Looking for Alaska

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main characters. She is a student at Culver Greek and a good friend of Miles. In the following I will analyse how Alaska is characterised in this extract. At the beginning of the extract Alaska is described that she has "wide green eyes" (1.23) by Miles. Another important fact is that she likes parties, drinking alcohol and having sex. Additionally, a significant aspect is that she saw her mom dying when Alaska was eight years old. Because she was in shock, she forgot to call 911 and so did not rescue her. Alaska thinks that it is her fault that her mother died. From this one can conclude that she pretends to be strong and confident to prevent herself from getting hurt again and enduring the pain. In the given extract she seems egoistic because she plays her video game loudly (II.2ff.) in Miles room and she does not care about annoying other people like Miles and Chip (1.7). It reveals that everyone must adapt to her. From kicking out Chip one can also conclude that she wants to be alone with Miles because she has feelings for him. So, this shows that she is clever. Furthermore, Alaska tells Englisch Class test Nr. 3 Miles about being sorry for ratting out Marya (II.9f.) but she changes the topic fast. It seems like she just pretends to be sorry to say something Miles wants to hear. Miles describes her as unpredictable (II.13f.). She changes her mood a lot and does not seem to be trustworthy all the time (II.12f). You can see that she is ironic and sarcastic. A proof for that can be found in line 26 when she says that "(she) would wear a burka" to not irritate him when staying with Miles in Thanksgiving. She also seems organised because she wants to plan a prank (1.29) and composed a list with some reasons for Miles to stay with her at Culver Greek for Thanksgiving (II.30ff.). Planning a prank also hinds at her revengeful and rebellious side. To sum up, one can say that Alaska is clever, moody and egoistic. She uses her cleverness to be alone with Miles and to prank other people. She is described as in predictable and not trustworthy by Miles. I would like to have her as a friend because she is ready for every adventure. But I think sometimes it would not be goof to have her as a friend because she pretends to be cool and is moody. Englisch Class test Nr. 3 Listening You are going to hear an interview with a young girl called Jodie She e-mailed BBC Radio & after she had heard about the death of a 14 year old girl. In her e-mail she talked about the unexpected effects online bullying really has on a victim. In the interview, she tells us her own experiences as a former bully 1 Listen to the interview in which order does jodie mention the following things? Put the numbers 1-8 in the boxes Slodie and her friends started teasing a girl for fun 2 Bullying is experienced by hundreds of young people every day. You can say anything on the internet. Taking yourself off the internet is like admitting the bullies have won Jodie can't remember a life offline She still feels guilty about teasing the girl, Social networking sites can cause pain Jodie started feeling uneasy about teasing the girl 2 Listen again and decide whether the statements below (1-10) are true or false 1 The British Prime Minister holds the view that social networking sites which tackle online abuse should be boycotted 2. In jodie's view it is not easy to be on social networking sites 3. In her view, people underestimate the pain that bullying on the internet can cause 4. Jodie calls herself a bully 5. She points out that she teased a girl online because there were rumours that the girl had obviously fallen in love with another girl at school 6. If you are in a group, you do not think twice about what you are currently doing to someone online 7. At home, Jodie wasn't aware of the fact that she had done something bad to that girl, 8. The girl who had been bullied told a teacher and jodie was found out because she had not sent her messages anonymously felt really guilty when the teacher confronted the pupils about the bullying. 10 The distance provided by the internet made jodie braver as she dared to say more abusive things online than she would have ever said to a person face-to-face x x x x x x x PART B xxx 3. Comment on the following statement by Rev Run: "Being a bully on the internet is a sign of insecurity and weakness." Comment on means you are to give your personal opinion on the topic and to give reasons for it. This time you do not have to weigh up pros and cons, you only need pros. Start with a short introduction, which introduces the topic and includes your personal point of view. Then give at least three arguments, start with the weakest one and end with the strongest one. Finish your text with a short conclusion. For more help see p. 172, skill 20 in your book. Englisch Class test Nr. 3 3. Every day a hundred of people are getting bullied in the internet. Rev Run said "Being a bully on the internet is a sing of insecurity and weakness.". I agree with his statement. I think that behind a person who bullies there is someone who is not satisfied with his own life, similar to what Rev said. In the following I'm going to comment why Rev Run is right with his statement about being a bully. First of all, one can say that the person who bullies somebody is just trying to be cool so that her 'friend group' is seeing the person as cool and allow one to be on the cool group. Because unfortunately many friend groups just allow you to become the 'cool if you do what they tell you to do. Another aspect is that many bullies are anonymously on the internet and hide there true- selves and can easily bully some one. They might be so insecure about themselves that they let their anger on someone out and do forget the consequences about bullying. The last thing one can say is that a lot of bullies are just strong in the internet but if you meet them face - face, they will be completely be different in-front of the one they bully. An example for this is that it is proven that 80 percent are much stronger in the internet and more self confident than in real life. To sum up, you can say that the one reason bullies bully is that they just have a problem with themselves. They feel insecure, weak and not good enough, so that they let their anger on somebody else in the internet because they are feeling stronger in the internet or want to belong in to a group. But bullies have to stop! They have to get to know the consequences and think twice if they bully someone or not. If you are insecure and weak, it is not a solution to bully someone because than you are making the one who gets bullied, feel insecure and suicidal and if you have not a problem with that: get help!