Utzig

Intro:
My Name is Marley Utzig, I started SLA in '09. I was eager nervous but above all excited for all the things I would be doing. This page is a collection of my work from Ms. Dunn's 9th grade Red Stream English class.

The Odyssey Essay:
The Odyssey is a book about Odysseus adventure home from the Trojan war. This was the first book the '09 Freshmen read. We were told to write a argument of something in the book. I wrote about how the women in __The Odyssey__ are strong characters and that is hard to find in many books written in the past. This is a revised version of the original piece I had written. ** Marley Utzig 10/27/09 Red Stream English Benchmark 1

History rarely mentions women, and women hold a very important part in culture. In __The Odyssey,__ women are given their point to shine. The women in __The Odyssey__ are powerful, wise, and beautiful.

In __The Odyssey__ the women although not mentioned often, are very powerful. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and craft she has the power to put people and winds to sleep, “Athena countered him at once. The rest of the winds she stopped right in their tracks, commanding them to hush now go to sleep”. Calypso controls her islands; dragging successful men in a bending them to her will she is a powerful being. Penelope is the queen of Ithaca, and although women were not often treated equal, Odysseus loved his wife she was strong enough to keep the large amounts of suitors under control because she had power and was wise enough to know how to use it.

Be wise or die, be smart or suffer, being intelligent can help delay the situation until there is a plan and the women in __The Odyssey__, use there intelligence. Penelope, “The matchless queen of cunning,” as Antonius calls her on page 96. Penelope, who does not want to re-marry comes up with a plan, she weaves and will not marry until she finishes her web but at night she undoes her weaving so that she can delay the marriage. Clytemnestra fell in love while her husband was off fighting in the Trojan War, when her husband came back she thought up a plan to kill her husband by treating him kindly then stabbing him. Athena is the god of wisdom; she gives courage and ideas to the world along with her beauty that, as a goddess cannot be matched.

Myths, it seems as if there is no ugly women in a myth it is for the pleasure to read and nothing amazing will happen to a plain Jane type of girl. __The Odyssey__ is no different the women are beautiful and they know it. Penelope has a large amount of men sitting in her house waiting to marry her. ”She falls short of you, your beauty, stature.” Odysseus page 159 talking about Calypso. Calypso is a nymph one of the most beautiful creatures. ”Cadmus’ daughter with lovely ankles, Ino, a mortal women once with a human voice and called Leucothea now she lives in the sea’s salt depths esteemed by all the gods as she deserves.” (Narrator page 162) although Ino is only talked about once we are told about her intense beauty.

Powerful, wise, and beautiful describe the women in __The Odyssey__. It is a hope that more books will follow and show that women are important and young female readers can look up to them. Seeing their beauty and power know that wisdom can conquer all. **

Memoir Vignette:
The class wrote vignettes after reading books like __The Freedom Writers__ and __Funny in Farsi.__ We were studying written memoirs. With this lesson our teacher Ms. Dunn decided to have our class write a memoir of our own. This memior is mine. I chose to write about my career choice because I feel that, my career choice affects who I am so me writing about this shows who I am.

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Marley Utzig Red stream

My Steps to the Red Carpet
__“It is ok to be nervous.”(__Dialogue) I had been told this a million times. Two weeks __after all of this practice, all of the memorization, and I was freaking out.__ (Magic three) The back smelled musty and I was growing hot under my heavy green coat. The girls, whom I had befriended, all in third grade or higher, were walking around their more than 2-inch high heels thumping on the old wooden floors. Their makeup was on thicker then mine, making them look 20 years old. There was no point in turning back now. I heard the __squeak, squeak, squeak__ (rep for affect) and held my breath. //You can do this. You are amazing, you know you can do this.// __The clean-cut white door hiding me from the terror began to seem less ominous(__Imagery). I heard the clapping as the carolers began to sing “Holy Night.” I gulped, calming myself before I took the leap through the door. I slammed the door open and was hit with the lights, the crowd, and the stage. The fear slithered from me as I spoke my lines. It was like riding a bicycle—you never forget. Every line rushed to my head and every move I had to make was an automatic response from my memory to my muscle. I got my first 15 seconds of fame and I wanted more.

My first play was “A Christmas Carol.” The script had been rewritten so that a woman played the part of Ebenezer Scrooge. I was Ebony Scrooge, the main character. It was my first time on stage and I never knew how much I would love acting. The rush that I got from doing the play made me want to perform more and more. I went back to the theater group a second time to be in the play “The Wizard of Oz.” I played the Tin Man. __My face was like a disco ball__ (simile) and the glitter on my hair, eyes and lips made me look like a groovy kid from the 70’s. For the next week, no matter where I went, glitter followed. I helped make the set, working on and off the stage. As long as I was in the acting process, I was happy.

