Essential+questionessay+on+The+River

**75--final grade.**
 * Student: Hannah Davis**

**Grading Points Rubric for Essential-Question Essay on __The River__** **__Grade is a 58. Make all the corrections that I ask for, especially writing/adding the 20-point missing section. Go for 100! Revise before Friday, January 27, the end of the quarter.__** **__Mr. B.__** **__1/19/12__**

8 points. Missing Sentence; fix/add. **10 out of 15. You need to define and give an example for each of the traits. Fix.** +5
 * 1) **Introduction Paragraph:** Thesis/topic sentence; at least three traits stated; explanation of how the essay will proceed.
 * Maximum Number of Points: 10 POINTS EARNED:**
 * 1) **Traits Paragraph:** List the traits; define each trait; provide a brief example from the novel for the trait.
 * Maximum Number of Points: 15 POINTS EARNED:**

**Good job. 15 points.**
 * 1) **Conflict Paragraph:** Description of the conflict at the beginning of the novel; description of how the conflict changes; explanation of what is similar to and different between the two conflicts.
 * Maximum Number of Points: 15 POINTS EARNED:**

Sixty-seven blanks to use the following thinking-process terms: observe or observation; wonder or reflect or reflection; name or naming or identify or identification; consider alternatives or options or considering; predict or predicting or prediction; choose a solution or make a choice or solve or choose; make a plan or prepare a plan or plan; gather resources; act or do or perform a solution. **25 points.**
 * 1) **Fill-in-the-Blanks Paragraphs on the Thinking Process/Problem Solving:**
 * Maximum Number of Points: 25 POINTS EARNED**

From twenty to forty sentences summarizing what Brian is doing on these pages using the vocabulary of the thinking process. **No credit. You did not do this. You must write a summary sentence for each page from96-132 and use the thinking process words.** 0. Restatement of the message or lesson of the novel; explanation of why this is an important message or lesson to know; description of how the writer of the essay (the student) can specifically use this lesson in his/her life in the future. **Connect the conclusion to the big ideas and traits mentioned in the Introduction. Say more about how you could use this message in your own life??** **10 out of 15 points.** +3
 * 1) **Summary of Paragraphs 97-132 in terms of the Thinking Process**
 * Maximum Number of Points: 20 POINTS EARNED:**
 * 1) **Conclusion**
 * Maximum Number of Points: 15**

The essential question asked by Gary Paulsen in The River is, “How should one behave in the face of overwhelming difficulty?” The answer that Paulsen gives is that to overcome an overwhelming difficulty, one should understand, be helpful, smart and understanding. This will be proved because you have to be smart to get through and do what he did in the story. This will be proved from examples from the story. In the beginning of the story the conflict is “Should Brian go with Derek and take the big risk” or “Should he stay at home. In the middle the conflict starts to change. The conflict in the middle is “Why was Derek asleep for so long” and how to get Derek out of a coma. Towards the end of the book the conflict is “How to get Derek to safety”. In this essay I will tell you the summary of the book, character traits, the thinking process, and a summary of pages 97-129, the conclusion.

Character Traits Brian Robeson, the main character in Gary Paulsen’s "The River" is clever, smart, caring, and helpful. The main character trait of Brian Robeson is his caring. Brian cares for Derek and always helps him. Brian shows his cares on the page when he poured water on Derek in order to keep him cool. Brian Robeson show’s that he is very clever in the book. He is clever because he had good instincts when it came to surviving in the wilderness. Brian Robeson shows that he is smart because he knew when rain was coming and he knew what the weather would before it happened. Also, he knew how to take care of Derek’s body. Last but not least, Derek is helpful. He is helpful by building the raft, by protecting Derek, he’s helping him survive.

Summary of the whole book 2 years ago Brian took a 54 day trip in the wilderness with only hatchet and he survived. Now, the government wants him to go back to the wilderness with Derek Holtzer to show the astronauts and military the techniques. So, the conflict in the beginning is “should Brian go back with Derek or stay home”. Through the course of the book the conflict starts to change. In the middle and the end Derek the note taker gets hit by lighting. First, Brian thinks that Derek is dead. Then he realized that he was in a coma. Then in the end of the book the conflict is he is trying to get Derek home safely. This is the conflict throughout the story.

