Summer reading responses

Patrick Counter   
13 September 2011
Mr. B.G.

                Summer Reading Responses
                Kite Running in West Texas
    1. My reaction to the story is that it seems like Alex took his time to incorporate both The Kite Runner and Friday Night Lights into one very well formatted essay.  My reaction to the story was that I thought it was very well done because Alex was able to create a picture in my head of every person in the town cheering in the stands for the home team and seeing the crowds go wild. What I remember from reading the story is that Mike, the quarterback, seeing the new kid, Amir, and going over to him and talking to Amir and asking him what position he is going to try out for. Amir he said receiver, then they got to talking because Mike was the quarterback and they were discussing plays that they would do.  This story made me think about the start of college football and the NFL’s opening game.
    2. What was best described was the opening paragraph because it was an awesome way to describe the start of football season, where there was also a solid description of the end of summer and describing football like it was about one book. “In the eyes of our town, football is the only sport.”  I though this line was well done because it was a nicely done transition to the second paragraph from the first.
    3. The conversation that the two characters had seemed that it could very likely happen in real life because they were both going to be on the same football team and it was the main character of one story talking to another character and it seemed like a well done dialogue. Also it was Incorporated into a well placed spot in the story.
    4.  One thing that I thought could have been better was that after reading the story was after I was beginning to read the second paragraph because i thought it would be about a big home football game, but after reading it it all came together in the end.

                Into the Hindu Kush
    1. This story was one of the best student essays that I have read in my three plus years of high school it was a very well crafted short story. Props to Nate.  After reading it I wish there was more to the story because I really like it.  What I remember is that Yuri had only accepted the mission because he wanted to get paid the two million U.S. dollars and he had to go to Afghanistan to rescue Amir.  When he was talking to a man he was told that he is as good as dead because the Taliban were still in the hill around the camp. Also Yuri Tush in the snow at the base of the mountain reminding him of Russia.  The concepts in my head were a search and rescue mission.  The story made me think about the movie Behind Enemy Lines.
    2. The best description in the sort story was all of the attention to detail that was in it throughout the whole story. Nate used the strongest description in the first and second paragraphs. “They were drawn together by an unbelievable fate, from completely different worlds, there wasn’t much to talk.”
I liked this line because it shows even though Yuri saved Amir’s life they were from two very different worlds and they knew nothing of the life of the other only drawn together by fate.
    3. The conversation between the characters was believable because maybe Amir wanted to learn about the man that had saved his life, also it was a good because it started off between two different characters and finished with Yuri and Amir.  The characters seemed natural because of the situation that was being described in the story and the first part of the dialogue seemed the most realistic because it set the course of the story
    4.  Something That I thought could have been better in the story is that there could have been a better transition from the paragraphs to the dialogue and then back to the essay.