Rebecca or “Rocking Rebecca” was our director. She is literally the most amazing “mom” in the world. I first met her when she decided to help my Girl Scout troop. Everyone in the troop fell in love with her, and she became a friend and a helpful source. After I met her in Girl Scouts, I began to see her everywhere. She and her husband were in everything that had to do with the community including __school dances, volunteer work, and speaking publicly about ways to be a better person with neighborhood groups__ (Magic three). Whenever she was asked who her child was, she would point to around twenty kids in the room and no matter who you were, you were happy to be part of that group.

The stage group became a tiny family. We helped each other with homework and cheered each other’s successes. We all helped each other with our lines but there was always the undertone of meanness … I mean, you put a group of teen girls together, there is going to be bitterness. I could say the most well known argument was a fistfight during The Wizard of Oz when one of the girls got mad at another and began whaling on the other girl. This started a fight and both girls were kicked out of the current play. Though this was the better-known fight with girls, the words that really hurt are the ones whispered to your friend. Words of how the girls could not express their lines and grudges brought from all of our different schools came to play practice, making our director yell at us. Her constant words were, __“We are here to be in a play and have fun with it. We do not need all of this ‘he said she said’ stuff.”__ (Dialogue) Though these words were said, it did not mean the grudges stopped. I remember clearly when one of the younger girls decided that she was mad at me, and not going to talk to me. The little girls reminded me that no matter what, you were always being judged. __They were my early critics.__(Simile)

My acting “career” had its ups and downs … but I continue to crave the stage. I love acting. I want to act for the rest of my life. I want to express the story to feel the audience and to be someone other than myself for a few minutes. I love having the crowds ogling at me as I weave them a story. I am the one they look to for entertainment. I am the one people crave. I am a person people admire. __I am a STAR!__ (Simile)… Well not yet. For now __I am just aiming my rocket of hopes__ (metaphor) and trying hard to get my name upon the stars and stand on that red carpet and know that I am doing something I love. I just need to remember to not be nervous.

Kindred Essay:
As a class we went into the past into slavery with a book titled __Kindred__ this book is about a women going into the past from the 70s and the things she learned. We had to find something from the book that we could use examples to prove. In every generation people have looked for escape, an escape from boredom or even life. How you choose to escape is based on your personality or your surroundings. Yes even surrounds can hurt you can change you till you are someone your not. In “__Kindred__” we see the characters fighting for the power to be them selves in a world that crushes them.

Alice was once a young free black girl but her love of a man and the love Rufus had for her made her a slave a slave to a man she could not stand. Rufus was in love with her and he demanded he love her back and he would have her anyway he could, by doing this though he lost her as she began to lose herself, she became the women who Rufus wanted so that it was easier for her to survive with him ”She went to him. She adjusted, became a more subdued person.” (Dana, pg. 168). Alice ends up kill herself and as Sarah says “Even if he didn’t put the rope on her, he drove her to it.” (Sarah, pg. 249) Alice kills herself to escape the cruel life that she has been forced into because it is the only way out Rufus is trying everything he can to control her and when he “sells” her babies she no longer has a reason to live she seeks her escape.

Being a black person in the antebellum south is hard enough, but being a black person in the Antebellum South who is a liberated woman from 1976 trying to fit in is nearly impossible. Dana does whatever she must to escape from this horrible time she even goes as far as to cut herself to escape Rufus and the pressures around her. “I guess I can see why there are those here who think I am more white then black.” (Dana pg. 223) Dana had a hard time in Rufus’s time, she was told that she was giving up on her own race but that was how she became so that she could survive in the new time that she was faced with. Dana is so different from this time and place she is not used to the hard ships but she watches around her as a man gets beat and the people around her are so used to the brutleness of their world because of the time they were born into that they barley shed a tear,

Even Rufus who was a white slave owning man wanted an escape after Alice died he decided to kill himself. “He thinks all I want is a women. Any women.“ (Rufus, pg. 163) Rufus fell in love with Alice but no one could know about that he lived in a time where it was common for a white man to take a black women to bed but not for him to love her, he could never have her in the way he wanted to he was going to have her anyway he could which in his time meant he was going to rape her. Rufus is oppressed by the social standards not just by the color of his skin.

