.S. history in order to understand why it is significant and how it relates to other major events. To understand features of a feature article and podcast and to be able to create a feature article or podcast about your major event in history.

Project Requirements:
To present the 5Ws of your major event to the class. To write/peer edit/revise a feature article or podcast. To have at least three drafts in your Writing Portfolio. To present a polished version of your feature article or podcast on Media Night, as well as posting it online to our Team Featurecast from the Past web page (made by James).

Concepts Learned:
1. About the Mexican American War
-It was from 1846 to 1848
- President Jamkes K. Polk wanted to expand the country to the west coast
-General Zachary Taylor was pretty much the main leader of the American side.
-8,613 men and officers were on the American side but only about 5,500 were actually fighting
-18,882 mexican on Mexican side
-1.5% of all the deathes were from actual combat and 11% was from diseases

2. Cause and Effect/Corrrelation
Cause/Effect means what caused the event and what was the effect of the event. Example: columbus coming to America was one cause of the war because without him finding the land, there would be no land to fight over

Challenge:
A challenge that I faced when I was working on this project was that a lot of the websites would say different numbers of the deathes caused and how many soldiers were fighting. So what I finally did was I found one website that I though was pretty reliable and stuck with it.

Real World Connection:
The real world connection for this project is that it is all about American history and with out any of these things happening, the world would be different.

Querencia Clipboard

Querencia
A Querencia is a place or time when you feel most comfortable and powerful. Querencias are different for each person. Your Querencia might be on the soccer field. My Querencia is in my room. My room is almost like my own little apartment inside of my house. I like being in my room because it is my room and no one can disturb me. It is a familiar place that I am used to and I am comfortable in. It smells like coconut because that is what my perfume smells like; it looks like a pigsty, but that’s how I like it; and when you’re in my room, you can hear my neighbors playing in the background and birds chirping outside my window.
I go to my room when I am feeling sad, mad or just need to be by myself. When I am sad, I can cry without anyone seeing me; when I’m happy I can jump around and dance like a crazy person and not worry about how I look or what people are thinking of me.
I feel powerful in my Querencia because I control what goes on, where everything is, and who can and can’t come in. I mostly listen to my ipod, watch T.V, do my homework or play with my dog peanut. Peanut is a 5 month old Chihuahua Terrier puppy that I got my birthday over the summer. She likes going in my room because it is calm and peaceful so she can have a nice nap on my lap with out any disturbance.
I can act however I want in my room because no one is watching; I can do what ever I want in my room because it is my room and I have control over it. No one can tell me what to do. That’s why I like being in there. My Querencia is my favorite place to be. My room.