Express & Support an Opinion
What do you like about Quentin
and/or
Sonny? Give 3 specific character traits of each. Then express and support your
opinions.
Student
Responses:
Hannah:
Sonny is persistant. I know this because even when people discouraged his
rockets he didn't care and kept going for it. Also, Sonny is daring and talks to
Quinten, knowing that if Quinten said no people would think of him as a nerd.
Last, Sonny is brave. He is brave because the football boys make fun of him and
he doesn't
retalieate.
Izaak
discusses Sonny & Quentin:
The things that I
definitely like about Sonny are; He is not on the football team, but
he is able to stand up to the football boys, in the way that he starts his own
"trend" in taking up the rockets. Also, he is smart enough to figure out that
football is not the only thing that matters. As long as something new is
started, especially when the big popular thing is gone, people will come to see
more things. Another thing is, all the goofs in the letter jackets have no
smarts at all, they all probably get boys like Quentin to do their homework for
them, and then copy it into their own handwriting. The BCMA members are
all smart enough to get to college, if they had the money, on smartness instead
of full ride football scholarships. 3 traits of Sonny are: understanding, in
control, and deducer. 3 traits of Quentin are: nerd and "smart one," deducer,
and
different!
Magena
Writes: What I like about Quentin
is that he uses trial and
error
when he does things. I think
that is why the rocket boys have gotten
from
blowing up his mother's rose
garden fence, to having their rockets
go
hundreds of feet up in the air.
I also like that Quentin is careful and
he
doesn't want to go too extreme
and blow up Coalwood. Last, I like that
he
stands up for himself and he
doesn't care if people make fun of him. He
also
has a sense of humor because
he is so smart and nerdy. The things that
I
like about Sonny is that he
doesn't get too out of control- sort of
like
Quentin. He doesn't want to
blow up something or get hurt. I also like
how
responsible he is. For
example, he always makes sure he gets all
the
supplies he needs and since
the day he blew up his mom's rose garden
fence,
he has been much more
responsible and precarious. He also tries not to
waste
time and tries not to mess
around- unlike Roy Lee. These are the reasons
of
why I like Quentin and Sonny.
Alex Writes:
I like how Quentin cheers up the
Rocket Boys and is determined to successfully build rockets. I like how Sonny
believes that the Rocket Boys can build rockets that will get into space and how
he is ready to do anything to get their rockets into the
air.
Three specific
character traits of Sonny are that he is dedicated to do anything for the
rockets that he builds, he takes risks to get anything for his rockets; he takes
the blame if the Rocket Boys get in trouble and he doesn't give up while
building his rockets. - Three specific character traits of Quentin are that he
makes the Rocket Boys feel better when things are not going well, he helps use
his mind for ideas to build their rockets and he is focused on the rockets, not
on how well their rockets
fly.
These traits fit Sonny
because he paid for supplies with his own money, he melts rocket candy the day
before the launch and has to buy a new pot because the candy stuck to the bottom
of the pot and the pot blew up. He is always building new rockets, even though
they are not successful all of the time. - These traits fit Quentin well because
he tells all of the Rocket Boys not to give up when they get in trouble or don't
succeed, he figured out that they have to build their rockets with certain
materials and use important ingredients to make their rockets fly. He is always
recording how their rockets perform or trying new ideas, not cheering because
the rockets flew.
Amanda
shares:
Sonny:
1.
Thoughtful. Sonny is thoughtful because he cares about other people. For
example, when Sonny was in the mine with his dad, he didn't want to say that he
wanted to work with Dr. Von Braun because he didn't want to hurt his dad's
feelings.
2. Smart. Sonny is smart
because how else would he have been able to build all of these rockets. Well,
Quentin did give a lot of help to building the rockets. However, Sonny knows all
of those chemicals, and I haven't even heard of some of the
chemicals.
3. Dedicated. Sonny is
dedicated to his rockets. He spent some of his own spending money on rocket
fuel. Also, he risked his social life by talking to Quentin. On top of that, he
started hanging out with
Quentin.
Quentin:
1.
Smart. One of the first things Sonny did when making the rockets, was go talk to
Quentin. Sonny wouldn't have gone and talked to Quentin if he didn't think that
Quentin had the knowledge that the BCMA needed. Without Quentin, the BCMA might
not be this far.
2. Hardworker.
Quentin works hard. That is why he has so much knowledge. He gets things
accomplished. People don't get smart by just sitting there, they have to work
for it. So, Quentin works for it, and he works for it
hard.
3. Thinker. Quentin is a
thinker. When the rockets go up, and then come right back down, Quentin tries to
think about what happened when it started to fail. That one time when the BCMA
just started launching rockets and one landed by the mine. Quentin was thinking,
and told the rest of the BCMA not to launch it because they should try to fix
the problem, but they just lit another one and look what happened. Quentin is
definitely a
thinker.
Posted: Mon - March 14, 2005 at 01:03 PM