Gifted Hands - #1

comments:
1. I think Ben is brave and strong when he had to take all those horrible teasing and comments from other students and never onced did he cry.
2. I think without this mother's courage, Ben wouldn't be able to survive school and become successful.
3. It's a good thing that Ben and his brother listens to his mother, all the work they did that they were told to really paid off for school.
4. I'm impressed how his mother still can be very willing and supportive to her children even when she's going through a lot and having to go to away sometimes, because of her depression.
5. I was surprised how ben reached to the top of the smartest kids in the school when he use to be way at the bottom.

Questions:
1. Did his mother kicked his father out, because he did drugs or he cheated on her?
2. His father seem to love him a lot, but how come he won't give any child support money?
3. Where did his father go after he was kicked out?
4. Did Ben had any friends at the school he went to before he started to get better grades?

Vocabularies:
1. tedious: tiresome by reason of length, slowness, or dullness; boring
2. vocation: a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling
3. milestone: a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc.

Literary Terms:
1.
2.

Overview Sentence:
-This is about how Ben's father left and his mother is encouraging and supporting him to do better in school.

Term 3 - Radioactive Boy Scout

Comments:
1) The atomic bomb against the Japan is one the greatest blunders of history.
2) So much people died from the bomb that they had no room to fall over.
3) The government stopped buying uranium when at least five hundred prospectors died of lung cancer.
4) The only class that David does best in was science, since he had a big interest in it.
5) David seems to getting interested about the nuclear that happen so he decided to do as much as researching as he can.


Questions:
1) Was there a war when the U.S. war place droppedthe bomb to Japan?
2) Was David anti-social?
3) Was David smart enough that if he actually pay attention in school, he would consider to be a nerd?
4) Did David had any decent friends at all in school?


Vocabularies:
1) Blunder - a gross, stupid, or careless mistake
2) Utopian - founded upon or involving idealized perfection
3) Transoceanic - extending across or traversing the ocean


Literary Terms:
1) "The fireball flashed an enormous photograph of the city at the instant of its immolation fixed on the mineral , vegetable, and animal surfaces at the city." Comparing the bomb as a fireball flashing like a photograph of the city.


Overview Sentence:
-It was about how people stop buying radium and how David's life in high school and curent interest in nuclear.

Term 3 - The Radioactive Scout Boy

Comments:
1) Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X rays in 1896.
2) In 1905, many doctors who employed X rays have died or suffered amputations to stave off cancer.
3) Patients received radium injections to treat high blood pressure, mentrual cramps, depression, and an ailment that doctor labeled "debutante's fatigue."
4) X rays had lead to external sources of radiation that could lead to grave health problems.
5) The good thing about radium is the use of medical for cancer.

Questions:
1) Why did they have X ray-proof underwear?
2) Were the ads about the radium's effect all true?
3) Why did they make a law that radium are now completely regulated?
4) How does radium glow?

Vocabularies:
1) amputation - to cut off (all or part of a limb or digit of the body), as by surgery
2) prophesied - to foretell or predict
3) luminous - radiating or reflecting light; shining; bright

Literary Terms:
[Couldn't find any]

Overview Sentence:
-This talks about radium, the good and the bad things about it and the history of how it all started being popular.

Term 3 - The Radioactive Boy Scout

Comments:
1) I think it's cool/amusing how David Hahn's first experiment was when he was four years old in the bathroom, mixing random products together to create "a magical reaction."
2) David's parents fell in love when they were in their teen years.
3) If I was David's parents I would strictly tell him to stop reading and experimenting things so much that's related to science.
4) I think it's amazing how David at such a young age can do so many experiments by himself just by reading a chemistry book.
5) David is brave for conducting the experiments when he knew the big risks of getting hurt.

Questions:
1) Where did Patty go after she got divorced with Ken?
2) When David got older, did he found out the reason why his mother was away for 6 months?
3) Wasn't David scared when he faint for about an hour just from an experiment?
4) Even though people thought David was a freak, why weren't he trusted?

Vocbabularies:
1) aloof - at a distance, esp. in feeling or interest; apart
2) metropolitan - of or pertaining to a large city, its surrounding suburbs, and other neighboring communities
3) antipsychotic - Counteracting or diminishing the symptoms of psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, paranoia, and bipolar disorder

Literary Terms:
1) simile - "She was cute as a bug"
2)

Overview Sentence:
- It's about David's life and family problems, how science was the only distraction and how he became so interested in it.

Hope Diamond

Comments

1. The person who originally took the gem was Pierre Cartier.

2. Cartier sold the gem to Louis XIV, King of France, that was then cut into the Hope Diamond.

3. Tavernier became interested in the gem after Pierre.

4. It was very expensive that was worth 220,000 livres and today it is worth about 1.8 million.

5. Tavernier had went on a journey to find out more the gem.

Questions

1. Were there any guard or people around when Cartier try to steal the gem?

2. How did Cartier steal the gem?

3. What happen to the statue after the people found out that the gem was gone?

4. Why is Tavernier so interested about the gem and Cartier's doings?

Vocabularies

1. accommodation: adjustment of differences; reconciliation.

2. laud: to praise
3. pickaxe: a pick, esp. a mattock

Literary Terms

1.

2.

Overview Sentence

-It's about how the gem became the Hope Diamond and was known after awhile.

Hope Diamond

Comments:
1. The Hope Diamond had brought many people bad luck and tragedy.
2. If the Smithsonian accepts the diamond then the whole country will be in danger.
3. When the Hope Diamond was packaged, it was insured for $1 million and it weighed 61 ounces.
4. The Hope Diamond is the world's largest blue diamond and it is 44.5 carats.
5. Not many people believed in the curse but some were scared.

Questions:
1. So, is the country going to accept the Smithsonian gift?
2. Why can't they put the Hope Diamond to it's original place so it won't cause any more trouble?
3. Why didn't the people get rid the Hope Diamond when they know it's a curse to have it around?
4. What's so special about the Hope Diamond besides the fact that there's a curse on it?

Vocabularies:
1. Guillotine: a device for beheading a person by means of a heavy blade that is dropped between two posts serving as guides.
2. Syndicate: a group of individuals or organizations combined or making a joint effort to undertake some specific duty or carry out specific transactions or negotiations.
3. Heathen: an irreligious, uncultured, or uncivilized person

Literary Terms:
1. "Although it is located on a rather busy and unimposing, and it is snugly sandwiched in by surrounding buildings."
2.

Overview Sentence:
-This is about how the Hope Diamond was sent around being displayed and how the Hope Diamond effected people who owned it.

Shots without Guns #1

Comments
1. Lady Mary Wortley Montague learned a way to treat disease called inoculation
2. Salk vaccine is a type of treatment.
3. Sulten found a way to make inoculation safe.
4. They test the treament on prisoners.
5. No even rich or royalties are able to survive from the diseases.

Questions
1. How did Mary came up with the treatment for the disease?
2. Was Mary like a scientist or doctor to figure the treatment out?
3. When they say work of the devil, was it like witches?
4. Was this the time when people get hunged because of being accuse as a witch?

Vocabularies
1. Scourage: a means of inflicting punishment or pain
2. Inoculation: to introduce a disease virus or others into immunize, treat, or test.
3. Expirtated: to root out: uproot

Literary Terms
1. "Montague" this is like in the shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
2. "this dreaded disease raged in China and India" Personification

Overview Sentence
-It's about how people made a way to trear diseases and treatments such as inoculation.