English+9

=Assignments=

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Mark Twain = Mark Twain wrote the book //The Adventures Tom Sawyer // and a lot of other great classics; such as //1601, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, Adventures Of Finn, A Tale// and many more. His most popular books were //The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn // & //The Of Tom Sawyer. // Mark Twain was almost 18 when he first started writing; he was 31 when he published //Tom Sawyer. Twain married Olivia Langdon in 1869. They lived in Buffalo, New York and had 4 children; 1 son and 3 daughters. //

 Mark Twain's birth name was Samuel Clemens and he was born on November 30th, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He grew up with his mother, father and his 2 siblings. He was the 6th child out of 7, but only he, his brother Orion, & his sister Pamela survived childhood. Twain and his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri shortly after he was born and he spent most of his life there. In 1861, the Civil War broke out; that was a big event that was going on when he lived. He got into writing because his brother owned a small newspaper business; he was a journalist.

 I think that that //Tom Sawyer // was very much influenced by Mark Twain's life. The setting of the book takes place in a fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri which resembles his hometown, Hannibal. The adventures that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn went are very much like the ones Mark Twain went on with his friends. He once said that //Tom Sawyer // & //Huckleberry Finn //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> were based on things in his childhood. (There was a Mark Twain biography that I watched on T.V. and he said that. I can't find it online.)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The story has a theme. It is a fight against good and evil. Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn witness a murder and they're stuck with trying to tell someone but worried that the murderer (Injun Joe) will catch them if they do. //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Tom Sawyer //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> also has some romance involved. In the story he falls in love with Becky Thatcher. The two actually become "engaged" and they vow to be together forever, even though they're just young kids. Twain was an abolitionist. In his book //Tom Sawyer// he would use the "N"-word to show that it was wrong. I don't think that recent reprints should be edited because he had a purpose for the word; to show how bad it is. People still, and sadly, still use it in the world now. They need to be shown that it's wrong and hurtful. I do not think it should be banned in schools for the same reasons.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Mark Twain died on April 21st, 1910. He was buried in his wife's family's plot, in Woodlawn Cemetery, in Elmira, New York. I really liked //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">. I thought //Tom Sawyer// was very well written & enjoyable. It had a lot of imagination in it and I like that in a book. The beginning was kind of slow but when I got into it I couldn't put it down.

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 200%;">Urban Legend =

3 girls, Jimi, Apple, and Araxie, were getting ready for Halloween. They were at the mall shopping for costumes when they decide to go do something scary the next night in celebration of Halloween and the thrill. When they go home they each go online to search for the creepiest place to go explore. Jimi calls up her friends and tells them about the old crone's house. She tells them there was once an elderly woman that lived in the middle of a forest... She sold herbal supplements to people in the small town over for a business. To everyone she was known as Scary Mary; she was thought a witch by everybody. No one dared to cross her house when walking through the forest for fear that she would put a curse on them or their loved ones. Daughters of the town started disappearing one by one each night and even though the people in the town tried their hardest, they could not find the girls; when the townspeople went to the crone's house to see if she had anything to do with it, she denied having done anything. The suspicious thing was that Scary Mary looked younger and more attractive but the people could not explain why and so they left her well alone. Until this day no one know's where the girls are. They say that if a young girl goes to the house at midnight, that the old crone will come out and cast a spell on the girl to lure her into the house to collect their blood and drink it to gain youth. Jimi, Apple and Araxie decided that that was the place to go, it was creepy, scary, and nerve wracking, sounded good for a Halloween thrill.

The next night the 3 girls went on the 10 minute drive to Scary Mary's house. It was 5 minutes until midnight so they took a look around. It was a normal looking house, save the untidiness of it, but it also hadn't been cared for in over 100 years. The fog started to roll in at about 1 minute to midnight and the girls all gathered around the front of the house, all a little unnerved. Their watches all beeped at the same time, striking 12:00, all slightly jumping from the fear. When nothing happened they stayed for about another 5 minutes holding each other tightly, terrified. Jimi, Apple, and Araxie all turned to go and drive back, disappointed but yet relieved to go. As they drove away, Araxie, in the back seat, looked out the back window to the house when she saw something walking in a black cloak into the house. Petrified, she turned around and didn't say anything on the way home.

Later, Araxie started having weird nightmares about the incident. She got up to go get a glass of water when she heard something...singing. It was the most beautiful singing she had ever heard. Almost enchanting... Next thing she knew she blacked out. Araxie woke, startled to find she wasn't at her house anymore but at the witch's house and that her slippers were all muddy. She looks up to see the crone right above her with a knife chanting something fast. Then Scary Mary brings the knife down into Araxie's chest, straight into her heart, killing her instantly. The crone puts a cup under the blood flow and drinks the blood that gathers in it. Almost instantly her wrinkles smooth and her lips get pinker and fuller as she gains some of her youth back...

Jimi woke with a frightened start from a dream about the strange house. As she sits there in her bed she hears comforting words saying that it's all ok and that she'll be fine. Weird thing is, it's coming from no where. Soon she gets pulled under Scary Mary's spell and her eyes go black. She walks out her bedroom, down the hall and out the front door not even bothering to close the door while she walks, under a trance, to the witch's house. Her fate the same as Araxie's.

Last but not least, Apple wakes in a cold sweat, scared from her nightmare, the same as the others. Then she see's a shadow run past her window and she decides to go check it out. She walks outside with her car keys in case she needs someplace to hide quick. Then she hears luring words saying to "Come here". Then Apple falls into her spell and gets into her car, eyes blackened, & drives to the old crones house. When she's almost there the witch, with her magic, pushes Apple's car into a tree, causing her to crash and die on the scene. Scary Mary takes her cold, lifeless body and takes Apple's blood like she has done with the others.

The next morning the families of the girls all are in a panic, wondering where their precious girls are. They call the police and follow all the evidence to the old crone's house. When they get there, the girl's bodies are in a pile in the house, drained of every drop of blood they had. Then a mad, old, homeless woman comes along ranting about how the only way to stop this from ever happening again is to burn down the house to kill the witch's spirit & bring a mirror and say "Now you'll never be beautiful!" to contain her soul. So the parent's get to talking and organize to burn down Scary Mary's house to protect the daughters of the town.

They all come at midnight to awaken the witch's dark soul and kill it once and for all. When all their watches blink or chime 12:00 they all light a match and the house slowly starts to burn. Soon the house is aflame and they can hear the shrieks of the old crone in the fire burning to death. One of the mothers holds out the hand glass and shouts "Now you'll never be beautiful!" and then a black apparition shoots out of the house and into the mirror, containing her spirit forever. When the house is all burnt out they all go home, glad it's over but still mourning over their lost girls.

Legend says that if you stand in front of a mirror at midnight and say "Scary Mary" 13 times (how many girls she killed) that you will see her spirit in your reflection and she will reach out and scar your face, making your features disfigured like hers.