Year 10 Writing Portfolio

On The Sidewalk Bleeding -Written Text Essay

The story ‘On The Sidewalk Bleeding’, written by Evan Hunter. The story is about a 16 year old boy,Andy, who is in a gang that's been stabbed in an alleyway, where no one can see him.  A memorable idea from this text is that some people want to be known as an individual. You should never lose hope even when you are in a bad situation, you should also never assume anything about anyone because of what you see.  

One reason this idea of people wanting to be known as an individual was memorable to me is because sometimes no matter how hard you try to be in a group, but not be known because of the group, some people won’t know you because you're you. But because of the group you're in. We see this in the text when the couple, Angela and Freddie, walk into the alley. For example, when the couple find Andy, they say. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to get mixed up in this. He's a Royal. We help him, and the Guardians will  be down on our necks. I don't want to get mixed up in this, Angela.". This made the reader feel sad and disappointed because this shows us that some people won’t do what is right, even when they know that they should. The message I take away from this is, never expect everyone to help you, even when you need it the most. 

Another reason why this idea is memorable to me is because he never lost hope. He did near the end, but majority of the time he always had hope.  We see this in the text when Andy said “Someday he would marry Laura. Someday he would marry her, and they would have a lot of kids, and then they would get out of the neighborhood.“ We can see that, even in, probably the worst moment of his life, he never lost hope. Andy probably genuinely thought he was going to marry Laura, when he made it out of this. But he never got the chance to. This made the audience feel sympathetic or sorrowful. Reading how Andy thought about and wanted to marry Laura, shows us how much he loved her.  This reminds me of another time in the story, when Andy thought “Andy lay and thought: Laura, Laura. Are you dancing:?”, it once again shows that he never lost hope or thought about what was going on. In the real world, this happens, some people do lose hope, but it's better not to, you will always get out of whatever you are struggling with. 

The last reason why this idea is memorable to me, is because you shouldn’t assume you know something, just by looking at it. This happens a lot in the text. For example when the narrator said “If he had not been wearing the jacket, he wouldn't have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket.”  This shows that the people that stabbed him, probably assumed he deserved to be stabbed; just because he's wearing the purple jacket. This made the reader feel displeased, upset and slightly enraged. No one deserves to be treated like that just because of a jacket they are wearing.  This reminds me of another part of the text, when the narrator said“ He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, "Oh, it's a Royal." With great effort, he rolled over onto his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when he moved. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.” This shows that even though he is dying, he wanted to get rid of the jacket, because no one wanted to help him because he was wearing it. People saw the jacket before they saw him, they assumed that they would get in trouble with the other gang if they helped him. So they left him. 

In conclusion, in the text “On The Sidewalk Bleeding” a memorable idea was never assume, never lose hope and to always treat people as individuals and never treat them differently because of a group they are in. These ideas were memorable to me because it showed me that there will always be people who assume things about you, and will never treat you as an individual. 

Power Of One

When Apartheid started near 1948, it was a horrific time for the black people in Africa. In the movie The Power Of One, directed by John Avidsen, the scene where Pk and Gideon are running through Alexandria to Johannesburg. It shows the difference between the cities that the black people and the white people lived in. The Techniques used in this scene were dialogue, setting, mise en scene and music.  There were a lot of techniques used in this scene but I picked the most important ones. These techniques helped the director by showing us what the real world was like back in those days. 

In The Power Of One, the director used mise en scene almost all the time. For example, in the scene where Pk and Gideon are running through Alexandria and Johnnesburg, you can see a large majority of the inhabitants of Alexandria lining up to use the one bathroom that the government has allocated them. The director used this example of the people lining up to show how unfair the living conditions were and how the black people were treated. This helps us understand that it was inhumane to make them live like that.

The director also uses dialogue. We hear dialogue in the whole movie. For example, when Pk and Gideon are running past the line of people waiting to use the bathroom, Gideon says “ the law says only 2% of us can go to school.” Only 2% of the people in Alexandria were able to access education because the government made it a law. Gideon tries to convince Pk to teach his people how to speak English. The director uses dialogue to tell what is going on instead of showing us. This helped us understand how Gideon felt because he was speaking about it. 

Finally the last technique, settings. Settings are really important in all movies. It shows you where the characters are located so you can see where they are and what the place around them looks like. For example, you can see the setting change while Pk and Gideon are running through Alexandria and Johnnesburg. In Alexandria all the buildings are dull and boring. They are quite small and dirty. And in Johannesburg the buildings are clean, bright and big. It shows the difference between the two of them. The director did this to show the audience that the government only really cared about Johannesburg and not Alexandria. This made the Audience feel a range of emotions. Anger, sadness, disappointment, ect. Because it was unfair how the white people got to live in nice fancy places and the black people had to live in old,cold and dark places. 

In conclusion, the use of these techniques are put in the film for a reason. Either to show or tell us how they live, they are all important in almost every movie. Even though it was just one of the many  scenes in The Power Of One, the director showed us a lot about how the black people were treated with injustice by the white people. 

Creative Writing

As she was walking out of her apartment that she shared with her newly ex-fiance, with tears streaming down her face. Her make-up ruined. But that wasn’t the biggest problem to her right now. She was walking down the stairs of her apartment with her bag in one hand and her phone in the other. She tried to walk straight but she couldn’t see anything through her bright green eyes which had tears flowing out of them. She walked down the stairs that had green bushes with light pink flowers growing out of them. 

She was trying to call her mother, as she was waving her hand, trying to get the attention of a taxi driver. Which is nearly impossible because she lived on the most hectic and dangerous road in downtown Brooklyn in New York. The road turned into a steep hill. There are trams and cars trying to leave the street, while trying to avoid getting into a car wreck. There are people trying to get to work. Children skipping along the sidewalk while their parents are walking them to school. She was just trying to get a taxi to go to her childhood home to see her mum. She saw a taxi on the side of the road. She started running as best as she could without falling over. she stumbled across the street tripping over a stone that was perfectly placed right in front of her on the island in the middle of the road. She tripped, but she caught herself and started tumbling to the taxi once again. She banged on the taxi’s window, then she grabbed the door handle and flung the back door open. When she realized who was in the taxi she slammed the door shut and jogged away. 

She looked down at her phone which was ringing, she answered it. She felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She started sobbing, trying to tell her mother what had happened. But it all came out as gibberish. Her mother was trying to calm her down but it didn’t work, so she got in her car and drove to her daughter to help her. 10 minutes later, she arrived, running up to her daughter giving her a big hug. They drove back to her house. 

6 years later, she was walking down the same street with her new family. Her fiance, their 4 year old and newborn baby. She had forgotten about what had happened that day. The memories started to come back but she looked at her new family and she thought she had finally found true happiness.