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Dec
10

Survival Novel (Island of the Blue Dolphins) Essential Questions

1. How are people changed through struggles with their environment/culture?

The character changes emotionally through the struggle with her physical environment, which challenges her by death of her family and the people who left her.  At the beginning of the novel, the character is gentle but then the character becomes tougher and stronger. For example when she and her brother gets  stuck in the island, her brother gets killed by the wild dogs. So, she made weapons and killed few wild dogs by herself.

The character changes physically through the struggle with her physical environment, which challenges her by making her surviving alone. At the beginning of the novel, Karana is proud of her island and is happy to live in the island. But later, the character tries to leave the island by herself while she gets stuck in the island and feels lonely.

For example in the beginning of the novel, she was gathering the roots in Coral Cove because those were needed in her village. She likes to help her village, because she is proud of her island. The reason why she likes the island is the fact that  it is her home which has a beautiful view and a special name which is called ‘The island of the Blue Dolphins’.  But after everyone left the island and she becomes stranded there, she decided to leave the island by riding a canoe although she was not skilled with a canoe. She wanted to leave the island because she hated to live in the island without any houses, people, and being pursued by wild dogs.

People are changed through struggles with their environment is true to life because when I had to sleep less than 5 hours because of too many assignments and exams, I started getting annoying of my friends and parents when they ask questions or talk to me. So I sometimes get angry although it is not about negative things, I grouch, ignore, or sometimes yell at them. So, my personality changed into irascible and sensitive through the environment of studying and working really hard on exams and assignments without sleeping enough.

2. In the face of adversity, what qualities cause some people to prevail over struggles in the environment while others fail?
The main character Karana overcomes the challenge of loneliness through the belief that the ship would return. This hope helps her, because she was able to find some ways to survive such as searching for food, making a house, making weapons, hunting animals, and hiding when the Aleut ship comes.

The main character Karana overcomes the challenge of surviving by herself through the actions of preparing for the future. This helps her, because she will not have any problems to find for food or worry about the transportation that can help her to flee the other part of the island when the Aleut ship comes back to the island. She prepared to flee by storing food, making a small canoe which can handle easily, and check the sea everyday.

The supporting character Chief Cogwig fails that challenge by not preparing for the future , because when the Aleuts, which were strangers, comes to the island, Chief Cogwig told his real name which not many did in the island. The island people usually do not use their real(secret) names because they believed that the names will become worn out and loses magic if they use.

However after he made a deal with the Aleuts which was to share their sea otters, he believed those dishonest people and did not care if a bulk of sea otters got killed by the Aleuts everyday. Because of this not preparing for the future, he got killed by the Aleuts when he complained that they are not sharing equally to them on their leaving date.

Some people prevail over struggles in the environment while others fail when they are facing of adversity are true to life because in my experience, I had a big math exam that I had to solve and practice a lot of problems every day. Three weeks were given to me and other students to study. First and Two weeks, I almost spent my whole day doing math. But after I did math very hard for two weeks, I got sick of studying math and believed that things that I did on first and second weeks will stay in my head until the exam date. Then, I started to occupy with playing on the third week which was the last week to study.
However on the math exam date when I got the exam, I was not able to solve most of  the math problems. Half of my exam’s problems were filled in blanks.

After the exam was over, I complained one of my friends that the exam was very difficult to me. But, my friend said that it was really easy to her. I felt envious of her. However as I expected, my test score was terrible but my friend’s score was high and good. My friend and I were given same amount of time to study for the exam and my friend succeed but I did not because of our methods of using time were different.

3. What personal qualities and beliefs help you deal with difficult and unexpected circumstances that you encounter in your environment?
The environment of school challenged me with many misunderstandings in friendships. My personal belief in apologizing helped me overcome these difficulties with friends.

For example when my best friend, Kathy,  got angry at me on Pepero day, because I gave a  pepero pack that has Kathy’s name on it to another friend Elaine, even though I already gave Kathy a pepero pack. Kathy misunderstood that I planned to give her two pepero packs, but I gave one of hers to Elaine because I thought that Kathy is my friend not a best friend.

However, it was my fault that I forgot to erase her name. I was able to understand Kathy’s feeling and also felt sorry to Elaine that I gave her a pepero pack that has Kathy’s name on it. So, I apologized to Kathy and told her that I wanted to give pepero packs to all of my friends equally not give more to her. Kathy also apologized, because she had misunderstood.

Apology helped me in friendships because fighting usually happens when a person does not know what she had done wrong to the other person. But through apology, you are able to express yourself that you are feeling guilty because you have done something that the other person became angry about it. Apology can also help in other areas as well that relates to society.

