Chapter 8

12/5/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 8 (pages 176-206) – Character Coaches

As a highly recruited high school athlete, Michael Oher was more worried about his play on the football field over his work in the classroom. This caused the Tuohy family to hire a tutor to help Michael’s grades so he could get into college. If he was planning on going to a major college like Ole Miss or Mississippi State to play football, he would still need the grades to make it into the college like any other student. This meant that Michael would have to raise his ACT and SAT test scores and also his GPA. His GPA had to go from 0.9 in his sophomore year up to at least a 2.65 GPA by the end of his senior year to play college football. Michael began to work with a tutor. Her name was Sue Mitchell and she was a graduate of Ole Miss. Michael would work with Sue for up to eight hours a night after a seven hour school day. Studying meant almost no time to himself and he couldn’t stay focused enough to remain ready for new information.

By the end of Michael’s senior year, he was at a 2.05 GPA but he needed to raise it to a 2.65 GPA. Sean began looking for ways to increase Michael’s GPA. He was told about online courses that could update a grade more rapidly than high school or a different form of education. He was told all of this from the Ole Miss football coach. “From Coach O, Sean learned about the Internet courses offered by Brigham Young University. The BYU courses had magical properties: a grade took a mere ten days to obtain and could be used to replace a grade from an entire semester on a high school transcript.” Coach O really wanted Michael Oher on the football team, so he attempted to bend the rules for Sean but was unable to do so. This meant Michael would use the BYU online education. Michael picked a course called “Character Education” and he was able to increase his GPA by using the online courses on BYU’s educational website.

I connected to this chapter because for an extended amount of time in my freshman year, I was really worried about how my grades were going to end up. I was thinking that my GPA wasn’t going to be high enough and that it would really affect my future in high school. However, I didn’t think about my SAT or ACT scores because I didn’t know about the tests. The obvious later became clear to me. Freshman year seemed more important than it really was and I began to think about my future after high school. I figured out what I wanted to have my major in college be and how that would assist me with the future that I wanted.

Chapter 7

11/19/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 7 (pages 147-175) – The Pasta Coach

            After Michael Oher’s high school football team won the Tennessee state championship, his junior football season was over. This meant that college football scouts and coaches were able to visit Michael. He was also able to make a total of five official trips to colleges. Michael received an application to visit North Carolina State. He was also sent invitations from Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss and many other division I football colleges. However these coaches didn’t know what Michael’s grades looked like. He was 162^nd of a class of 163. He didn’t have the GPA high enough to be eligible to go to any division I football colleges.

            Michael was allowed three official visits to colleges. He decided to visit Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU. These schools could also send a representative and they usually send a scout or the head coach. Leigh Ann and Sean Tuohy both went to Ole Miss and they both wanted Michael to go to Ole Miss and play football. “With Michael’s official visit to Ole Miss coming up, she picked up the phone, called Ole Miss recruiter Kurt Roper, and said, ‘I am faxing you a list of what Michael likes and what he doesn’t like and you use it like a frickin’ road map.’”  Michael’s tutor, Miss Sue, also went to Ole Miss. She told Michael stories about Tennessee and LSU. Miss Sue said that Tennessee agreed with the FBI to let them use the football field to see how dead human flesh would decompose in the dirt. There were hands and feet buried under the field. This story may have scared Michael into not wanting to go to Tennessee. Michael also wanted the college that he chose to go to would feel more like home and he thought that Ole Miss felt like home because home felt like Ole Miss.

            I connected to this chapter because my sister is currently a high school senior and she has been searching for a college that she would like to go to since the beginning of her junior year. She has visited colleges in many different parts of the state but most of them are near our home. It is a hard decision which college that you go to because colleges offer different educations and experiences while there. I also connected to this chapter because I have heard of athletes getting full scholarships just to play a sport. I cannot believe that colleges want players that badly to offer them to almost anyone who can play their sport. However, in general college sporting events are very well contested and entertaining.

Chapter 6

11/15/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 6 (pages 115-146) – Inventing Michael

            The Briarcrest Christian High school football team won the 2004 Tennessee state championship thanks to their left tackle Michael Oher. There were more football scenes in this chapter describing how Hugh Freeze the Head football coach was convinced by an assistant coach to use only one play and they would be able to win the state championship. The one play was Gap and Tim Long an assistant coach got his inspiration from the movie Tin Cup. Gap was run between the left tackle and the left guard. Michael Oher played left tackle and the running back was able to slip through and score numerous touchdowns throughout their championship season.

