Journal 3, Chapter 6, Caitlin Williams

    My overall reading is going decent so far. It could be better and I would benefit from focusing more on where exactly they are in the book and also when they are. I have a hard time trying to get my mind to follow along when the chapters are constantly changing and not going in a straight story-line. My strengths are that I really try to visualize and feel what the characters are seeing or feeling. I really like to get emotionally deep in my books when I read and I also like to zone out while I'm reading and have no outside distractions. When I read I can see it playing in my head as if it were a movie. I think that I am following along better in The House On Mango Street but then I also get emotionally involved in A Long Way Gone and can really feel just how horrid and sad the book is. I believe my highlighting is great, I actually enjoy to highlight the things that stick out to me and places/names, it truly helps. I don't like writing in my book. My handwriting is always messy and that makes my book look messy so I tend to steer away from that. I find myself highlighting really nice, vivid metaphors since we started talking about metaphors.

    I think a good title for Chapter 6 in A Long Way Gone would be "Farewell Junior." I think that Junior and Ishmael separating is the saddest thing so far and that is really going to end up being an important milestone for Ismael and what happens to him next. 

My nutshell for Chapter 6: 

Ishmael and his friends were captured by some villagers but thankfully for the rap cassette they had in their pockets a boy in the village they were captured by was from Mattru Jong and recognized them from their past performances and it saved their lives. Ishmael and his friends move along to another village where they farm for 3 months but in the end the rebels ended up invading and that is the last time Ishmael sees Junior. 

   I think that a theme for Chapter 6 in A Long Way Gone is loneliness. Ishmael talked about how all of his friends and brother were keeping to themselves and how he wished he could've broken their silence. He stated a time where he referred back to something that had happened in the past where he and Junior when to fetch water in the river and that Ishmael had fallen and dumped his water and Junior gave him his bucket and took the empty one back to the river to get water and when Junior came back he made sure that Ishmael was okay and how now in the present Ishmael just wants Junior to ask if Ishmael is okay. I feel like the war is getting hard on their friendship and they just can't laugh and joke and be happy the way they use to. A word I think is important is a parable which means a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels. They used this word to describe their rap music.