Our conclusion Brian Robeson had just saved Derek’s life by building a raft and traveling down a river to safety when Derek had just been stroked by lightning. Even though Brian was tired, hungry, sore, and dehydrated he still went out of his way to help Derek. We think the message in this story is that helping people when they are hurt can save their life and having a heart to help others is important to have. The lesson in this book is don’t take such extraordinary chances with your life. This is a good lesson to know because if you were going to take this big risk and you know the lesson of the book you would probably know not to do the big risk you were going to do. I would use this lesson in my life if I was going to take a really big risk.

Summary === On pages 97-132 were about how Brian Robensen tried to push the raft across the river. Also, it was about how he struggled with his lack of strength from pushing the raft and making the raft by hand to help Derek get to safety. He then deals with the pain and finally made it to safety. So its starts out how Brian had to consider all of his options then made prefictions. He then made the raft so here he clearly already made a plan and started by gathering his materials. He then started his long journey down the river so he then performed his solution. He then calculated that the river was 60 or 70 feet so he decided that he would take a 10 minute brake every hour there he considered the alternatives. He had 2 whole days until he could get to safety, so then he saw that Derek skin was getting a little burnt from the sun. So Brian took his shirt and soaked it with water and used it as a cloth to wipe Derek's face and neck with cool water on his break now he was observing Derek then performed his solution to Derek's burnt skin. When Brian started paddling the raft moved sluggishly now that there was no real current anymore. He wasn’t moving more than a mile an hour, but if it took two miles an hour he would be able to cross it. In the morning when there was light he was able to read the map, and later he started really moving, then suddenly Brian found him in the middle of the lake. He tried as hard as he could to get to shore then there was a huge wave but he was still on the raft and Derek wasn’t but, then Brian found Derek and then later found a house that he went for help. Finnally Brian had performed and completed his solution and his adventure at the River. ===

