Quarter Two: Blog 6

This week, I read more of my book, Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. In this section of the book, Eliza realizes that she only has four weeks to study for the spelling bee finals. At first, when she gets home from school, Eliza just sits on the couch and watches TV until dinner. Then, after constant both verbal and visual reminders from her father, Eliza begins to study, although she prefers to use the word "practice" because she associates "study" with a chore and being extremely bored. So, after school, Eliza locks herself in her room and practices spelling words. Saul approves Eliza's constant practicing and even offers to help her, but she enjoys the solitude that comes with spelling, so she refuses his help.

Whenever Eliza spells in the book, she closes her eyes to see the words and what she sees is vividly described to the reader. I find her visual images of the words very interesting. Sometimes, she sees each word in a different place, locked in her body, but she can get it out. "She pictures words lining her stomach, expanding with each stretch of her lungs, nestling in the chambers of her heart" (44). Other times, each letter is in the ocean. "When Eliza closes her eyes to spell, the inside of her head becomes an ocean of consonants and vowels, swirling and crashing in huge waves of letters until the word she wants begins to rise to the surface" (45). I think that it is very interesting that whenever Eliza spells a word, it appears in her head and she is able to spell directly from it.

Quarter 2: Blog 5

This week, I read more of Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. In this section, Eliza wins the district spelling bee and the reader learns more about Aaron's life, specifically his relationship with God. Eliza arrives at the district bee with Aaron (who sits in the back because he doesn't expect to stay long) and she suddenly realizes that she is under dressed and that she hasn't studied for the bee at all. She becomes nervous while she waits to walk on stage, but her fears vanish when she her first word appears in her head and she spells it correctly. Finally, Eliza wins the bee and receives her trophy, a enormous gold bee figurine. She returns home and greets her father and now that she is "a winner," she finally feels accepted by him.

One question I have about this section is: Why isn't Aaron proud of Eliza when she wins the district spelling bee? Aaron does very well in school and I would have thought that he would be happier that his little sister is finally being recognized for her intelligence. Also, Aaron is very close with Saul, their dad, and ever since Eliza had been skipped over for the TAG program at school, all Saul wanted was for Eliza to show everyone how smart she really is. This would lead me to believe that Aaron would be proud of Eliza too, but when Saul asked him about it, Aaron had to think about "what a good brother would say" to answer the question.

Ethics Research

Research Question:
Is it wrong to use sites like spark notes?


Graham, David. "Catch Me If You Can." Toronto Star Mar 6 2008: n.p. SIRS Researcher. SIRS Knowledge Source . Edina High School. 6 Dec 2008. http://www.sks.sirs.com

David Graham is a journalist for the Toronto Star, a newspaper from Toronto, Canada. In this article, Graham explains that cheating has turned our generation into "a culture of cheaters and excuse-makers." Following examples from parents that "cheat on each other for sport" and professional athletes that say they "took one (steroids, for example) for the team," students are becoming lazier and cheating more often. This article will help my research because it clearly states that cheating is wrong and that students shouldn't "lift information from the Internet and call it their own." Also, the article explains that students who cheat in school end up cheating on things like their marriage, taxes, and resumes later in life.


Gulli, Cathy. "The Great University Cheating Scandal." Maclean's Feb 12 2007: 32-36. SIRS Researcher. SIRS Knowledge Source. Edina High School. 7 Dec 2008. http://www.sks.sirs.com

Cathy Gulli's article appears in Maclean's 120th volume. In this article, Gulli tells that cheating is on the rise in universities, which means that "the value of a degree is being debased." Universities aren't doing enough to stop this epidemic of cheating. This article will help me with my research because it has many statistics, including 40 percent of students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet and at the University of Toronto, instances of plagiarizing has risen from "92 a decade ago to 298 in the 2003-2004 school year." Students no longer see cheating as cheating "it's just a way to survive the system." Cheating has redefined a 'good' student- they are no longer the smart ones who listen and take good notes and study hard, but the clever ones who can get by on someone else's work.

Quarter 2: Blog 4

Eliza,
Why did you and your brother, Aaron, grow so far apart? I understand that there are six years between you and Aaron, but that does not mean that you two can not be close to each other. You used to play with him all the time; he would "drive" you to crazy places like Neptune or the bottom of the ocean all the while fighting off evil aliens and giant land squids with you and he taught you how to fight like a ninja against evil villains. When you had bad dreams, you would go to Aaron for comfort in the middle of the night, not your parents as most kids would have. He was your hero. Then, one day at recess when you were in kindergarten, you saw two bullies beating up your invincible brother. Instead of helping him in one of the ways you thought up, you refused to believe it was Aaron and you ran away from him because "there's no way she'd be able to help this boy who can't possibly be Aaron. Aaron, who knows all the secret moves of the ninja and Jedi. Aaron, who saves Eliza from bad dreams. Aaron, who would never allow himself to be reduced to this" (30). Your gilded image of him was destroyed by those boys, but that does not mean that you had to stop idolizing him. He is still your brother, he still loves you, and he still wants to be your role model. Why would you let that slip away?

Quarter 2: Blog 3

This week, I read more of Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. In this section, Eliza concludes that her spelling bee win is too little, too late for her father. Too afraid to step into her father's study to show him the envelope from her principal that tells of her accomplishment in the school spelling bee and when and where the district bee is, Eliza slips the notice under his door. Unfortunately, her father's study is extremely messy and Eliza's letter gets lost under papers on the floor. Eliza waits all week to hear her father tell her how proud he is of her and see his face flash with pride rather than the usual disappointment, but the encounter never comes. Finally, on the day of the bee, Eliza asks her junior brother, Aaron, to drive her and she tells him about her win and he asks why their dad won't drive her. Eliza explains that he doesn't care and Aaron takes her to their father's study to ask him about it. After a short conversation in which they realize that the letter was simply misplaced, the envelope is found and opened and Eliza is filled with joy when, "The smile that appears momentarily erases years of report card trauma.'This,' Saul says in a reverent voice, 'is a beautiful thing'" (27). Finally, her father is proud of her and Eliza realizes that she is someone of value and that she does matter. With this revelation, a win at the district spelling bee seems inevitable.