METACOGNITIVE:))

From start to finish, the And Then There Were None writing assignment was a pretty hard one! I changed my paper around so much with different points of view from first person to third person limited, and many grammar and spelling fixes as well as organization fixes and construction of my complex sentences.  My first draft of the And Then There Were None essay had so many notes in pen on it, you would have thought I wrote the whole thing in bright pink pen! The biggest thing that made my paper the best it could be was the pear edit we did in class. My partner, we'll call her Noel, is a very strong and intellectual writer so I tried to take her comments into very careful consideration and tried my best to make the right changes to my paper. I did very well on this writing assignment but of course like every other writer, no matter how experienced had things they can do to get even better. I'm sure even some of the most famous writers today such as James Patterson (Maximum Ride) and John Green (The Fault In Our Stars) are constantly making revisions to their writing and turning it into another national bestseller. I have very many things I can work on such as using more of a complex vocabulary and making less spelling mistakes as well as  having more imagery and making my readers really feel the mood and understand the theme of my literary work. I will continue to work very hard to make my work the best it can be. My goal this year is  to have less then three spelling mistakes as well as be descriptive enough in my work that a reader can locate the theme, mood, point of view, setting and be able to completely understand the plot.

The Fault in Our Stars

         The Fault in our Stars

My choice book for summer reading was The Fault in our Stars written by John Green. The theme of this book is- there can be infinities within a numbered days, especially with love. The background of the book is that there are two teenagers- Hazel and Augustus, who have both have cancer. Hazel and Augustus originally met at a support group for kids that have been diagnosed with cancer.

This is the theme of the book because having a terminal case of cancer means that their sickness will end in death so they will not be together forever. Knowing this, they decided to try to fit an entire eternity of love in a numbered days. This shows the theme because they want to give each other their own little infinity. I know this because they don’t just sit around and think about how the other one could drop dead at any moment. They know what they want to do and the want to do it together.

Make a Wish Foundation is a organisation that asks kids with serious diseases if they had one wish to do anything in their lifetime, what would It be and then they would make it happen. After Hazel spent her wish on her childhood dream of going to Disney World, Augustus was the only one who was eligible to get a wish. Augustus used his one wish to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author of all time- Peter Van Houten. They also get a five star dinner right next to a beautiful canal. This is another example of the theme. This ties to the theme because the world doesn’t know very many seventeen year old guys that would give up their one wish to do anything in the world that they wanted to for someone else. The gesture shows how much Gus loves Hazel and that he would give her anything and everything she wanted and give her a little forever in a numbered days.

Another great example is when Augustus and Hazel went to visit the Anne Frank house there were very many steep steep stairs. Augustus carried Hazel’s oxygen tank all the way up and down the stairs and they shared their first real kiss. The crowd clapped at the heartwarming seen of kids that were so in love. This is a good example of the theme because it shows that all Gus wants to do is be with Hazel forever. Even though forever will not come for them.

A couple weeks after Hazel and Augustus returned from Amsterdam and Augustus had informed Hazel that his body was completely made up of cancer cells and that he knew he was going to die, Augustus decided he wanted to attend his own funeral. At his request, Hazel and Augustus’ best friend- Isaac all met up at the church and the two of them wrote eulogies about Gus. During her eulogy Hazel says, “I will not tell you our love story, because- like all real love stories- it will die with us, as it should. I’d hoped he would be eulogizing me, because there’s no one I’d rather have. I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and god, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful” (Green 259-260). Hazel and Augustus definitely knew by now that they were not going to be together forever- but they fit so much love and compassion into a numbered days- they made their own little infinity. For that, they were both eternally grateful. They proved that infinities can be within numbered days- putting emphasis on love.

The theme of “The Fault in Our Stars” is there can be infinities within numbered days. Gus and Hazel can show the world its possible to have a lifetime of love in just three months! Their infinity wasn’t textbook definition but for them, the amount of love felt like forever and their feelings and memories will last another whole textbook definition of infinity.