Jews, Wars, and Standover (Wo)men

Max- The Jew
Max is the only of his family saved from Nazis at a young age.  Still on the run, he seeks help from Hans Hubermann, an old friend of his late father.  While in the Hubermann's care, he meets Leisel, who sees similarities in their everyday torture.  The loss of family, nightmares reoccurring their fears, and seeking the Hubermanns with a feeling of agitation, desperation, and fear.  "Leisel, in the act of watching, as already noticing the similarities between this stranger and herself (205)."

• Jew

A word frequently used to describe Max in the story, as if this a Jew is the only thing possible to identify him as.  As if Jew is the only important characteristic of Max.  And in Nazi Germany, that could very well be the case.  There's a certain feeling that comes along whenever the word Jew is used to describe him.  The word, at least in this story, comes with a feeling almost like shame, but difficult to describe otherwise, as the word doesn't come with an explanation to why you feel this way about the word, just the way everyone in the story was feeling about it.  "A Jewish rat, back to his hole (215)."

Hans And Erik
Hans Hubermann and Max's father, Erik, were friends in the time of war.  Erik had in fact saved Hans from being killed during the war.  In fact, Erik made that Hans was the only one to survive that particular battle.  Hans carried Erik's accordion through the rest of that war, and was later told by Erik's wife that he could keep it.  This was also Hans' first encounter with two year old Max, who Erik had never mentioned was his son.

The Standover Man
The standover man is not an actual man, but a book that Max made for Leisel's birthday out of torn pages of Mein Kampf.  The book was 13 pages long and told a brief history of Max.  In the story, Max is illustrated as a bird, which I think may have something to do with Leisel repeatedly saying that she thought his hair was like feathers.  The story tells that Max has always had a fear of men standing over him, which I think may come from his competitiveness, even though as a child, he would always lose fights.  When he found Leisel standing over him, he may have had a bit of fear, but began to find things in common with the girl.

The Book Thief: The Second Heist

The shoulder Shrug

The Shoulder Shrug was stolen from a book burning by one Miss Leisel Meminger.  Three books survived the first fire, before the men in charge noticed and burned it all again.  Leisel managed to snatch one before the second fire came.  Damp, but burning hot, she couldn't hide it for long.  "Quite a few things were most definitely wrong: Smoke was rising from her collar.  A necklace of sweat had formed around her neck.  Beneath her, the book was eating her up" (122).  Hans agreed to hide the existence of the book from his wife and read it with Leisel.  Another successful heist.

SHORT Article on Nazi Book Burnings

Ilsa Hermann
Ilsa is one of Rosa's laundry wash customers, and the only person to see Leisel steal her second book.  On one of Leisel's laundry pick-ups, Ilsa motioned her to come inside.  Leisel was sure she was in big trouble.  "She's going to torture me, Liesel decided.  She's going to take me inside, light the fireplace, and throw me in, books and all.  Or she'll tlock me in the basement without any food" (133).  But on the contrary, the woman brought Leisel into a library, to read to her heart's content.

 

Max Vandenburg *NEW CHARACTER ALERT*
Little Profile About Max

Max Vandenburg, the Jew.  Not much to say about him yet.  But he did show us that Hans Hubermann, Leisel's foster father, not only supports the rights of Jews, but was helping them to escape the wrath of the Nazis.  "As well as a few other important details, he knew the man's name.  Hans Hubermann.  Again, he spoke to him, the distant stranger.  He pleaded. "Please."" (141).

Badge that Jews were forced to wear during Holocaust

Figurative Language in The Book Thief

Figurative language is a way to explain things in a non-literal sense.  The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is riddled with figurative language.  A challenging read but definitely worth it.

Examples of Figurative Language Explained Simplistically 

Double Epithet-
A double epithet is a type of figurative language used to make a sentence richer and more interesting.  The double epithet itself is when you use two words with identical or almost identical meaning used together for description. 
Example of a double epithet in The Book Thief- "Perhaps he was the last resort, the final solution"(27).

 

Figurative Language Rap

Oxymoron-
An oxymoron is a type of figurative language in which someone uses two words with seemingly contradictory meaning, used for a variety of reasons, including to create drama, or make the reader stop and consider what they're reading.

Example of oxymoron in The Book Thief- "School, as you might imagine, was a terrific failure"(39).

Personification-
Personification is giving animation to something inanimate or non-human.  Not literally, like Frankenstien, but figuratively, like the wind howling or the sun smiling. 

Example of personification in The Book Thief-"A bathrobe answered the door"(42). 

Apostrophe-

This is not the same kind of apostrophe as the kind in grammar ( ' ).  This is a type of figurative language in which you refer to someone or something inanimate or absent.  Like a little girl talking to her doll.
Example of apostrophe in The Book Thief-"Hello Stars"(45).

The Book Thief is all about figurative language.  The book is figurative language.  The symbolism of it amplifies the book to a new level.  The language in the book makes the book come to life, while making you stop and think about what you're truly reading.  The book is shaped by its figurative language, from the symbolism of the colors to the Nazis, the emotions of the characters, to the characters themselves.  It's all figurative, the book would be bland, flat, and depressing without the flair of the figurative language added.

Rudy, Reading, and Relationships

Liesel
Liesel is a small girl, and at the age of ten, is quite illiterate.  Her new foster father, Hans, takes her under his wing and begins to teacher her how to read and write.  She has difficulties, but doesn't let it discourage her for long.

