The Other Wes Moore Post-Reading

 

               "I guess it's sometimes hard to distinguish between second and last chances".  That quote is from the novel "The Other Wes Moore" by Wes Moore and the quote has a really deep meaning.  In middle school if we get in trouble, it's usually not something bad enough to really mess up our future; we just get punished by either getting sent home or just getting talked to by an administrator.  Because of those punishments, we never really know if something is going to be our last or second chance, we've always been given a chance to start over even if we used like fifteen chances.  So if we end up doing something stupid in high school, it may be our last chance and we wouldn't have known it because we're so used to being given all of these chances.

                 To me, this quote means that people never really know when they're all out of chances, when something is going to ruin their whole life or when they still have a chance or two left.  In life we are never told when our chances are up.  One day you could do something and not get a big punishment but then the next day you could do something stupid and have it ruin your entire life.  If people knew how many chances they have left there would be a whole lot of people who wouldn't be in jail right now.  Maybe sometimes you aren't really given any chances and you do something so stupid that you are sentenced life in prison. This quote relates to the novel because Wes did a lot of stupid stuff when he was growing up.  For example he tried to stab someone but he got lucky and since he was a minor got charged with attempted murder, he also tried to shoot someone but never got a full time in jail, he got a girl pregnant, but then he got caught selling drugs and was in jail for a long time.  He used up all his chances there, his daughter could only see him in prison growing up.

                 I feel like this quote is telling people to be careful of their actions because they never know when they could have some more chances left, or it could be their last.

Human Nature Essay

“What I mean is… maybe it’s only us” that’s a quote from the novel The Lord of the Flies and it means that it’s really the evil inside us.  But I believe that people are born naturally good instead of evil.  If they weren’t than there wouldn’t be any charities or donations or armies fighting for their country.  If people were born bad then why do people save others before themselves.  Think about how Martin Luther King did anything to fight and get people rights even if that meant he would go to jail.  Also, in the book Night, Elie was willing to die if that meant his father would live.

Most people believe others are evil for no reason.  But a lot of times, it’s because they probably had a bad past experience with something to make them turn evil.  It’s like in the poem The Cold Within, all of the men don’t like each other for a reason, it was probably because of a past experience.  For example, one of the men didn’t like the one because he was poor, it’s probably because he had a bad incident and that changed him.  It’s like a school dress code, one day hoodies are allowed but then someone decides to hide something with their hoodie and they get caught.  Then the next day hoodies end up being not allowed anymore all because of that one person.  One time I tried to be nice to a cat but then it scratched me so now I don’t really like cats.

If people were born naturally bad then there wouldn’t be good, love, or selflessness.  All of the people who changed the country in a good way did it because they love their country.  Mothers and fathers care, love, and usually put their children before them.  Families love each other, charities love to help and make a difference, all of these things people love and care and put others before them.  If they were evil they wouldn’t be doing these things.  LIke in The Lord of the Flies, Ralph would’ve killed all those people and probably wouldn’t have cared about the others and would’ve only saved himself and no one else.

Humans are naturally good and not evil. If they were born bad there wouldn’t be any good, caring, or selflessness in this world.

Pre-Reading The Other Wes Moore

           In life, some people seem to have all of the good luck and breaks while others always get the bad luck.  Most of the time, people with the good luck are usually the ones with a good reputation.  A lot of times it's because they might have relatives and those relatives did something good so the whole family looks good, it's like a legacy.  But the people with bad luck are usually the ones with bad reputations.  They might be the ones who don't participate, they might come from a bad neighborhood, or they might have a bad family reputation.  But it also might be because of no reason.   Usually in a situation someone gets in trouble and the other doesn't get in trouble, so even though you might have not done anything and it was the other person, you might be in a bad position and then they will think that you are the wrong doer.  I feel like this is really unfair, you shouldn't judge someone off of where they might come from or who their family is, everyone is different.  Even though this is wrong, there's nothing that's going to stop it from happening.  Someone has to get bad luck and someone has to get good luck.  It's all a part of life and people have to deal with it.  No one is going to have bad luck all of their life and no one is going to have good luck all their life either, it's just something everyone has to deal with.