Chapter six had even more back story on Michael Oher. Sean Tuohy was describing a certain play on the field when Michael pushed a defender sixty yards away from the line of scrimmage. This describes the play from Sean’s point of view, “She turned around to see twenty football players running down one side of the field, after the Briarcrest running back with the ball. On the other side of the field Briarcrest’s No. 74 was racing at speed in the opposite direction, with a defensive end in his arms.” This shows the push and devotion that Michael Oher. He doesn’t want to impress anyone he just wanted to take the opposing player and put him back on the bus because the defensive end was trash talking to Michael Oher. Even though trash talking is a major part of any sport, Michael didn’t enjoy listening and he knew was to get the players to stop. Like pushing them sixty yards into a chain link fence.

I connected to this chapter because Michael Oher’s football team made it to the 2004 Tennessee state championship football game in Memphis, Tennessee and I was a spectator at the 2012 Wisconsin state Track & Field championship in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It seems like there would be a huge difference but they were both state championships and both huge for the sport and the state for which it is held. The football game was between only two teams from Tennessee while the Track & Field championships have schools from all over the state competing. No matter what you are interested in these events are both exciting and you can witness some of the best athletes from your sport in action.

Chapter 5

11/7/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 5 (pages 91-114) – Death of a Lineman

            Thankfully, the title of the chapter didn’t refer to Michael Oher. Chapter 5 was mostly about Bill Walsh and his NFL invention of the West Coast Offense. The chapter also included Bill Parcells, head coach of the New York Giants making his defense with Lawrence Taylor even more explosive than before. Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers were trying to stop the Giants in the 1981 NFC Divisional playoff game. Bill Walsh’s offence was a pass heavy offense. He set up the deep pass with other short passes and occasional runs. His quarterback was the legendary Joe Montana. He became the best in the NFL at passing the ball because he had time in the pocket to pass. Montana had so much time because Walsh decided that he would have the left guard help the left tackle and they would both block LT. However this would open a whole in the center of the offensive line and if the defense sent a middle linebacker or safety on the blitz the quarterback would pay the price for Walsh’s ability to stop Taylor. Walsh also taught this offense to his assistant coaches and they spread it throughout the NFL.

            I found this quote about Lawrence Taylor on page 107. “At the end of the 1981 season Taylor was for Parcells still a shiny new toy with a complicated control panel that he was figuring out how to use. No matter what Parcells told his rookie linebacker to do, Taylor’s instinct was to find the quarterback and kill him.” This quote shows that Taylor was one of the best pass rushers and he had the ability to hit a quarterback in the back so that he would never play again. When teams played against the Giants, the coaches wanted to stop Lawrence Taylor. He was the only player that they feared at the time and the opposing coaches tried so hard to avoid this from happening that Bill Walsh went so far to creating a new offense. Even though Lawrence Taylor isn’t still playing, there still is an offensive strategy to stop him.

            I connected to this chapter because I play Madden NFL games. I mentioned in a previous blog that Madden is a video game simulation of American football. On Madden, I play defense and I enjoy blitzing. Blitzing is when you send more defenders than the offense is planning on or able to block. I feel as though blitzing is the best way to play defense because the rushers will either sack the quarterback or give up a huge play for a touchdown. I believe that I will take that risk and almost always sack the quarterback or stop the running back for a loss of yards. Therefore, I agree with what Bill Parcells is trying to do by rushing with an outside linebacker.

Chapter 4

10/31/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 4 (pages 65-90) – The Blank Slate

The Blind Side movie was based more on Michael Oher’s love for football. In this chapter, Michael’s basketball and track careers get started. In basketball, he played center and was also able to shoot three pointers. He also threw discus and shot put in track and field. Michael was never taught how to throw discus or shot put but then he saw how to do it and was able to throw them better than anyone else in the state. He was passing all of his classes with high Ds. This was caused by the teachers at Briarcrest figuring out that Michael tested better orally than he did writing down answers.

While I was reading this section, I found this quote on page 66. I believe that this quote shows the raw ability and strength of Michael Oher. “One afternoon he took a sack of footballs out to midfield. Standing on the fifty-yard line he threw them, one by one, through the goalposts at the back of the end zone. As a rule, a good college quarterback’s range was 60 yards-from midfield to the line across the back of the end zone. Here was this kid, sophomore in high school, shaped nothing like a quarterback, chucking the ball 70-75 yards. And making it look easy.” I choose this quote because it shows the athletic ability of Michael Oher. He was able to throw and ball seventy plus yards and he was a big man. Michael was six foot seven and over three hundred pounds. He also played basketball, but instead of dunking like a larger player would, he wanted to shoot a three-pointer. He didn’t like to be near the hoop because he wanted to score on shooting instead of easy layups.