During fighting, there are two things that can stop fighting which are apology and forgiveness. There are no orders in these two because those are for the people who can know and understand other people’s feelings. But usually through your apology, you are able get other person’s forgiveness. Person who is apologizing is not the looser. It is actually a winner because you are a risk taker of apologizing first and it is also a polite way to be close with the person again. But, apologizing is not only for your friends. It can be adults.

For example when you did not do your homework and your teacher got mad at you, you might not understand why your teacher is mad at you because of not doing your homework which is your job not your teacher’s job. It is because you broke the promise between you and your teacher. So, your teacher will get disappointed at you and you will not able to gain faith from your teacher. It is not the end of the world. Instead of giving your teacher some excuse, you should apologize politely. Then, your teacher will believe you and you will continuously able to gain faith from your teacher. So, let’s be the real winner and a polite person who can apologize easily to other people.

Dec
04

Survival Novel Chapter 25-29

In this Summer, I was prepared to flee when the Aleut ship returns and the sea otters moved to the tall rock to live because they did not want to get killed by the Aleuts if they come back. Also in this Summer, Rontu died. Of course, I cried because he was my best friend. So, I buried him on the headland and decorated with flowers.

One day, I saw the dog who was similar as Rontu which was with the other wild dogs. So I decided to catch him because he seemed to be the Rontu’s son and I had been missing him a lot. I tried three methods to catch him. I made snares, I put toluache weed(weed that is not poison but makes fish to die) in the spring where the wild dogs drank, and putting xuchal (stronger than toluache weed) into the spring. But the successful method was putting xuchal into the spring. After the wild dogs drank, they all fall asleep and I found the dog which was similar as Rontu and took him to my house.

When I arrived at my house with the dog, I tied the dog with a type of string called thong and left food. I named the dog Rontu-Aru which means Son of Rontu. Rontu-Anu became my friend and we always stayed together. I had fun time with this dog but now I missed my sister Ulape and Tutok who were my precious people.

During this Summer, I forced with natural disaster that had never happened in the Island of the Blue Dolphins. When the waves were surging to me, I survived by climbing cliff and when earth quake happened, I straight went to the headland, toward my house.

After earthquake was gone, my stored food, weapons, and canoe washed away. Canoe was the biggest loss because this was the only transportation that I can flee and this was useful to catch shellfish. So, I decided to make a canoe again with the canoes that I found and piles of pieces of kelp.

Even though it was late Summer, weather was stable and the rain and storm fall often. So while I was building a canoe, it took hard time to make fire because of windy weather. Then when I carried seaweed in order to dry in this weather, I dropped them because a ship was coming to the island! I was sure that it was not the Aleut ship because the ship was not red. It was the white men ship but when it arrived at the island, those people just checked it and left.

Later,  the chance returned to me again. The ship returned so I made a fire in order to let the white men to see it and wore earrings, necklaces, otter cape, and a cormorant skirt. Then, the white men came to my house and spoke something to me. I did not understand that language but they seemed to be sweet. However,  I asked them to take me with them.


Then I went to their camp. One of the men made me a dress. I felt foul because I liked my recent clothes not the dress he made because I did not like its color and the length which reached from my throat to feet. It also made me hot.

However on tenth day of the ship came to the island in second time, we sailed. I took Rontu-Aru with me, missed Won-a-nee, and thought of the events that happend in the island while I was living.

Dec
03

Survival Novel Chapters 22-24

I didn’t take the necklace in the cave because I didn’t want to get something from the Aleut. Next day, I saw the girl, Tutok was going into the cave, saw the necklace. When she was trying to leave, I called her. I went into the cave and put the necklace on. It was beautiful and looked hard to make it. We said ‘Wintscha’. Now our friendship began.

We had fun pointing at objects and said the names. We spoke in different languages but it was funny. We also told our names and I learned that her real name was Mah-nay not Tutok. When her leaving date was getting close, I decided to give her a gift because she once gave me the necklace before and also I liked her. So,  I made a circlet for her hair and she loved it. Although my fingers were sore because of making the circlet for five days, I did not feel the pain.

One day, she did not come to the cave. I cooked a supper for Mah-nay, Rontu, and myself and waited for Mah-nay to come but she didn’t. Later, the Aleut ship left. I missed Mah-nay and the island looked very silent.

After the Aleut ship left, there were a few of injured or dead sea otters floating on the water, and I found a baby sea otter which seemed to be healthy except the deep gash across its back. I put it into a tide pool behind the reef which was safe. I started feeding the otter and I named it Mon-a-nee because of his big eyes. Mon-a-nee got bigger, his wound got healed, and he became same as the other otters.

One day he left the pool. Even though I did not have catch fish for him everyday, I missed him and very sad. Also, the season was getting cold and the food that I stored during Summer disappeared. The only way to survive was to find for food on each day. I was still missing Mah-nay because I was searching and making pebbles in order to make earrings that can match with the necklace. I wanted her to come back and talk with me.

