My Book
During the school year, we did many things in my Language Arts class. We read two books, The Last Cuentista and The Westing Game. We made our own ideal worlds, and brought them to life in books we made with Peg Gignoux. We even retold a story or wrote a story of our own. Through these proud achievements, here are my highlights.
For the majority of the first and second trimester, my class was reading The Last Cuentista. This book is about a girl whose family was selected to go on a ship to another planet, hopefully a habitable one. The trip takes 370 years. All the passengers are reprogrammed, except for the girl. This makes her the only one who remembers Earth, and the past. Can she tell the true story, as the only storyteller now who remembers? I remember thinking the ending was confusing. Now I know that rather than the ending, the author was trying to convey something else. We all need stories to live, and remember. That is what I’ve learned from The Last Cuentista, among many things. This is something I wrote for my Cuento, or a story that I told. “Everything, whether it be my old and battered jacket or the magnets on my family’s refrigerator, tells a story or maybe multiple stories. Without stories, we wouldn’t know who we are or were when we were younger, or may be in the future. Without stories, we would be in a world gone blind. I hope you cherish your stories and keep this world alive.” I still firmly believe in the power of storytelling.
My ideal word is another project I worked on. We each designed a world we want to live in, and each was creative in its own way. You can learn more about my ideal world from a blog post I made about it a couple posts back. I loved how no two worlds were similar, and that you could essentially tell a person’s personality by their ideal world. I wonder how mine might change as time keeps going by, and I hope to find out.
Without making the book, both my ideal world and my cuento would have nowhere to go. Therefore, I would like to offer a great round of applause to Peg Gignoux, who generously came to our class to help us make our books. I am very proud of my book, and it is a memory I hope to never lose. There are many steps to bookmaking, I learned. My favorite was decorating the book itself. I don’t think I have a least favorite part. All in all, I think it was a wonderful experience to be able to make your own book, and I would definitely recommend trying it.
As I mentioned before, we did many things in Language Arts this year. My favorite was probably making the book, or writing our cuentos. We also learned many things this year, about decisions, small steps, and many others. I think I am very fortunate to be able to do so many awesome things, and learn so continuously. If I could revive 6th grade Language Arts again, I would definitely do it.
