Jocelyn+V

2. How do you feel when you're doing the thing you're good at? I feel spectacular!!!
===3. How would you feel if people wouldn't let you do the thing you're good at? I would feel mad because I love to play the violin and drums; but if people wouldn't let me do one or the other, I wouldn't feel spectacular I would just feel okay.===

Tuesday, October 3, 2006 Chapter 1 ==1. What problems or conflicts are presented in chapter one? Tao needing to find a rabbit is an obvious one; identify at least two more. 1.The clan is starving. 2. Volt is angry at Tao because the rabbit was missing.==

2. Predict the resolution of each conflict. I think that winter will almost be over so, the clan can start to hunt again and hopefully, they'll find food.
Chapter 2 ===//The first event that happened was that Tao woke up and he walked over to the marsh to look for some food because he hadn't eaten anything for two days.The second event was that since the marsh was a forbidden place an evil spirit appeared.//=== //Chapter 3 Questions: 1) What do Tao and Ram learn to do together? They learn to hunt. 2) What decision does Tao tell Volt? He tells him that he will live by himself away from the others. 3)//

//2) Would you like to be taught// to a skill by Graybeard? Yes because I'm not so good at drawing which is one of my favorite things to do when I have spare time.
April 11,2007 Criss Cross

Velazquez, Jocelyn June 8, 2007 Period 6/7 The First Emperor of China

In ancient China, there used to be a lot of wars that were tearing China apart, until a man named Qin Shihuangdi became the first emperor of China. Everyone thought he would be a great emperor and so he was. He did some good things and some bad things but overall he made China into a flourishing land that is still flourishing today. The Great Wall of China that is still standing strong to this day was one of Qin’s first projects. He ordered it to be constructed so that it could protect China from invaders of the north. Even if it took ten years to build, it was a success. This was only one of Qin’s many accomplishments. Before he was emperor, everything was divided. For example, money was needed for trading but since China was separated into different parts, everyone used different objects such as pearls, shells, silver, and tin for trading. So he made a system of money that everyone used to make trading easier. He also simplified the Chinese writing system. In their system they don’t have an alphabet; they have characters. Before Qin simplified it, there were a lot of characters that everyone used. Afterwards, there were only 9,000 characters that the emperor approved. In small words, the emperor unified China. The emperor’s way of law was based on Legalism. Legalism is the belief of strict laws and harsh punishments to keep everything in order. Qin liked that idea of controlling people, so he used it. Did it work? Yes and no. Yes because with strict laws and harsh punishments, no one dared rebel against him. No because later on it brought some conflicts between him and Confucian scholars. He did some bad things to them, which brings me to my next subject. Unifying China by using Legalism as law brought problems. It is said that Qin executed 460 Confucian scholars for trying to kill him. Another bad thing he did, and I mean really bad, started at a royal banquet in 213 B.C.E. A Confucian scholar was critisizing the emperor knowing that Qin wasn’t there but not knowing that one of his most trusted workers, Li Siu, was. The scholar said that the Qin dynasty wouldn’t last long unless the emperor went back to the old ways of ruling. Li told the emperor what happened at the banquet,and the emperor got furious. Li suggested that they burn all Confucian books besides the ones having to do with farming, medicine, and most importantly the history of the Qin kingdom. The emperor agreed. So all Confucian books were burned and any scholars that tried to save their books or persuade the emperor to stop, was buried alive or buried up to their necks and had their heads chopped off. So, was the First Emperor of China good or bad? I think that he was both good and bad at the same time but a little more on the bad side because those things he did were pretty harsh. The Qin dynasty didn't last long (as the scholar had said) because soon after the emperor died, everything fell apart. A while after the death, another man named Hanfeitzu became the emperor of China and that started another important period of Chinese history called the Han dynasty. Bibliography Frey, Wendy. History Alive!. Palo Alto: Teacher’s Curriculum Institute, 2004 ” The First Emperor of China.” The New Book of Knowledge. 2005 ed.