Answer the questions below about what you read  this week outside of class (NOT about required reading for any class).

1. What did you read, and where did it come from (what is the name of the newspaper or magazine)?   How much time did you spend reading each piece?

    a) Part of a novel called The Tommyknockers, by Stephen King.--3 hours
    b) 10 articles in News For You--20 minutes
    c)"Plagiarism" article in Smithsonian--30 minutes

2.  How long was each piece? (How much did you read--how many pages or how many paragraphs?)

    a) I read about 200 pages this week, but the novel is about 750 pages long.
    b)10 articles were about  4 pages
    c) "Plagiarism" was about 1 1/2 pages

3.  Choose one piece and tell what it was about.  (Write 2-3 sentences.)

    a) A young women (Anderson) lives on a small farm in Maine, and she finds a spaceship on her property.  Strange things are happening, and she asks her friend Gardener to help her, but Gardener has a serious problem with alcohol.  Evil (very bad) things are starting to happen.

4.  What did you learn from it? (Give  information/ideas AND new vocabulary.)

I got an idea of what it's like to be an alcoholic, and  what life in a small town in Maine is like.
I also learned a little bit about the geography and climate of Maine.

new vocabulary:  none

5. What is your opinion about it, and why?  (Did you like or dislike it?  Did you agree or disagree with it?  Give reasons or explain.)

Overall, it's okay--generally interesting, and fun--like candy. Parts of it are boring because they repeat, but most of it is good.  It's very suspenseful, and most of it is very exciting.  The woman's life is interesting, because King describes it in great detail, and it's very realistic. Also,  the book was written in the late1980s, and some of the things that the author talks about are interesting because they were important then, such as political problems with nuclear power and the Soviet Union.  I have to laugh sometimes because it seems like it was written a long time ago.  What I remember most, though, are the descriptions of Gardener when he is drinking too much, and the terrible struggle he has with alcohol.
 

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