The Door

As I approach the door, my mind goes blank. My fingers turn numb and blue while perspiration starts to seep through my skin making me damp and wet. The air around me begins to thin out at a rapid pace making it difficult to take a deep breath. My arms feel heavy and clumsy. They loose their strength as I struggle to open the door. I brace my shaking legs to give myself more leverage. I ignore the noise, the laughter, the cars and lights that swirl around me. They tell me to run. I want to obey. I want to run and never return.

My hand drops heavily to my side. I can leave but a powerful force has glued my unsteady feet on the ground. I raise my stiff and freezing hand to the door and once again, I feel the panic. My heart rate increases. My chest starts to heave. My vision is cloudy and blurry. Why am I here? I cannot remember. My name is gone, so please do not ask for it.

My focus is on the door.

Again my shaking fingers reach to grasp the cold metal handle. There is no escaping the cold. Still I pull at the door and I fail. The door is powerful and it will not open towards me. The battle continues. My strength returns as I struggle with the stubborn door. The cold perspiration is gone and now I feel heat racing up from the center of my body, up to my shoulders and through my arms into my fingers. Gone are the cold and the shaky fingers; now I welcome the heat that leaves a mark in my cheeks.

As the flames flicker all around, I battle the nasty door. The noise around us continues to grow until it reaches a crescendo. Silence reigns. I did not notice it as I made terrible battle cries and made fabulous judo movements to pull the door open. This was one battle that I was not giving up. I will get this door open!

A cool, steady hand touches my shoulder. In my crazed state, I almost push this savior away with a dangerous judo move. I stop a moment, and felt the painful strain of having pulled savagely at the door shoot through my arms, legs and back. Clarity arrived with this pain, as well as embarrassment, when my savior showed me that the door needed to be pushed.

Oops!

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Vocabulary:

leverage: the act of balancing, giving support

powerful: having a great and strong force.

crescendo: a slow increase in force or noise.

clarity: to see clearly

Judo: a method of fighting without using weapons; your body is the weapon

approach : to come near

fabulous: wonderful or more than great

embarrassment: act of feeling confude, shameful, chagrin.

Complete the sentences using the above vocabulary:

We were excited to learn a new _____________movement.

I need a moment of silence to think with ___________.

The dogs ___________the old man with suspicion.

The ___________we felt when our ice cream cake fell off the table was terrible.

We need something to act as _____________and help us open the collapsed door.

There was a _______________storm approaching, so we hurried inside to hide.

The wind reached its ____________, and all the trees were uprooted.

We saw this _______________purple prom dress.

Grammar Point:

The above passage describes a feeling. Notice the variety of sentence structures. Most are simple and compound sentences. Theses types of sentences were used to make the reader feel the panic through the construction of the sentences as well as the context of the story.

A simple sentence has one independent clause. It stands by itself and needs no help from other clauses. Ex: The battle continues.

Compound sentences have two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. Ex: The door is heavy and she could not open it.

Re-read the story and find 2 simple sentences and 2 compound sentences. Think about a time when you had a very strong emotion: saddness, anxiety, happiness. Write about this feeling and try to use simple and compound sentence to add to the story's feelings. Be creative.

Smile!

1992: A Year to Remember

Every year around this time, my memories of 1992 become very vibrant. In light conversation, I will say it was the best year of my life. My husband asked formally for my hand in marriage, the wedding was planned for May 2nd, honeymoon in Cancun, perfect weather on the wedding day. How could I honestly complain.

Reality is that the year was full of anxiety and pressure. Even though my husband and I are classified as Hispanic, we come from different countries and follow different traditions. Getting our families to accept calmly that we were not marrying a fellow countryman was not easy, especially since our countries do not have very warm friendly thoughts of each other. Ironic, since we are neighbors. The first day our families met was tense. Thankfully, they all had our happiness in mind. They forgot about their cultural differences and warmly embraced our marriage with all the support they could give. Still sixteen years later, our difference do perk up every once in a while.

And then the week before our big day arrived. We were in shock. On April 30, the Los Angeles riots began after the anouncement of the jury was made; four white policemen were aquitted in the savage beating of Rodney King, an African -American. I cried as I watched on television how quickly the community erupt into a violent frenzy, demonstrating their rage and fustration. I will never forget their pain.