I connected to this chapter because I run track. One day our coaches decided that we everyone who isn’t in a field event should be required to go to a practice and just workout as if we were to be in that field event. I chose pole vault and I was one of six people trying it because we had only three athletes doing it regularly. While I was one of few people pole vaulting, the majority of the team was trying discus. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone on the track team that is the size of Michael Oher and we had no chance of throwing it as far as him either. I still enjoyed reading this chapter because it showed that Michael Oher was in other sports than football.

Chapter 3

10/25/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 3 (pages 39-65) - Crossing the Line

The third chapter of The Blind Side involved more back story about Michael Oher. Michael is also commonly known as Big Mike. The Tuohy family is also introduced. Sean Tuohy is the father and he is known as an All-American success story. He grew up poor and played basketball at Ole Miss. He became their all time leader in career assists. He was also drafted into the NBA but decided not to go and now he owns over eighty-five fast food restaurants including Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver’s. He also married his high school sweetheart Leigh Anne Tuohy. The couple gave birth to two children; and they also adopted Michael Oher. The oldest is Collins Tuohy and the youngest is Sean Tuohy Jr.

            I found this quote referring to Leigh Ann Tuohy and her first few encounters with Big Mike. “She noticed things about him. She noticed, for instance, that he wore the same pair of cutoff jeans every day, and that he hadn’t the first idea how to interact with other people.” This states that Michael was very poor, and he was socially awkward. People were afraid of him because of his size, and he was afraid of them because they had confidence or more money. The Blind Side is based on a true story and the Tuohy does take Michael in and adopt him. The chapter also mentioned that Sean Tuohy had previously helped kids who went to Briarcrest. However, the Tuohy family had never gone as far to help someone to the extent of adoption.

            The narrator states that the Tuohy family was all incredible athletes but they also were dedicated to school and have all gone to college. Sean went to Ole Miss to play basketball and run track. Leigh Ann also went to Ole Miss and she was a cheerleader. Collins plays volleyball and track. Sean Jr. is also going to go to college to play basketball just like his father. I connected to this because I believe that families should be equal between athletics and academics. I have pretty good grades at the beginning of my sophomore year and I plan on going to college. However, I currently run both cross country and track but I don’t plan on doing either in college.

Scary Story Reflection

1.     I tried to think of something that would really scare me. I wanted it to be as original as I could think of. I came up with an adopted kid who wondered about death killing himself and his brother.

2.     Once I got started, I just kept writing the story. I knew before I wrote the story what I wanted to write about and how the story would go.

3.     The page requirement was a little tough. I was worried at the beginning that I wasn’t going to reach it. Then, I figured that I would have a lot of building up and back story to start it out. However, there weren’t much scary parts of this story.

4.     I would go with a nine. I feel confident that my story actually makes sense and is somewhat scary. I even scared myself a bit while writing it. I think that I could’ve used more adjectives and descriptive words to add to the story.

5.     Personally, I would give myself a B+. My story has everything that is required. I also didn’t add too much violence. I believe that a story is better without the gruesome details. Overall, this story was a success.

6.     On my next writing project, I will be more confident before I write it. I will think of more details that will add to the story and maybe put in more adjectives.

~Christian W.

Chapter 2

10/19/12

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 2 (Pages 25-38) - The Market for Football Players

            Chapter 2 of The Blind Side gave more background information. The narrator talked about why left tackles are so important. The narrator also mentioned a college football scout named Tom Lemming. He traveled the United States looking for players for NCAA football. He has found many future superstars including Michael Oher, the protagonist in The Blind Side. The chapter also mentions his interactions with other future college and pro players. The narrator also gives more of a back story of Michael Oher. He was poor. He wasn’t known well in school, and the tape that Tom Lemming got to see was really fuzzy.

            A quote that I found from chapter 2 of The Blind Side that was relevant to Tom Lemming was, “In 2000, the U.S. Army High School All-American football game was born, and broadcast on national television. Lemming selected the eighty players for the game. Reggie Bush, Vince Young, Adrian Peterson, Dwayne Jarrett, Chris Leak, LenDale White, Brady Quinn: the game became a turnstile for future Heisman candidates and top NFL draft picks.” This mentions that Lemming found some of the best prospects that would go on to win major awards in college and play in the NFL. Since the NFL draft started, teams in the league were able to scout and draft players out of college to their teams. In the NCAA, there is nothing like that. College teams are forced to recruit high school players. However, there weren’t enough scouts from each college to find the best players in the game. Tom Lemming did them all a favor and wrote books ranking the best high school juniors and seniors. Colleges got copies of the book and wanted to see the players that had been ranked highest in the book. One of the players that Lemming found was Michael Oher.

