Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

This thINK post contains spoilers for The Tenth Circle.

People are wrongly convicted all the time for major crimes they did not commit. Innocent people are forced to live many years in prison because of people not telling the truth. How is that fair?

In The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult many big crimes have been committed but no one knows what really happened or who committed the crimes because everyone is lying. Trixie accuses her ex-boyfriend, Jason, of rape. When she is questioned she does not want to look like a slut so she lies about half of her story. Jason keeps saying that he did not rape her: that it was consensual. No one knows who to believe. Then, more evidence is found that reveals that a date rape drug was used, but Jason swears up and down that he did not give her the drug. Soon Jason is found dead at the bottom of a bridge. Was it suicide or murder? And if it was murder, who was the murderer? The whole book is one big case of "he said, she said," and many of the things said are lies.

After reading this book I wondered if this happened in the real world. According to this website innocent people are convicted all the time. This article explains that the main cause of wrongful convictions are eyewitness accounts. Why are eyewitness accounts considered reliable? An individual's memory can be changed easily by a number of factors. People can be persuaded into believing something really happened when really they do not remember. Why are we so quick to throw someone in prison if we do not have the proper evidence?

If so many innocent people are put into prison, then why is our legal system based on the ideal "innocent until proven guilty?" In these cases it seems more like guilty until proven innocent.

Uh Oh! (A 12 Sentence Story)

When my siblings and I were growing up we climbed on everything, the bars and beams at gymnastics, the trees and rocks outside, and the counters and walls at home. My sister and I were both tiny kids; my brother, on the other hand, was pretty hefty. Our house back then, a rent house, had to put up with many of our crazy shenanigans. One time me and my sister decided to climb inside the house by putting our hands and feet on opposite walls, climb up the walls, to the ceiling, down the walls, to the floor. My brother thought he should join in on the fun. Uh oh. I warned him that he would get hurt or that he would fall or that he would break something. Ignoring my protests, he tried to climb. On the wall, a gaping hole I saw. What did we do? We ran and hid and cried. An extra painting in the house, an absentee landlord, the thrill of keeping a secret means we covered it up and never told a soul.

Cure for Bullying?

Bullying is a tricky subject. No one really knows why people bully, because every bully bullies for a different reason. Bullying has gotten out of control, is there any way to stop it? How can we stop bullying if we do not know the cause?

This article suggests that babies might be the solution to our bullying problems. A program called "Roots of Empathy" lets school age kids bond with a baby and its mother over a series of visits. Eventually, all of the kids started becoming more compassionate, more empathetic, more understanding, less hateful.

This article covers the theory more thoroughly. Being with the babies helps the kids "understand their own feelings and the feelings of others." The idea behind the program is "perspective taking." It makes the kids think about how the baby is feeling and not only think about themselves. That is the problem with bullying; people think about only themselves. They do not stop to think about how bad they are making other people feel, they just think about how good, or bad, they feel.

Bullying obviously needs to be stopped. I know it sounds cliche, but it warms my heart to think that sweet, innocent, lovable babies could very well be the solution to the problem.

What Will I Read This Quarter?

One book that I really want to read this quarter is When It Happens by Susane Colasanti. The classroom does not have a copy of this book, but my friend Natasha owns it, so I can get my copy from her. I really want to read this book because almost all of my friends have read it, and they made it sound like it was the best book in the world. This book is my type of book: a candy read. I really enjoy reading cheesy, teen, love stories and When It Happens seems like it will be a great cheesy, teen, love story.

Another book that I want to read is The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult. The classroom does not have this book, but my friend Natasha has it, so I will get my copy from her. This book caught my attention because it is a Jodi Picoult book. I always want to read her books. Natasha recommended this book to me because she also loves Jodi Picoult. After reading the back of the book, and reviews of the book, I am convinced I will like The Tenth Circle.

The third book that I really want to read this quarter is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I first found out about this book when my teacher gave a short book talk on it; I immediately thought it sounded amazing. I then went to goodreads to see if other people also thought it was good and almost every reviewer loved the book. I will definitely make time to read this book sometime this quarter.

2nd Nine Weeks Annotated Reading List

Colasanti, Susane. When It Happens. New York: Speak, 2008. Print.

Sarah wants two things out of her Senior year of High School: college acceptance and to fall in love. She has her sights set on the popular jock, Dave. He's everything she thought she wanted, but there is no connection. Tobey, a musical slacker, is convinced that him and Sarah have a real connection. Will Sarah ever give Tobey a chance to test out this real connection? The writing style in When It Happens is really interesting. Each chapter has a different narrator. One chapter will be told by Sarah, and the next by Tobey. It gives the reader a chance to see the progression of the relationships through both perspectives. (310 pages)

Dessen, Sarah. Someone like You. New York: Speak, 2004. Print.

Halley and Scarlett are best friends. While Halley is away at a summer camp Scarlett's boyfriend, Michael, dies. A few weeks later Scarlett learns that she is pregnant with her dead boyfriend's baby. While Scarlett is struggling with this Halley becomes involved with Macon, Michael's best friend. Macon is the typical bad boy so he pushes Halley to do take a walk on the wild side. Soon Macon is pushing Halley to do things she is not ready for. Halley is forced to help Scarlett deal with her problems and find out what is really important in her life. One thing I really loved about this book was the relationship between Scarlett and Halley. Even when things weren't perfect they still stood by each other. An amazing quote from the book that expresses this relationship is "life is an ugly, awful place to not have a best friend." Their friendship is one that every teenage girl either wants or has, and it is really inspiring that Sarah Dessen could capture this so well. (281 pages)


Oliver, Lauren. Before I Fall. New York: Harper, 2010. Print.