In “__Kindred”__ we see the characters fighting for the power to be them selves in a world that crushes them. Everyone seeks an escape from whatever they want to escape, some need it more then others but everyone will feel that tug for an escape. Be it a tug to do something rebellious or to stand up rebelliously in a good manner everyone wants to escape and even in the Antebellum South it was no different. **

Macbeth Creative Project:
Shakespeare in general is very hard to read. While reading this book our teacher was able to give us many new ways to learn this book. At the end of the book we found quotes from the book of how Macbeth or Lady Macbeth changed as people. I chose Macbeth and used a creative peice of pictures to represent how he changed and what happened in the story.



Journal Entries:
The Journals are a place to write a prompt that our teacher has assigned, write what is on our mind, or write what ever really fits our fancy. Most of my Journal entries are private so I am going to show you the good ones that dont expose more then I am comfortable with.

SPRING TIME: ** It’s almost spring … the season of change and growth and birth … I HATE change. I am moving which sucks. I made myself a fort my couch is supporting my bed propped up against the wall, my star wars blanket lays over the bed hiding my cove. “My Nest” is cozy and enclosed. It hurts knowing that I will never be in that room again, never walk down the halls and never dance in my backyard as it rains. It seems silly but I feel like I am losing my childhood, craving those moments with my friends. I am missing the simple things I can’t do anymore … no, not cant because even though I put my whole body into being a kid and not caring in the old days my friends are all for growing up. While I am thinking of day where my friends and I would walk around Fishtown and make deep body builder voices pretending to be the Hulk, Hogan, and hockey players… my friends are chilling at a park acting normal. I am so confused I just wish my mind would shut up!

MAYELLA: … How am I supposed to feel? Should I be guilty? Should I be happy that no one knows? That no one knows … That I will be stuck in this cage of a life … killing the only man who even showed me some form of humanity. A man I kissed … yeah that’s right I kissed him. He neva raped me. Daddy beat me. Daddy touched me. Tom neva done nothing like that to me. He praised me he fixed things while I worked by body for my no good father for my younger siblings… my siblings who are abel to have a good life who don’t have to take all the blows from daddy. No that’s my job, my job to do the dishes, to help the little ‘uns, to clean the house, to take the beating from daddy when he got to drunk, to take the other things from daddy when he got to drunk, to chop to wood, and to convict the only person who I could call a friend to death. Though I suppose I had to. Deep down I know I had to. How would I feel knowing I had ruined my reputation and my families in the process by kissing some nigger? How would my daddy feel ... well I think I can say that if anyone found out the truth of how I kissed Tom. Then I would not be feeling anything. I am black and blue from just kissing ‘em, ‘magine if the whole town found out?

POEM: **Your moms at the door Omg ** What do you see? When you look in the mirror? Girl, are you getting thinner? Are you working to be the perfect sinner? The things you do wont make you a winner

Your thin lips Take tiny sips Because baby every sip is another calorie I never thought you would be the one To stop eating for some fun But here you are on the floor Your mom is knocking on the door

Wow the boys are at your door They are all begging for some more You have become a total whore Like I never thought you would be the one To have some sweaty sexy tongue fun But here you are on the floor Your mom is knocking on the door

Vodka is your breath The beer makes you smell of death The alcohol makes it easy to decide Although I never thought you would be the one To sell your liver for some fun But here you are on the floor Your mom is knocking on the door

The smoke fills your lungs The drugs cling to your blood The high you have is only a taste I could never guess you would be the one To pop some pills for some fun But here you are on the floor Your mom is knocking on the door

Answer the door and face your conscience

MINI MEMOIR: I moved across the county when I was 7. I was a total hippie child. Living in California being taught in “modern” ways running around my neighborhood without shoes, climbing the many trees that surrounded us. I was as close to a flower child as I could get. I didn’t realize how large and strange the world really was. My parents decided to move because of issues with family and friends, my mom and dad were tired of planning their life around others plans. So they took out a map closed there eyes and pointed… to Philly. The first six months we were living out of our suitcases being thrown from one place to another. I, a hippie child, was thrown into the supposed city of brotherly love. My family and I settled down and adapted but I can not help but think how I would be if I had been able to grow up in my little garden instead of under the el. **

Me Magazine:
The Me Mag. was the first thing that we did for our class. The Me Magazine is a magazine of us as a person. This was a really fun project. We were creative and also able to show off who we as people are to our new classmates. I wrote about my friends, my love of music, and my ability to dive into a great book. This project was a great "Hi my name is.." sticker, because everyone was able to really get to know us.

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