            I play a lot of Madden. For the people who don’t know what Madden is, Madden is a NFL football video game that simulates on the field games and off the field management. Madden has a scouting system and you can figure out how good players are at certain skills on a scale of about 50-99 with ninety-nine being the best. This is different than what professional scouts use. For example, Lemming gave Michael Oher a ten out of ten on his size and nine out of ten in blocking. These are different systems but they both work for finding the best players for your NFL team.

This Isn't My Body

It was a regular October night when I decided that it was time to go to bed. I usually fall asleep around ten thirty at night. That night, I had the weirdest dream that I can remember. I dreamt about myself but then of my body changing becoming someone else. I finally woke up and walked slowly to the bathroom because I had to somewhat use the restroom. I looked in the mirror as a young woman and then I screamed and actually woke up. I sat up in my bed and realized that I really was awake and that I didn’t have the form of a woman. I slowly rose and when I arrived in the bathroom for real this time, I saw a face of one of my friends staring back at me but I couldn’t tell who it was. I tried to wake myself up, however this was not part of my dream. I went back in my room freaked out more than I ever have been. I took clothes from my dresser and I had my own clothing in there. I decided on wearing sport shorts and a t-shirt, which is what I would wear anyways. I walked to the second floor of my house and upstairs was my sister and said to me “Why does Christian get to have a friend over?” I walked around ‘my’ house and I decided on cereal and went through my day like I normally would. Until, late at night was the first time I saw my cat Schwartz and I picked him up. I stroked his belly as he likes me to do and he clawed me. As I dropped him, I sneezed and remember that I have a friend who is allergic to cats. I then knew whose body I was in. I ran to the garage and decided on biking to the house of my friend. His house was in biking range because it was only about ten miles away. As I got there, I was greeted with, “Oh, there you are honey!” It was the mom of my friend and I saw ‘myself’ behind her watching television in the den. I approached him and trapped him in there and demanded a response to why I looked like this. He said that he met a special genie and that he could only do one thing. The only thing that he could do was make someone swap a body of their choice for 24 hours. He decided to pick me and one event led to another to where we are now.

Chapter 1

10/10/2012

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Chapter 1 (pages 13-24) - Back Story

In the beginning of the book, the narrator describes the reasoning for why this story takes place. They state why the left tackle position is so important but they don’t give information on how it will relate to the main character. Joe Theismann broke his leg in 1985 in a game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants. His leg was broken because the left tackle didn’t make the correct play and wasn’t as good as the player who had tackled, pinning Theismann breaking his leg. This play went down to be one of the moments that made the left tackle position more important in football.

                I found this quote was found on page 19 in The Blind Side. “Theismann has played 163 games, a record for the Washington Redskins. He’s led his team to two Super Bowls, and won one. He’s thirty-six years old. He’s certain he still has a few good years left in him. He’s wrong. He has less than half a second.” This quote states how the decisions that are made in the past can affect the future of not only your life but also the lives of other people who may or may not be close to you. Everything has a cause and an effect. Whatever is done causes another thing to happen and the whole world is based on by changing actions. This changed the lives of the people involved and also affected the lives of future football players like Michael Oher, the main character of The Blind Side.

                I connected to this chapter of The Blind Side, because I watch a lot of sporting events and I have seen many sports related injuries in sports like football, baseball, basketball and even cross country running events but this was the most gruesome. This injury happened before I was born but it was on national television as ESPN hosts Monday Night Football once a week. MNF is still going on now and as long as there is an NFL there will be a pro football game every Monday night. I have also read many sports books about baseball and football but this one has started out the best of all of them. Chapter one of The Blind Side is just on background information on the story.

The Actual Haunted House

The perfect haunted house would be a real house in which someone actually died in. It can be in any place but must have an old looking theme. There would be stories on billboards that were written in dripping red ink that was about the house. These stories will have the background of the house on them. In the beginning, there will be a tour guide but he will be “killed off” before the tour ends. There are actual ghosts in the house. You see zombies coming from the graveyard and they begin to come into the house. There is no one in the house as you enter and the door shuts after the last person enters the building. There are pictures on the wall with all the eyes looking at you from every angle, they see you. Then the arms of one of the pictures come out and grab your arm and you are pulled into the picture yourself. This isn’t just for Halloween; this house is open all year. Well actually not open, but closed until every last person who had entered had either starved or found a different way to die quicker. Some may decide to kill and cook a person just to feed themselves making them all cannibals. Then the doors of the house open again, little kids come by and want to see what it’s about but they are never to be seen again. Yes, that means that they died. It really isn’t a haunted house just for Halloween because it really is haunted by the amount of people who have died in there. So when you are heading to a haunted house this Halloween, make sure you know if it really is a building that people have died in or if it is just a cheap attempt to recreate that horror.