Afterwards, as I reflected on the devastating news, I realized how small our family differences seemed in light of what was happening in Los Angels.

Today, I celebrate my wedding anniversary, but I also say a prayer in memory of all those murdered and hurt during those riots and that we continue to reach across our racial barriers and embrace our fellow human beings with respect.

Vocabulary:
countryman: comming from the same country or place of origin

riots: a disturbance of peace; wild conduct or disturbance; a fight

barrier: something that acts a a wall to separate things

frenzy: feeling of extreme agitation or rage or craziness

jury: a group of 12 people chosened to hear facts about a case and then based on these facts make a verdit of innocence or guilt.

embrace: to hug or hold close

Fill in the blanks:

The fence was the best ________ to stop the deer from entering the garden and eating our vegetables.

The _________could not make a decision without more information about the murder.

There was a _________ at the bar when the it was closed permanently.

We __________for the first time after years of ignoring each other.

She is my ____________.

The horse was __________with fear when he smelled the smoke in his stall.

Grammar Point:
Adverbs are words that modify the verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. There are several categories of adverbs. Some of these are manner ( answers the question, How?), frequency (always, often), quantity (a little, many) and time and place (now, tomorrow).

The most easily recognizable form of an adverb is a word ending with -ly.

Example: The rabbit ran quickly into the forest.

Quickly in this sentence modifies the verb ran. It answers the question how did the rabbit run? Therefore it is an adverb of manner. Be careful, there are words that end in -ly that are not adverbs. Make sure the the word anwers a question related to the predicate (verb), not the subject (noun).

Re-read the passage above and try to find 5 adverbs. I have highlighted some in orange to start you off.

****FYI : For Your Information****

To learn more about what happened at the Rodney King trial or other famous trials visit the University of Missouri-Kansas City wbsite. www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapd.html

It comes in three's ....

Most of my life, I have heard that events, good or bad, arrive in three's. But what does this really mean? I really do not believe in this old wive's tale, yet there are times my resolve is shaken.

Since January, my family has been going through mostly negative incidents. First my husband loses his job. Several week later, my daughter has an accident that nearly makes my hair turn white. And now when we were all trying to re-establish our familiar routine, catch up on schoolwork and try to welcome in the springtime, another shock to our system. My mother trips and falls. She has a severely sprained ankle and a lot of contusions and abrasions but no fractures. She is an elderly woman with lots of medical problems which are now so aggravated that she is in constant pain. She is going to need a lot of help with cooking, washing, taking care of my Dad and her dog.

As I sat in the emergency room waiting for her x-ray results and making a mental list of how I was going to rearrange my schedule to come and cook her evening meals, I realized that this was incident number three. So this is it! According to the wive's tale, bad luck comes in three's and then good luck will follow. As I was rejoicing in this fantasy-made- reality moment of hope, my cell phone rings. I happily answer with a cheerful hello, just to hear that my daughter, yet again, has been injured. So much for that wive's tale's, bad incident number four, just arrived.

Vocabulary
resolve: when used as a noun means a determination a firmness.
wive's tale: stories full of superstitions or proverbs that are orally handed down generation to generation.
rejoicing: to feel extreme joy, happiness
routine: to repeat an action or series of actions by habit
shock: a sudden surprise
aggravated: to make worse

Please complete the following sentences using the new vocabulary.
1. The child's constant crying _____________ the baby sitter headache.
2. The ____________of seeing his wife's ghost made his hair turn white.
3. He was _____________when they faund his stolen antique violin.
4. There are many _______ __________that are not true.
5. We started a new _________ of getting up earlier to watch the sunrise.
6. His ________was unshaken as the police presented more proof of his daughter's presumed crime.

Grammar Point:

Sentnces are composed of many phrases that when put together give a context and meaning. A sentence must always have a subject and a predicate. The predicate of the sentence carries the action, the movement of the sentence. It includes the verb (action/ movement ).

Example:
The lovely young lady / was shocked when she saw the man kick the little dog.

-was shocked is the verb
-was shocked when she saw the man kick the little dog is the predicate.

Re-read the highlighted sentences and choose 5 sentences and underline the predicate and circle the verb. Examples are highlighted in blue.

Enjoy!