Jimmy: Part 1

by Milkman

Jimmy woke up late. It was Sunday. He yawned, and glanced at the time. 11:00. He turned over and went back to sleep.

Jimmy woke up around 12:00. He pushed his bed covers off and sat up. His sister was standing just inside the door of his room.

“Oh! I was just about to wake you up. Jerome called a bit ago. He said for you to call him back.”

Jimmy’s sister, Alex, was average height, but with a pretty face, and was generally considered good looking. Jimmy couldn’t tell what guys saw in her. To him she was just annoying and immature. When Alex got her first boyfriend, Jimmy had asked Jerome about it. He had asked Jerome, “You think my sister fine?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” Jerome had stuttered back. “Maybe a little?”

“For real?”

“You just don’t see it cause she your sis. That just don’t happen.”

And that was the end of it.

Jimmy looked at Alex now. She didn’t seem attractive at all, just weird.

“And oh! Jimmy, you owe me five dollas.”

“Say what?”

“I don’t remember! You just asked if you could borrow some money, and I gave you some. You haven’t paid me back yet.”

“Definitely not attractive!” thought Jimmy, “Just annoying.” Then out loud he grumbled, “Okay! Man leave me alone!” He dragged himself out of bed, found his wallet, and threw a crumpled five dollar bill at her.

“Happy now?”

Alex made a face, then picked the money off the floor. “Yes,” she shot back and skipped happily out of his room.

The Monster

For this journal entry, students were given a photo at random to respond to in writing.

By Da'Vine

My legs are getting sore. The leaves of the bushes are hitting me. I can still see the giant behind me. It’s holding something. I really don’t understand the monster.

It has no eyes. It does have horns and two nostrils. The monster has a cup of some sort in one of his hands. He runs with it like he’s going to do something to me with it.

I had been in the camp and everyone else was still asleep. We had been looking for the rock for 2 days now. We had stopped to sleep and find camp. We had some gutted lizard of just root soup. It was pretty tasty. When I woke up I heard something. I went out of my tent and checked. There he was.

The monster was walking in to camp. Right when I looked at him. His head just turned straight to me. He turns his body to me and starts to walk over. He has that object toward me and I had to run as fast as I could into the jungle.

This is where I found myself in the jungle. Running from something I have no idea what it is. And what it wants but I really don’t want to find out what it is.

I come to a little village. The people are now in the streets already. I come running in and screaming. The people turn to me and stare. Then I think they see that I am being chased.

They look and some smile and some just look puzzled. They make a wall and I’m confused. They stop me and I turn, I’m terrified of the monster. He comes to me and stops and kneels to me and mutters something. All the villagers laugh. I still don’t understand.

Mr. Fantastic

by Ronald

If I could customize my own super hero he would be very smart. My super hero would wear a fur coat, and everybody loved him. His name was Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Fantastic works alone, but he still has a side kick every once in a while. His side kicks name was fantastic. Super had more powers then Mr. Fantastic but wasn't as smart as him. Mr. Fantastic is good at getting the truth out of people, finding criminals, and giving people the right amount of time in ail. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia. He was 34 years old, but he never will die. He got his powers from his father who gave him to him before he died. When he gets mad he turns invisible and takes his anger out on people in jail. He is a good person until you get on his bad side.

My Dreams

by Young Soup
My dreams have a lot of different stuff in them. I go to parties and stuff like that. Also, my dreams have people from Seattle and Oakland in them and it's funny that my dreams mix both of my lives together. Sometimes it repeats my life and I do what I did that day in my dream, and sometime I like when it does that because my day was fun and funny.
I have dreams about me being back home in Seattle and sometimes people from Oakland are in them. Also I have dreams with my mom and my brother in them, and me and my brother are doing the stuff we would do together when he was alive. My life was fun when I was in Seattle, and I am happy that I am from Seattle. But its a good thing that I moved, because I was planning on doing something very bad because of my brother being killed. My life got very bad and I hated that my life changed like that. I hate that I wanted to kill someone. He didn't have to kill my brother just because his brother got beat up. My brother shouldn't have said what he said, but thats how it is. I can't change it.
But in my dreams, I can go back to the time before that happened, and be with my mom and brother again.

I Will

By Stewie and Lady Beatrice

I am the howl in the whistling wind,
the cool
breeze in a hot summer day.
I am the bark in a howling wolf. I belong to no one.

A dog barks
a cat purrs,
a lion roars, but what do I do? where do I belong?

The places I go
The people I see, there is never a person that doesn’t fit in, but when I look at a mirror,
I see no one,
a reflection lost with a crowd of people trying to fit in,
I will be myself, I will believe I will.

Seattle to Oakland

by Young Soup

I live in Oakland and my life is okay. I have fun sometimes with my friends and family. On the other hand, I don't like living in Oakland because sometimes my family makes me mad. I don't like being around some of them. But that's what happens with family and being a teen. I always think about going home cause I loved being there with my sister, cousins and all my friends i grew up with and had fun with. I will never forget my true home in Seattle WA. I loved being there when it snowed. I also loved going to school because I grew up with most of the kids and we always had fun every day. No matter what, we did what we wanted to do, because we were good in school. I got to leave when I waned, go where I wanted, do what I wanted, have girls over when I wanted, come home when I felt like it. Go to school when felt like it. I went every day unless I had court for something I did a long time a go when I was 10 or 11 years old at the time this stuff happen. I always had money on me. But even though I miss Seattle, I'm starting to realize that life in Oakland isn't so bad.

