My favourite book

My favourite book of all times is the book named Inkheart. Here's the link to it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28194.Inkheart

This book is my all-time favourite as I find the plot very interesting and it can really kept me going. The language used is also very profound and it can improve my vocabulary too. Every character in the story is very unique and special.
The author also wrote very well-written settings and mood description in the book. He also knew how to captivate the reader and made him continue reading as he kept the suspense without fail in every chapter of the book.

Reflections on Question 2

Question 2)

Disclaimer: I have never been in this situation, all of the following is pure fiction and its pure imagination.

When I was in Secondary 1, I joined a project group that consist of Tom, Jerry, Akiru and me. We worked very well among each other, with an exception of Akiru. Akiru is a brilliant boy with sparkling eyes and pointed nose. He came from Japan and he was being disliked by most of us due to the fact that he came from Japan. After we studied WW2, Tom and Jerry began to treat Akiru unfairly as they felt that his country has conquered Singapore and he don't deserve to work with Singaporeans. Upon seeing the treatment that Akiru received, I felt pitiful for him but at the same time, I can't disagree with the fact that Akiru came from the country that conquer and torture the lives of Singaporeans.

Tom and Jerry began to isolate him and called him names like “The Beast”, “The Betrayer" etc. They even shouted vulgarities at him, especially after History lesson. I saw every single unfair treatment with my own eyes and I chose to close an eye upon it. In the end, our project group did quite badly due to the fact that we had “one less member”. However, Tom and Jerry pushed all the blame to Akiru.

Now, whenever I saw Akiru along the corridors, I would feel very sorry and embarrassed for not doing anything to prevent Tom and Jerry from disturbing him. If I had a chance to turn back time, I would definitely stop all those nonsense and get everyone together to produce a better project work.

Yours sincerely,
Sheng Xiang

My favourite poem

My favourite poem is Messy Room by Shel Silverstein. Here's the lyrics:

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or --
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!


I chose this poem as when I first read the poem, I felt guilty as the poem describes my room. My room was just as messy and i did not bother to clear up the mess. After reading the poem, some of my classmates laughed at the poem and they are somewhat laughing indirectly at me as i'm doing the same thing.
Therefore, this poem has the greatest impact as since then, I learned to be responsible for my own actions and clean up the mess of my room to make it a suitable and comfortable place for studying.

Poems' answers

The Little Boy and the Old Man

1) The message is that everyone has the same experience in life and everyone undergoes it.
2) He used alliteration.

Messy Room

1) The poem is humorous. The poem is funny in the way that the writer is somehow critising himself and the lines rhythms with each other.
2) It highlighted the laziness of a human character.

Cloony The Clown
1) The folks laughed very hard at something that is not funny and did not laugh when the clown intended to be funny.
2) Yes, he manges to convey the fact that nowadays people are bullying and taunting wach other.
3) He used assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration.

In the above poems, I think I can remember the last poem named" Cloony The Clown" the most. The poet uses assonance to make it rhythms and there;s also meaning conveyed behind the message. The blog is also funny during some lines and I remembered the poem the most because it convey the message of the society and reality now through a very funny and enriching way.

Big Fish's answers

1) The phrase " a big fish in a small pond " means that the habitat for the fish is too small and it probably suggests that the fish is too mighty and powerful compared to the other normal fishes in the " small " pond.
2) The purpose of the tale is to the audience in the wedding that the only way to attract or date a woman is to offer her a wedding ring and marry her.
3) As a boy, William Bloom feels that the tale is very interesting and it caused him to feel more and more curious about " The Beast " and wants to catch it. However, as he grows older, he felt that the tale is getting boring and he is feeling ashamed as he does not believe in the tale anymore when he grows more matured. He also feels that his father is showing off and embarassing himself.
4) Edward Bloom wanted to illustrate to everyone how he manage to date his wife at that time.
5) The tale reveals that the relationship between Edward and William Bloom is very close when they were young but it slowly became distant and far when they get older.
6) Fiction story. It catches the audience's attention and makes it sounds more fascinating and interesting.
7) No, bending or exaggerating the truth of a story does not undercut the believability of a story. A tall tale is as valid as a straight reportage of facts. An exaggerated story can still manage to catch the attention of the audiences, if not more, as compared to a straight reportage. Even though people do not believe the exaggerated story, some of them still treat it as a myth like the audiences at Edward's wedding.

A brand new life

As the title suggests, today is indeed the first lesson of year 2011, the year where exams and expectations are going up by a level. After the briefing by my LA teacher, i realised that this year i had to work doubly hard, as the assignments are harder.

This year, we are also going to learn more things like war etc which sounds interesting to me. Though I believed more is to be expected of us, I still look forward to the lesson with curiousness and also a passion to learn more things. I hope this year would be also as interesting and fulfilling as the previous's. Of course, I hope my Language Arts standard could improve as much as possible.

Yours sincerely,
Sheng Xiang

Reflections on what I have learnt so far

After about 8 months of language arts lesson, I found out that I had slightly improved on my grammar and vocabulary.As the saying goes,"Practice makes Perfect", I think that I have improved my grammar and vocabulary as I had practiced while writing and doing comprehension assignments.

I had also found out that I had read more books such as Village by the sea, Little ironies and Ten Short Stories.After reading these books and analysing them with the help of my teacher,I had also learnt more on how to describe or write a good setting and plot.This will also help me in my compositon.

Lastly,I had learnt about the poems,their figurative languages and how to analysis them using the ten-step process.

Overall,I felt that I had learnt alot and improved.