Spring came and the birds that I raised hatched eggs and I took the gull which broke its leg to my house and cured him. I wanted to find Mon-a-nee but every sea otter seemed to be same. But one day when I was walking on the shore, I saw the sea otter which was following me. It was Mon-a-nee! I was really glad to see him.

After two moons, I saw Mon-a-nee again but he was with his two baby otter. I learned that Mon-a-nee was actually a female otter. So, I changed her name into Won-a-nee which meant Girl with the Large Eyes. When I gave her food, she did not snatch it but she tried to teach her babies to get food by themselves. I got impressed of her!

After I saw this sea otter family, I decided not to kill the animals because of my fashion or making weapons. If others know it, they would laugh at me but I would not care because animals are my friends and they are same as people which are creatures. Without these animals, I believe that earth would be an unhappy place.

Dec
02

Survival Novel Chapters 14-21

I found a dead body of the old bull. Gulls already picked his bones clear, but thankfully, there were things that I wanted. Sea elephant’s teeth! Although some were broken, I ground those teeth to make sharper, and made good spear points.


Now I was ready to go to the wild dogs’ cave to kill them with my new spear and arrows which killed my only brother.  So, I first went into the dogs’ cave, set a fire in there, and waited at the outside nearby. Later, the smoke came out but much of it stayed in the cave. Few dogs went out of the cave and the leader came out next. This was the one I was waiting for most in the pack!  I raised my bow and struck him twice with my arrows. The leader fall down. After I struck the leader, I killed two of the other dogs which came out after. Then the leader disappeared. I felt curious where he went and I decided to find him but that night, I couldn’t find him.


After the rained stopped, I went out to see the wild dogs. Then I found the leader which was lying and still didn’t take out one of the arrows that I struck on his chest. Now I wanted to get rid of him.  It seemed like he was dead but when I tried to strike my spear or shoot an arrow at him, I couldn’t strike him. I think it is because he suddenly looked poor. If he had gotten up, I would straight kill him but he didn’t move at all. Later, I picked him up, took him to my house, and heel him. While I was carrying him to my house, he was very heavy that I had to rest once.  I do not know exactly why I tried to kill him and heal him but I did not really care if he died or not. I also gave him water and food, but I did not sleep with him, because I was afraid. iendly because I once held my hand to him, he backed away and showed his teeth. I think he is because he is still feeling uncomfortable to my house.
 Although I slept on a rock for four nights and left the hole under the fence in order to let him leave, he did not leave. He always stayed in the cave and he watched whenever I moved. He was not even fr

But the fourth day was different from the three days. When I returned to my house, he was not waiting for me at the fence (which he had done in the other days) but he was inside the cave  and moved his tail when I gave him a fish. That night, I stayed in my house with him and thought of his name Rontu which means Fox Eyes. Now, I was able to step forward to be friend with him.

He always followed me whenever I went and he understand few words that I spoke to him. That makes me less lonely because I got a friend which I can talk to.

On the first day of Spring, I went out to the beach with my new spear to hunt devilfish but Rontu didn’t go with me because I let him out for today because he looked he missed his pack.  But while I was catching devilfish, I was unsettled that he might not want to stay with me anymore and be my enemy again that I would lost my friend and survive by myself in the island.

Then when I was coming back to my house, I heard sound of the dogs fighting so I hurried to the direction with my bow and arrows. Rontu was fighting with two other dogs and they rolled and slashed each other but later Rontu won. Later, Rontu stood up, went top of the mound, gave a long howl. I felt mysterious. I never heard of this.

When I got home, Rontu already arrived, waiting for me, and it pretended to be nothing had happened. Rontu never left somewhere himself again and the pack never returned to the headland where I live nearby.

This Spring was a happy time and warm days.

At the end of the Summer, two big events happened to me. First was I went to many places with Rontu and one of the places were Black Cave. When I went in there, the cave was mysterious and haunted because there were skeletons, flue sound was coming out, and mysterious figures were starting at us. It became dark and it was hard to get out of the haunted cave. Thankfully, we got out and decided not to come back here again. And one day, the Aleut ship returned.  I straight packed my things and put it beside the hole under the fence,  erased my living trace in my house and cave, and climbed onto the rock. After I done those jobs, I was exhausted.


In the Aleuts, there was a girl who cooked meals at the shore. I was unsettled and afraid the Aleuts especially that girl. Then one day, that girl appeared to my house. She pointed herself and said ‘Tutok’ and spoke strange word ‘Wintscha’ to me. I didn’t understand what she was talking about but I think she meant pretty because she pointed at me and my skirt while she was speaking that word. However after she left, I decided to go and move place to place of the island while the Aleuts are staying. I first carried my five baskets and left and came back to the cave because I had two more to get. When I arrived at the cave, I felt someone had come here before. Then when I went inside my house,  there was a necklace.