CI-Tessa

 w/friends all the time// favorite candy bar is Snickers, favorite icecream is chocolate chip cookie dough!//
 * 1001 Flat Tales Project **
 * My Name: ** //Tessa Almeda (some people also know me as Coraline)//
 * My Age: ** //13 ( I will be 14 in June)//
 * My Hometown: ** //I have to say that um yeah, I live// //Pueblo, Colorado//
 * My Hobbies: ** //I like to.....draw, listen to radio, watch TV, play on computer, play the Wii, hang
 * My Music:** //I like all kinds of music, but some bands i like are Linkin Park, Evanances(not spelled right), and Nickelback i guess!!! I also like some old music too, like from the '80s and 90s. (Note: there are a lot of others!!!!!)//
 * My Favorites:** //favorite color is blue, favorite food is macaroni w/tomato sauce,
 * Other things you should know about me: ** //I have 4 brothers that drive me crazy. My birthday is June 16, 1995. I like to be with my friends most of the time. I also love to talk and text. I usually get good grades in school. I am in the 7th grade. My friends and I have our own special family. I am short so you better watch out! lol. I am not goth or punk, but i might be a little bit close, my friends are somewhat punk and goth, but you can't really tell by looking at them. My friends and I are always messing around and we like to have fun!!! hooray!!! ( I don't think that is spellled right but oh well!!) (Below is my signature pic!!)//

