GOING INTO MIDDLE SCHOOL!! (part two)

By Jaden Baker

(Continued from Going into Middle School, part one)

Now we had to introduce ourselves. I was nervous to meet the people in this new school. Luckily, I already had friends here; friends from elementary school, that were fun to hang out with. But we were put into different groups, so we couldn’t talk most of the time. I still tried to make some nice new friends.

We started to do something called libation, where they told us we were to use it to keep our ancestors and unhealthy members of our community with us. A few people went up and wanted to do it, but I was feeling a bit salty to speak to the crowd. Also, I did not know anyone who was not well in my community. When we finished libation, we had to go to our classes. The first class I went to, we had to make a circle with the tables. We were each given M&M’s, then we had to take out our papers and pencils. We were given topics on the board. The questions were based on what color of M&M we had gotten, and we had to share what we wrote. I really did not want to get up and do that, speech we have to do before we share something, but they really forced us to say it. I was nervous to talk to everyone out loud, but we had to. I forgot what I wrote, but I think I wrote an average amount.

When we got to math class, I thought I would have one of those mad teachers. We went into the classroom, and the teacher greeted us. She told us to be silent, so I started to believe that she wasn’t a good teacher. She gave us work to do. I thought “it was easy” to myself, and then I thought that this school would be easy work. We did many activities in the class, including group activities. Then we had another class, where we had to learn about our school. I thought it would be E.L.A. but then I noticed we were just talking about the school. The teacher discussed how we are supposed to introduce ourselves before we respond to any question. That got me confused and mad, that we had to do that for every response. We started to do photography. I thought that we were gonna just take pictures the first day but…we just had to take notes about the camera.

After that, we headed to lunch. I was guessing that nobody even wanted to eat. The food was so frozen that you could see ice on it. We had frozen food every day. Often I thought that I could get through this program by cheating, but I knew that would be wrong. Also I knew I wouldn’t learn anything that way.

At the end of the day, we had to sign up for a class. We were only allowed to choose two classes, so I chose two common classes: hip-hop and dance, and martial arts. The first day going to those classes, I took hip hop and dance first. I thought it was fun. When we finished, I went to my next class: martial arts. I liked the class, and was happy I was in it. The master told me that martial arts is about defending yourself.

We started to learn the middle school pledge, and we got put into classes based on what house we were in. I was in X-house, which meant the Malcolm X house. There are also other houses, the Obama house, Che Guevara house, and Roberto Clemente house. Now we started to have to know the school pledge. We spent every single day working on the pledge. They told us we needed to know the pledge to get into the school, so we studied the pledge every day before we went to lunch. There were many people who wanted to show off that they knew the pledge.

Summer Bridge was about to end, and I already knew the whole pledge. We needed to complete the whole pledge to graduate summer bridge. Also we had to do a task they asked us to write. I accidentally made some mistakes, so I wrote the whole task all over again. I was able to complete the task and hand it in on time.  We came to the day where they chose who will graduate from  Summer Bridge. We went into a room that looked like a judge’s courtroom. We saw a skit performed about a guy who gets into people’s heads and makes them fail. When the skit ended, the teacher told us he was going to give us our last assignment. If he gave us our assignment on an index card, that meant we passed and went on to the graduation. If he didn’t give you an index card, that meant you were not allowed to go. Almost everybody was out f the room, and I was almost the last person left. Finally, they called me up and he gave me an index card.

I stayed up all night to do the assignment, and then the day came. I was graduating from Summer Bridge. We had to get there early, and when we got there not everyone was there. Some people had forgotten to do the task, so they had to do it quickly. We started to walk into the room, and I saw my mom and my sister. We sang the pledge, and called out our houses. I felt happy, and my mom took me out afterwards. And that was the last day of Summer Bridge.

Now I am a full fledged Eagle, and I am (awesome, obviously) cool. I am passing all my classes, and I am now going on trips for good behavior. There are many more activities, and I want to do them all! I will be the biggest, smartest, coolest kid in this school. Well, that’s a maybe.