My dream school

by Taco123

So, let me tell you about my dream school. The name would be “Taco Burrito.” It would be a middle school. When you first walk in my school, you would see on your left and right Mexican food with their histories, like tacos and burritos. It would say when they were first invented and etc. As you walk, you would see the principal's office. As you continue, you will see 2 paths. One for the 6th graders, and one for the 7th and 8th graders. The 6th are new so they have to be with others that are new. The 8th and 7th graders have been there. So they are cool being together. Then you will go out the doors and see a cafeteria, basketball courts, and a PE area. My school is gonna have a vote on who has lunch with who so it won't be painful for students of the principal's decision. So this is my dream school.

P.S : when I get older, my goal is to really make my dream school come true.

Ba Bump... Ba Bump... Ba Bump

by Ziggy96

After a long tiring day of ice-skating on December 3rd, I walked up the glossy wooden stairs. I heard my grandfather screaming, he was screaming "Zion HILFE!" (which meant "Zion HELP!" in German) it sounded just like the screeching of nail on a chalkboard. I started to run up the stairs and almost tripped. Once I was upstairs, I knew that there was something wrong with my grandmother.

While I was running up the stairs, I was thinking about what could have happened. At first, I thought I was in trouble but that could not be because I did not do anything wrong. I searched for my grandfather in the bathroom; nobody was there. I checked in the warm and cozy computer room, still no sign of him. I peeked in the bedroom and there he was talking to my grandmother nice and clearly. She could barley talk back and that is when my heart started to beat fast as if I were a drum in a marching band. BOOM BOOM.

My grandmother was mumbling lots of nonsense. At first she called me "Marlene." I thought maybe she was just playing around with me. But it got worse; I cried, "Where do you live Oma?" ("Oma" is German for grandma). She did not even know. I started to cry even more. My grandfather called the police and ambulance. He did not want me seeing my grandmother like that so he asked me to leave the room. I left. He invited some neighbors so they can watch my sister, Kaya, and me. I kept on crying and I just couldn't stop. My tears were running down my face and I tasted the salty teardrops.

When I looked outside to see if the ambulance was coming, I saw the red and white sirens, and heard them as clear as water. My heart stopped for a second. This was a very dramatic evening for me. I was wondering if my grandma would be okay. All of a sudden I saw the E.M.S volunteers come barging in my grandparent's house. They ran up the glossy stair. The swift E.M.S workers put Oma on the gurney and took her out the door. But before that I saw her shaking and she yelled, "don't take me away!" Or something like that.

The day after the tragedy we went to visit my grandmother in the hospital. They told us that she had brain damage and a heart attack. She kind of creped me out at first because she was so pale, I didn't really go near her at all. I was still in major shock from the day before. A few weeks passed and they let her go home. We were all very happy that she is doing well to this day.

Journal Entries

by Ms. Thaler

Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading our blog and leaving comments! We really appreciate all the positive feedback.

The next group of posts will be excerpts from our weekly writing journals. Every Thursday, we write for twenty minutes while listening to instrumental music. There is always a journal prompt on the board when we write, but writing about the prompt is optional. So, some of the journal entries you see here will be responses to prompts, while other will be free-writes. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed writing them!

-The ThalerScholars

My hero

By YoungSoup

My brother, Diquan Jones, loved being with his family :my sister, our mom, and me. He was overprotective of all of us, but our mom is what kept us together. My brother always thought that he was my mom's favorite, even though my mom said she didn't have a favorite. My brother always loved having fun. He also taught me how to get girls.

He loved to play sports- basketball, football, and baseball. He was the one who got me to start liking sports, and he's why I love to play sports now. He taught me how to play basketball, and he could hit a baseball, although I never could.

My brother helped me when I needed it, no matter what. He made sure we always went to parties and places to have fun with our cousins. Diquan was also a math person, like me. When I was little he would help me with my math homework . He was a real big brother; he helped me with all my homework that I didn't get.

But in 2006, everything changed for us. Our mom started to get really sick and we didn't know how to take it. We dealt with it by running the streets, doing whatever we wanted. We also made a clique called Hyphy Boyz, and we did stuff that was against the law. We didn't know that we were making our mom sicker.

Eventually, we got kicked out of our house. My brother and I moved in with his dad, and my sister moved in with our grandmother. My brother made sure that we were together. We tried to get back on track. Then the unthinkable happened: our mom died. I didn't know right away, because I was at school. When I got picked up, my family had my brother tell me that mommy had died.

That was when my brother’s life changed. Once that happened, it sent him over the edge. He just didn't care anymore. He went back to his old ways, and got arrested. He went to jail for nine and a half months. When he was in there he called me and told me to stay out of the streets. He also told me to go to school and make something out of myself.

He got out of jail on November 14, 2008. A week later he was in the mall looking for some girls. He saw some people there that he didn't like. They insulted our cousin, who was killed over the summer, and my brother got really mad and beat one of them up. Then that guy’s brother started shooting inside the mall, and my brother got shot and later died. My brother was shot and killed in the mall, November 22, 2008. HE WILL ALWAYS BE LOVED.

Diquan’s birthday was March 3. I wanted to honor his memory by posting this essay about him on his birthday. I know I will think about him on this day every year, and he will always be my hero.