A Long Way Gone Annotations

Rationale- 

After reading and annotating the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmeal Beah I realized that my annotating skills have developed. The unit consisted of learning about the Sierra Leone blood diamond history. Then it was onto reading the book. The book was about the life of Ishmael Baeh about loosing his family to the war in Sierra Leone and then becoming a child soldier. Ishmael would get drugged every day and then sent to raid villages and kill everything in sight. Along with this Ishmael spoke about his rehabilitation process to try and recover from all the drugs he would get each day. The purpose of reading this book was to learn of life as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Another purpose of reading this book was to develop reading abilities and annotating abilities, pulling out important quotes, themes and character development. In this unit the focussed on skills were being able to pull key concepts and interpret them through annotations. 

Proof-

Standards-

RL.9-10.2 Clearly determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text... (see above)  

In my annotations I analyzed theme throughout the text. I made sure that while I was annotating I was looking for theme in the book. One of the most reoccurring themes was moving on and not letting events stop you. For example when Ishmael lost his family. I did meet this standard for this reason.

Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex character(s) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme  

Over the course of text I had many circumstances where I analyzed how characters have developed over the text. I did meet the standard for that reasoning. 

Literacy.W.9-10.2.b Develop the topic with well- chosen, relevant, ...concrete details, quotations, or other information/ examples...

In my annotations I explained the topic in depth. Whenever I found quotes or anything important I would further develop them in detail. This being the reasoning why I met the standard. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings;

In the text of course there were many confusing words, phrases and imagery. I discussed it over with my piers to clear it up. I also looked up confusing words and phrases. I met the standard for that reasoning. 

Reflection- 

The content of this project was the annotations of the book A Long Way Gone the book relates to the real world examples of war and child soldiers. In the world there were actually places that children are being forced to fight with no choice. This is a very serious problem. The learning process of annotating the book was largely based self advocating and persevering yourself to actually do your work and analyze character development, themes and important quotes. I didn't enjoy annotating as much as I enjoyed the other assignments. I know that it was required I just felt that it was a lot to read the book and annotate at the same time, I feel as if it took away my deeper understanding of the book. The thing that went the best in this assignment was the effort and time put into it and the thing that didn't go well was trying to annotate while Readong I struggled with it.