My top 5 action movies!

by Reydi Ventura

I’ve seen a lot of cool posts on the Eagle Express, but rarely any movie related post. Here’s a movie article that I hope people can enjoy and relate to. Some people might not agree with the movies I like, but these are the movies that I love. I hope whoever reads this can watch some of the movies I listed here and love them just like I did.

5: Pixels is a really cool movie that is funny and action packed. I think it’s a good movie because it teaches kids to not give up, because Adam Sandler didn’t give up in Donkey Kong. The reason I like this movie is because it shows classic games that I would love to play. I also like this movie because video games were finally brought to the big screen.

4: X-Men days of future past is one of the best movies of 2014, because it shows both the future and the past of the X-Men story. The movie also shows kids that you can change the way you are. It was also very good because we learned more about their origins. The last reason why I like this movie is because we got to see what will happen if villains like Magneto, Mystique, Quicksilver,
and many more, but Magneto turned bad again.

3: Batman vs Superman is one of the best DC Comics movies ever. The reason why it is so good is because it shows the DC heroes that were originally in the Justice League. It also shows the heroes who will have other movies by themselves, like Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Flash, and Aqua Man. The movie was mostly good because we get to see who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman, and it seems like Batman won because Doomsday killed Superman.

2: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the is the best Star Wars movie I’ve ever seen. They added new characters, and made new story lines. They made Rey the main hero and killed off Han Solo. I think The Force Awakens has the best story line in any Star Wars movie ever. My favorite characters are Fin, Rey, Han Solo, and Kylo Ren.

1: Suicide Squad did not come out yet, but I have some theories about it and I know it will be my favorite movie. One of my theories is based on the trailer, and is about Batman, Harley, and the Joker (played by Jared Leto). I think Harley and the Joker will drive a car away from Batman because they did something bad, then Batman will make the car land in water. The reason I will love this movie is because it will have most of my favorite villains, like Slip Shot, El Diablo, Harley, Killer Croc, and more.

Emmett Till’s murder

by Jeremy Martinez

Emmett Till was murdered on August 28th, 1955. The young Emmett was always a great child, even since he was very young; but segregation was very hard for a child like Emmett to grow up in, especially in the south, where black people were treated like they weren’t even people.

In the south, it was hard for black people to walk on the street without a white person screaming at them. If a black person (they were also called “colored” at that time) person and a white person were walking on the same sidewalk, the colored person would have to get off the sidewalk and let the white person walk by. If the colored person didn’t move, the white person often could slap him or her. During his life, Emmett Till would always try to stay out of trouble.

A brutal murder.

One time, as Emmett was going to the store to get gum, he saw a white woman and he was accused of whistling at her. Her husband heard about this, and he decided to take care of this situation himself. Emmett got to his house and he and his family all went to bed, and two white men showed up at Emmett’s door.

The white men took Emmett with him to a barn yard, and abused him and hit him with 49. magnum pistol. He was then shot, wrapped with barbed wire, and thrown into a river with a fan from a cotton gin tied to his body. His body was found at the end of the Mississippi River, bloated up with bullet wounds his body and blood and scratches all over him. His mother had an open casket at his funeral, and many people showed up–but because of how badly he was mutilated, many people fainted. Emmett’s mother moved to the north; she was still sad, but she was safer from all the troubles of the south.

After Till’s death, people fought political battles to stop the taking of colored lives. Sometimes  it would not turn out well, and many of them would be killed because of their protests. But eventually, after all these crises, people have started getting along. They started to rebuild and forgive for all that has happened, and African American people started to live freer happier lives in many places. Many found jobs that helped them pay for their new homes.

Emmett’s murder inspired people to stand up against racism. People used to be free to kill African Americans whenever they felt like it, but now people can go to jail for this kind of violence. Even though much of the old racism is still going on, African Americans can now become doctors, lawyers, and politicians, and this shows how society has grown over the years.