Talk Show Presentation "Monkey's Paw"

Christian’s job- Host Asking questions

Dan- (Enters second) Answers the description of the main characters, later answers the summary of literary devices

Matt- (Enters first) Answers the general plot summary and later shares the question with Mark “What the story teaches?”

Mark- (Enters third) Answers how the setting provides appropriate backdrop and later shares the question with Matt “What the story teaches?”

Peter-(Enters fourth) Answers how the conflict shapes the story and later explains the theme of the story

Look and Know

If I had the ability to look at three people who have ever lived and know everything about them then I would use one on a person I admire, another on my crush and the third I would save for the future that I would figure out what to use it on then. I would then know everything about these people and I would not exactly change but base myself on how these people see me without completely changing who I am. I would use this first on a person who I never knew and never will on someone who didn’t change my life but made me who I am today. His name is Dale Earnhardt Sr. and yes that does make me a NASCAR fan. Even though I already know a good amount of information about him, I would like to know more. Like everything he had done and ever thought. I would also use this on my current crush because I would like to know that information and be able to relate easier and talk about more relevant stuff. However this person will only be in my life for a couple more years and then I probably won’t see her again. Therefore this information would be useful because I can find her location when I don’t know where she is at that time. I would use the final one in the future because I don’t know who I would want to do it to until a certain time. I decided to save it because I don’t know where I’m going to be in the future and I will decide what to use it on when I get there. This power would be strictly for my own use and I would be able to manipulate people’s thoughts to think of me differently.

9/11

Many people think of the terrorist group Al-Queda affecting the middle eastern area of the world but on September 11, 2001, the United States was changed forever by numerous plane crashes in the eastern part of the country. Four planes were high jacked that day by members of Al-Queda. Two planes flew into the World Trade Centers in New York City. Another plane flew threw Washington D.C. into the Pentagon. The last plane was also targeted to go to a major city but during the high jacking, an American on the plane took control from the terrorist and crashed the plane in Pennsylvania. The terrorists flying the planes thought that who they were doing was correct with what they wanted to do even though it would affect them in the future as well as the United States. These events lead to the War on Terror and forever changed the history of the United States of America.

The Box

It's a regular day at school, and the students waiting for class to begin. The bell rings, but the teacher hasn't arrived yet. The class is just about to start asking questions when she rushes in carrying a large, seemingly heavy box. She apologizes several times for being late, sets the box on the floor, and then rushes out again, promising to be right back. The class exchanges looks with each other, and stare at the large box floor. They all think of opening the box for a moment, when suddenly, the box starts to move. The kids think that it is something deadly or evil that could harm them. A couple minutes pass without anyone saying anything and the teacher walks back in. Finally a student gets up and walks toward the box but then the box begins to shake and growl and the student returns in fear to his seat in the back of the room. The teacher speaks up again and asks jokingly if anyone else would like to see what is in the box. A small student in the front of the room asks if the teacher would open the box and let in loose. The teacher answers with no and leaves the room again. You see it move and makes scary noises again and all the students shriek. Soon after the teacher comes back in and asks what happened. The students remain silent but they seem as though they all can’t say anything back to the teacher. The kids in the room ask what is in the box but the teacher answers with I can’t tell you right now. The kids ask if they could be told later but the teacher pauses and doesn’t respond. The teacher walks out again and the box soon makes another noise. It continues as another student goes to pick it up. He picks up the box and shakes it violently and the noise stops. He says that it is heavy and that it moved around as he shook it. The student holding the box calls for his friend to come up and open it. His friend approaches and opens the heavy box as his friend requested. They look into the box and both laugh at each other. They throw the box down and begin to tell what was in the box when the teacher walks back in and yells that she pranked them into thinking that there was something in the box by putting a baby monitor and large weights in a box and running outside the classroom to make noises into the monitor and having you hear the box as a monster.

Author Bio

Christian W is entering his sophomore year at Gibraltar High School. He runs varsity cross country and track with the school. He likes playing football with his friends and videogames during his free time. He frequently enjoys watching the Milwaukee Brewers in the summer and Green Bay Packers in action almost every Sunday. In school, he is almost a straight B student and keeps his GPA at a good level through the school year. He is best in math class and wants to have a future that involves numbers or statistics. However that is the future and he is focused on what he is doing now.