Thinking process The problem-solving process that Brian uses to solve his new conflict is the thinking process. There are nine steps in the thinking or thinking-solving process. The first step in the thinking process involves making an understanding or a having a perception. This means that a person senses an event. At this moment, the person who sensed the event does not know what it is. Thus, he or she naturally reflects or reflects what it is that he or she just heard or saw or felt or tasted or smelled, etc. Reflecting/ Wondering is the thinking moment in the problem-solving process. Often, this leads the person to investigate further the event that was sensed or observed. If enough information is available, the person will name the event or answer the problem that he or she had just sensed. That is the third moment in the thinking process. Next comes the naming/identifying step in this problem-solving process: Considering alternatives or Options. That is the fourth moment in the thinking process/problem-solving process. Once the person has listed the possible alternatives, then a decision must be made as to which alternative or choice is most logical. The next step, the predicting step, in the process of making this decision is often what we mean when we use the word “thinking.” But really what most often happens here is that the person engages in a mental “predicting-if game.” Basically, this means that the person tries to make a predicting of what in the future what would most likely happen if each choice, or decision, were selected. Based upon those predictions, the problem-solver solves thesolution. That is the sixth moment in the thinking process. The next, and thinking problem step, involves choosing a solution/making a plan of how to put the solution into action. After this, the problem-solver gathers materials or information to use when the plan is done. That is the eighth step. Finally, in the ninth step, the problem-solver actually perform the job or does the solution. On page 66 of The River, we clearly see an example of the third step in the thinking process: identifying or naming the problem. Here, on page 66, we learn that Brian has a name for Derek’s problem. He says that Derek is in a coma. Shortly, thereafter, on page 67, Brian starts to feel angry at himself for allowing himself to be talked into going back into the woods to teach survival skills to Derek. Brian starts to feel sorry for himself. But then he stops himself, because he sees, or hears himself acting babyish and immature. On page 67 he says, “Listen to me… If I were talking out loud, I’d be whining. Derek gets hit and I act like I’m the one getting messed up.” Derek stops himself from feeling sorry for himself. And then he moves on to trying to solve the problem of saving Derek’s life. Brian clearly is wondering/reflecting and considering ifDerek will survive on page 67 when he thinks, “Could he stay here with Derek for a week or ten days and wait for them? Could he not stay? What choices did he have?” Brian is listing all of the different thoughts that he has. At the end of this chapter, after Brian senses the smell of human waste; he identifies that Derek has “soiled” himself. Brian chooses a solution when he says, “It had to be done. He had to clean Derek, take care of him, take care of another human being.” So, Brian comes up with a plan to clean up Derek’s waste. We read on page 68 that the resources that Brian gathers are grass and sticks. Then he performs, or does, the solution when he carries Derek’s waste and buries it in a hole. The thinking process/problem-process continues. In chapter 13, on page 71, Brian is clearly reflecting or thinking when we read that “He spent the morning trying to remember what he knew” about comas. At the top of page 72, Brian makes a predition about how long he thinks Derek can survive. We read, “But Brian was sure Derek could not go that long without water…. Somewhere he’d heard, read, or seen that the human body couldn’t go that long without water.” So, Brian makes a “small spoon like holder outproblem: Derek cannot drink. of birch bark” and pours water down Derek’s throat. Here, Brian has used resources and has acted on his part. When he sees that Derek coughs up the water, Brian found out another problem. At this point, on page 73, Brian doesn’t know what to do. He throws down a stick, which bounces into Derek’s briefcase. When Brian sees the briefcase, “as if for the first time” he is making an observation. When Brian says, “What have you got in here?” he is -/Reflecting. When Brian opens up Derek’s briefcase, he finds the map of the wilderness area where they are. On the map, he sees a river. Brian unfolds the map and he follows the flow of the river. He observes the words “Brannock trading Post,” on page 78. When we read that Brian thinks to himself, “There would be people there…. A trading post would have people” we know that he is making a prediction. On page 79, we read that Brian calculates that the trading post is about 150 kilometers, or just under 100 miles. When Brianthinks to himself that he could leave Derek and go down the river and bring back help, he is planning the options. But then, he predicts that wild animals might attack or eat Brian. Brian decides that he cannot leave Derek. Here, he is making a decision. At the very bottom of page 79, we read, “What if he took Derek with him?” Here, Brian is using “what-if” thinking. Once again, this is the step of making a prediction. On page 80, Brian makes numerous predictions: “If he stayed, Derek would die of thirst…. If he made the run…at least there was a chance.” Finally, Brian makes a solution at the end of page 80 when we read: “He had no choice.” At the beginning of chapter 15, Brian calculates that to float down the river would take thirty-five or forty hours. On page 82, he chooses a decision when we read, “He needed to build a raft.” Shortly after that, on page 82, Brian names or identifies a problem. The problem is not that helacks wood, but that he lacks a knife to cut wood to build a raft. Luckily, Brian observes on page 83 that a tree have felled trees, and the trees are the right size to make a raft. He thinks, “It’s like I hired them.” Here, Brian is making a raft to use the trees cut down by the beavers. In fact, we read in the next-to-last paragraph on page 84, “He had a plan…for what he was going to do.” On page 85, Brian actually tests or does his plan. He weaves together the large and small pieces of wood cut down by the beavers, and he cuts strips of leather from his jacket to hold the wood firmly in place. At the end of chapter 15, on page 87, Brian must decide if he, in fact, will act on his plan of bring Derek down the river on the raft. So, Brian goes through a process that looks a little like a scientific experiment. He thinks, “… if there was the slightest, tiniest change in Derek…Brian would call off the trip and hope for the best.” When he looks into Derek’s eyes, measures his breathing and his heartbeat, yelled into his ear, and poke Derek with his knife, Brian is actingout his experiment. But he is really making predictions with his senses. When Derek does not react at all, Brian says, “We go.” Here, he is clearly making a fact. In chapter 16, the thinking process/problem-solving process continues. On pages 92 and 93, Brian slowly drags Derek down to the raft, which is in the river. He places Derek onto the raft. But just before he pushes off into the river, Brian has a sudden thought, “What if they came unexpectedly?” Here, Brian is both wondering/reflecting, considering options and making a prediction, because he is realizing that his mom might come to check on them suddenly. So, Brian goes right to the step of choosing a method. He decides that he has to write a note to rescuers just in case they show up. Brian writes the note. He is acting or not. And then, on pages 94 and 95, Brian performs one last “scientific “experiment. He tests the raft to see if it is seaworthy, whether it will hold both himself and Derek. Brian or does his experiment by climbing on the raft and by moving back and forth. He knew that the raft will not tip over. Thus, Brian makes a final decision to act on his solution and push off into the river.