Besides education, she begins to make friends with some of the neighborhood children, including Rudy Steiner, a blonde haired, blue eyed boy with an obsession with Jesse Owens.  But Rudy seems to have more on his mind lately.
Leisel- otherwise known as the book thief- has horrible nightmares over the death of her little brother, and questions about the one thing she has to remember him and her mother by, The Gravedigger's Handbook.  Her and her foster father attempt to read it together, despite the difficulty of the text.

Rudy
Rudy Steiner is a mischievous boy with a lot on his mind.  He's always found ways to get into trouble, including something known to the neighborhood as the Jesse Owens Incident, when he admired the Olympic champion so much that he covered himself in charcoal and acted out Jesse's victories.

Something other than the Olympics has caught his attention.  One young book thief by the name of Leisel.  Does he want more than a friendship?  "But Rudy had an idea.  It was the lover boy coming out of him.  "If I beat you, I get to kiss you."(53)"

The Kiss
This kiss didn't actually occur.  They challenged each other to a race, and if Rudy was victorious, he got a kiss.  The slippery winter conditions outside caused the race to be a draw, but it doesn't seem that Rudy has given up.  "One day Leisel," he said, "you'll be dying to kiss me."(55)

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle." -Plato

"Empathy is the ability to see the world as another person, to share and understand another persons' feelings, needs, concerns and/or emotional state."

Quote found HERE click to learn the definition of empathy more in depth

Empathy is a feeling a bit more difficult to project than your simple happy or sad.  What do I mean?  People have a harder time showing people empathy than they would showing people they are say, excited.  This is somewhat of an issue. Why?

• Children in school can feel left out or misunderstood if their peers and teachers do not show empathy.
• People assume that everyone's situation is the same as their own, when in reality people can have much more difficult lives than they show.
• Teachers are not generally very empathetic towards their students, as long as the child gets good grades, they are basically ignored by your average teacher.
• Since teachers do not typically act with much empathy, it is very hard for children to have a trusted adult outside home that they can talk to

CLICK ME to learn about how empathy can solve teenage bullying

Children are taught to be understanding and caring and worry about the thoughts and feelings of their peers.  But as children get older and begin to have busier and more complicated lives, they forget to stop and think what their friends might be thinking.

Short video on why not to use labels, why it's insulting, and how empathy is involved

Teachers don't generally socialize with students at all, unless the child has a bad grade.  By not having communication, we eliminate the feelings of trust, sympathy, and empathy, making teachers out to be people you should not talk to about personal matters.

What children are taught about empathy in school, but is it really practiced as it should be?

I feel that empathy isn't something that so much needs to be taught in schools, but simply something that needs to be practiced more.  By developing trust and understanding, a few of the feelings produced by empathy, children will feel better about expressing feelings and seeking help when they need it.  I feel this would make schools a safer, more comfortable environment for all people, children and teachers alike.

Criticism on Right Brain Rising

Right brain rising held some interesting facts, but the quality of the article itself left much to be desired, as far as a professional piece of writing would go. Here's what I mean.

• Seemingly juvenile words, such as "stuff", seen in multiple subtitles.
• Paragraphs that were way too wordy, it didn't exactly keep me interested for very long.
• There were many places where the author would put and asterisk and then explain at the bottom of the page, but isn't there some way he could have given a simple explanation within the text instead of constantly making us look up and down for tediously long and over thought explanations.
• Making me feel like I'm reading a story instead of a study, narrating every single irrelevant detail that happened to him.

I think this video summed up and simplified what was said in our article.

The article was very factual, explaining how people always thought that the left brain was more dominant but really, that isn't true.  But is there any way the author could have made this more interesting?  More exciting use of words, not necessarily shorter, but less repetition, and things such as that.


The author spent a little too much time narrating his adventures in the fMRI than he did explaining his point about the brain, I think he got a little off topic here and there.


I completely agree with the author's help in proving that people are not exclusively right or left brained, but in the way of quality I was expecting a bit more.  I may have found it more interesting if the author had done things a bit differently with this piece.

Habits of Mind Relfection

Habits of Mind.  The passage says a lot of interesting, insightful things about regular patterns when problem solving, but let's explore this a bit more in depth.

There were some things in this passage I completely agreed with. Of these included;

• "Good problem solvers are flexible thinkers and display confidence in there intuition."  I wanted to analyze "flexible thinking" and find out what studies really thought of it.  I much enjoyed the first paragraph of this article, it really reminded me of the Habits of Mind. Exercises For Flexible Thinking.  I love how well it conveys what flexible thinking really is and how it ties into problem solving.  
• "They call upon their store of knowledge and experience for sources of data and processes that will help them solve each new challenge." I love this sentence just because I can tie it into my own life, it is truly an everyday skill, unlike some of the other things mentioned in the passage.
• I also liked the simplistic format of the text that made each paragraph and subject easy to understand and break apart to explore a deeper meaning.

FUNNY-problem solving

Above we have a short, three minute video on a horridly incorrect problem but a good method for problem solving. Enjoy!


As well as things I enjoyed about the passage, there were things I disagreed with.

• First of all, the word "habits" itself implies a bit much. A habit is a regular pattern of behavior, but many people don't have skills such as persistence or questioning.
• The fact that they seemed to bounce between comparing these things to adults (using words like mechanics, teachers, and parents) to using words more targeted towards children (students, assessed, rubrics) also seemed a bit disorganized.

As a conclusion, hope this wasn't too boring, Habits of Mind had its strong and weak points, but was generally a great source of information, fairly easy to understand, and interesting to analyze.