Journal 8 by Caitlin Williams

I think dreamers and eccentrics are important in our culture and society. If it wasn't for these kinds of people I don't think we would have anything interesting to go see or look at. People take vacations to see some amazing monuments, museums, theme parks and other miscellaneous things. I don't think most of these kinds of places would exist without a dreamers vision of it. The idea of these kinds of places had to come from someone somewhere in this world. I think for the most part, in ordinary people its discouraged in our culture to be different or be a dreamer. I think most people tell people they are weird for the dreams they have and make fun of them. I use to write poems and all my friends thought I was the strangest thing for it but when we read poetry in class out of a book it suddenly wasn't weird to them anymore. It was only weird when I wrote. We have famous people strut around in the most ridiculous looking clothes that if any normal person wore it would be considered very strange. Its a messed up world we live in.

My reading in Holding On is going great. I like that the book changes for every story and we have no idea what kind of people we are going to learn about next is. These are pretty ordinary people we are learning about and the extraordinary things they have done in their lives. My active reading in on point right now. I'm very proud of how much my active reading has improved and I think getting feedback on the other books we read and how my active reading was in those books really helped me grow as an active reader.

My favorite story in the book so far is Moreese Bickhams story. He was a prisoner in Louisiana and Isay and Wang helped get him our of jail. The key themes I noted in this story was injustice, racism, corruption and to just keep on keepin on. I learned that racism has actually improved somewhat and that the justice system is just as corrupt now as it was back them. There are so many passages in this story that really stuck out to me but if I had to pick one it would be on page 37 in the paragraph that talks about how God sent him in angel in jail when he was on death row and he asked God to give him a sign as to whether or not he was going to get out and that night he had a dream about his Grandmother and she told him in the dream, "I been with you ever since that night you got in this trouble." I chose this because of its beauty and faith. It was such a raw moment that you felt in your gut while reading the book.