Samantha Kingston, in Before I Fall, is a popular girl with a great boyfriend. She has no problem with her life until she dies and has to relive her last day over and over. She dies in a car crash after a party on February 12, so every time she is reliving that day she tries to change something so she doesn't die at the end of the night. The problem is that even when she lives at the end of the night, the day keeps repeating. After repeating the same day over and over she realizes there is only one way out of the loop. One of the characters that I think is really interesting is Juliet Sykes. She is not a popular kid: she is a complete outcast. But she wasn't always an outcast. She used to be best friends with Lindsay Edgecomb, the most popular girl in school, until an unfortunate incident involving pee in a tent on a 5th grade camping trip. After that camping trip Juliet was tormented, and she always took the teasing without putting up a fight. No one understood why she never stood up for herself. Eventually we find out that Lindsay was really the one that peed in the tent, but Juliet took the fall for Lindsay because Lindsay was going through a really tough time. I was really amazed that a 5th grader would be selfless enough put up with being tormented for something that she didn't do in order to help out a friend. (470 pages)


Picoult, Jodi. The Tenth Circle. New York: Washington Square, 2006. Print.

Trixie Stone used to be a normal fourteen-year old: she had a boyfriend, a best friend, and a family. After an unexpected breakup from her first love, Jason, she decides she will do anything to get him back. After a wild night at a party, her dad finds her sobbing in the bathroom, claiming that Jason raped her. Jason denies the accusations, saying that everything they did was consensual. Lies are thrown every which way so no one knows the truth. A court date is set for the rape case until Jason is found dead at the bottom of a bridge, now it is a case of murder. Daniel, Trixie's father, promises to do anything to protect his daughter and he turns into a fit of rage in the process. Can they figure out the truth before it is too late? One really interesting thing about this book was the writing style. The point of view changed multiple times in each chapter, and at the end of every chapter there was a comic. Daniel is a comic book artist so he writes these comics that go along with the story, but in a different setting: Hell. The events of the book are maximized and changed to fit in with the comic that Daniel has created about Hell. It put an interesting twist on the book. (387 pages)

1st Nine Weeks Reading Reflection

Reading has always been fun and easy for me. When I was young I would read whenever I wanted too, but now I have to schedule a time specifically for reading. I have tried to establish a reading habit but I haven't had much luck. My schedule is different every week so I have trouble setting aside a time for reading everyday. Even though I haven't set aside a time to use everyday, I still managed to find time to read. Admittedly, I did not always read enough some nights so I had to stay up late on other nights to make up for the lost time. Now that I know how much I have to read, I will try to form a habit so I don't have to cram all of my reading into one night.

I have no problem reading my required amount, but I have trouble inking my thinking. I read texts deeply, but I cannot seem to make myself ink my thoughts very often. I do not like to stop my reading to pick up a pencil and write what I am thinking. I just like to keep reading, and think while I am reading. I know this is wrong so I am trying to change it, but inking my thinking is not an easy habit for me to form.

Next quarter I am going to try to set aside a time for me to read every night, and actually follow this through, to the end. I will also try to stop reading more often to ink what I am thinking. Two books that I know I want to read during the second quarter are When it Happens by Susan Colasanti and Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult. I am a big Jodi Picoult fan so I pretty much want to read anything she writes, and all of my friends have recommended When it Happens so I really want to read that too. Hopefully reading this quarter will be easier for me to complete.

Socratic Seminar Reflection

When I first found out that we had to do a Socratic Seminar I was apprehensive. I have no problem talking in front of people I know, but I do not really enjoy being in the spotlight while discussing deep topics that require a lot of thinking. This type of discussion makes me feel inadequate. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this discussion because it expanded my thinking on many questions I had from Brave New World.

While preparing for this discussion I made sure I would have plenty of topics and questions to talk about in order to make me feel more comfortable. Preparing for this type of discussion forced me to think on a much deeper level and really understand what I was reading.

Preparing for the discussion helped me a lot, but I probably benefited most from the actual discussion. Everyone had different ideas than I did, so by listening to them I thought about many things I had never thought of. In one of my discussions we were talking about individualism. Someone mentioned that we don't really have individualism in products anymore because everything is mass produced. Interestingly, we brought up that some products now, like iPods, actually encourage individualism by allowing everyone to put different music and videos on them. On my own I never would have thought of this, but by participating in the discussion I got many new ideas.

One thing I had trouble with was clearing my mind and really listening to what the other people in my group had to say. I was usually thinking about how I was going to respond. I had to constantly remind myself that I needed to listen to what others were saying. I also had trouble finding the right time to jump in the conversation. I didn't want to step on anyone's toes so I kind of held back. If I had a do-over I would listen more attentively and jump in the conversation a little more often.

The Socratic Seminar was fun and challenging. I left the class with new ideas that I never would have come up with if we had just taken a test over the book. Socrates believed that a discussion, like we participated in, is one of the best ways to learn; based on my experience I believe this is true.