My Story __**__ (Paste Here) __  =**__ Recycling….(1001 tales) __**= ** My best friend Mary and I were walking home from school. We lived like right by each other, and because of that, we did a lot of things together. We were both 14 years old and in the 8th grade. Mary loves school a lot, I didn’t like it, but didn’t hate it either. I was kind of the mean one who always had an attitude about something. Mary on the other hand was quite the opposite of me, she was nice to most people, and didn’t have an attitude problem. After I said goodbye to Mary, I went into my house and noticed that no one was home. ** Mom and dad must be at work and Timmy must be at soccer practice,’ I thought to myself. I then skipped to my room to do my language arts homework. My class is studying contractions. I usually didn’t have too much trouble with them. As I was doing my work at my desk, I looked up at the mirror and realized that even though my hair was very healthy and a dark brown color, it was bushy. I didn’t like the way it looked, I would like it more if it was straighter and not so puffy. Normally when I got up to go to school, all I did was comb through it and leave. I also took the time to see that my eyes were a rich brown color that matched my hair perfectly. ** “Julie are you home?” my mom Joanne called out as she entered the house. ** “Yeah mom, I’m in my room,” I called back. ** “How was school?” Joanne questioned. ** “Fine,” I answered. ** “Make sure you take out the trash,” she suddenly said while popping into my room. ** “I just took it out before I left for school,” I snapped, now having an attitude. ** ** “Well it is full again, I wonder when your dad and brother will be home, I hope it is soon.” ** It was about 8:00pm when I was going to call Mary. Mom said it was getting late and I was so ready to hit the hay, so I decided not to. We would meet up and talk tomorrow before school anyway. What am I going to talk to Mary about you question? Maybe it would be about the math test coming up, or maybe about Amber and how she hasn’t been at school for a week now. Amber was one of our friends. We had kind of a lot of friends but didn’t talk to them often. ** When I finally got up, I did everything she normally did to get ready, but then I came time to do the hair. Instead of combing it out, I went into the bathroom and straightened it. When I was finished I looked at myself in the mirror, a great big smile snuck it’s way across my face. While staring at my hair, I suddenly realized that it was time to go. ** “Hey Julie!” Mary called out to her as she came out of the house. I noticed that her red hair was in a ponytail. That was different because she always had it in her face, she would have to keep moving it and moving it out of the way. ‘ Maybe she got tired of her hair always being in her face,’ I thought. ** “Hey Mary,” I responded, “Did you notice how much trash we have had lately? I emptied it yesterday and it was full when I got home.” we were now starting walking to school. ** “Yeah, I have as a matter of fact, we have been having a lot of trash too. If we are having this much trash, then so is everybody else.” ** “Yeah, isn’t too much trash bad for the environment? I wonder what would happen over the next year.” ** “You know what, Julie, we should do something about it.” Mary said as we were entering the school. ** We talked some more about it as the day went on. We talked about it through the first five class periods and lunch. “What is a way that we can save trash and put it too good use?”Mary as the school bell rang, signaling that it was time to go home. This question had to have me think. I had never come across this kind of question before, I had to take a few minutes to try to come up with some kind of a solution. Then I remembered…… ‘Recycling. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?’ I silently said to myself. Factories reuse plastic and things like that. ** “Recycling, it is perfect! They can use up most of the trash in the dumps and in our houses. We just need to get as much people as we can some recycle bins.” I said, being proud of finding a solution so fast. ** “How many recycle bins should each household get?” ** “Um, five, one for plastic, one for paper, one for cardboard, one for aluminum, and one for styrofoam.” ** “That sounds like a lot of work to get every household five recycle bins, but I’m in.” ** We later got our parents together and told them about our plan. They liked the idea. They wanted to take us to the recycling company and talked with them about the plan to save the world. After talking about it for an hour or so, the company manager thought that it was great plan and suggest that we all get right to work. So while the company was getting ready for all of the trash, talking to the major about it, and making commercials telling people they need the bins, it was up us and of course who ever would help them to make as many recycle bins out of recycled material as we could. ** Eight months had gone by and Mary and I, both their parents, my brother Timmy, Amber, and a lot of other people had made about 15,ooo recycle bins. The company had over 30 different commercials that would air on TV in about three weeks on how important it is to recycle. There was still trash building up, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. We continued to work day and night to make bins and keep contact with the company to catch up on what was going on. The major would call the company and my house every once in a while to check up on things. He was excited too. He said that he was tired of all the trash being everywhere he looked. He even stopped by for a day to help make some bins. ** “Man, we sure have out a lot of work into making all of these 10 gallon bins for people. Making them was the hard part. Labeling them was the easiest part of it all,” Mary said one day after school. ** “Yeah, I know, but not only are the bins for a great cause, but they look awesome too.” I said. ** “You girls did an amazing job,” my mom said, “The commercials start tomorrow morning and will be playing on ever channel all day long. Then, on Saturday, the bins will be handed out.” ** “Can we help too, mom?” I begged while Mary was giving a puppy face ** “Of course you can help, this was all your girls’ idea, but it starts at 1:00pm at the park.” ** Mary and I were so happy that we would be able to help, Mary was going to spend the night at my house tonight. We stood up for a little bit, we played the Wii with my brother. Then we ate dinner. Finally we got ready for bed and fell asleep early. ** For us, Friday was just another ordinary day. We went to school, and we came home. After that Mary went back to her house, my family and I started eating dinner, then Timmy and I did the dishes. Oh, a one more thing, we did our homework. ‘Tomorrow was going to be a busy day,’ I thought to myself as I was washing the dishes, while Timmy was rinsing. I had seen a couple of those commercials, man were they convincing. When we were done, we headed into the family room and helped my mom and dad make just a few more bins. By the time we had made a total of about 15,200 recycling bins, I was tied, big time. Even with five bins to a house would still be about most of the town’s homes. I quickly cleaned my room a little and went to dreamland. ** The next day, it was about 11:30am. I slowly dragged my feet into the bathroom and began taking a shower. After my shower, I heard someone call my name. I went to see what was the big deal, it was mom, she was calling me over for brunch. ‘Eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, and pancakes, now that is what I call brunch,’ I whispered to myself. ** “You will need a lot of energy today, now hurry up, you don’t want to be late, do you?” my mom questioned. ** “No, I don’t think I don’t,” I responded. ** We were able to make it to the park a half-hour before it was time to give the bins to people. Mary and her family were already there when we arrived. We set up everything and pretty soon it was time for the giving away to happen. People showed up and a crowd gathered fast. In order to take five bins, the people had to fill out one paper and the bins were theirs. I saw a couple people I knew from school. Over all, it went really well, better than I expected as a matter of fact. I was proud. We informed the company of how thing went, they were also pleased, so was the major when we told him. All of the bins were gone within the next seven hours. There was 10 left, so that meant that we split, Mary’s family gets five, and my family gets five. ** For dinner, we stopped by McDonalds. We just zoomed into the drive-through and were on our way. Everybody was proud of our accomplishment, but we couldn’t have done it alone. After eating, I fell asleep on the couch. ** It was about a few days later. Mary and I were at school, even the had some recycle bins, but I could tell right away that they made them, not us. Every morning when my mom would drive to school, we would pass by the dumps, I noticed that there were always people out there, I also noticed that the size of the dumps were getting smaller and smaller a little bit each day. There were also trucks from the company driving everywhere. Many people started making their own bins as well. Mary noticed it too. I think everyone did. ** After school that day, Mary, Amber and I went to visit the company, with my parents of course. As we entered the building, we could see trash everywhere, just waiting to be recycled. It looked beautiful to me. ** “Hey there, how are you girls doing?” the manager said as he walked up to us. ** “Fine, I see you are doing fine as well,” Mary replied. ** “Yeah, we sure are, I can’t thank you girls enough. So, for saving the factory, I am going to give each of you girls a new stereo system, don’t say you won’t take it, cause I insist that you do.” ** “Thank so very much,” all three of us said at the same time. ** “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, we are building another recycling factory up the street a little, so we have more recycling going on at one time,” the manager said, “You girls have a nice day now.” ** We left and felt like it was time to go and get our skates on. We did a good thing to help this planet, and I hope that mother Earth repays us for it. ** 
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">[[image:black_heart.jpg width="260" height="209"]]
 * Beep beep. Peter, my dad, honked the car as it pulled into the driveway.  **
 * “I’d better leave you alone now,” she said as she went down stairs. **

1. Think of plot—is it original? (If an adaptation, is it creative or interesting to you?) What suggestions do you have for the author(s)?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Starting - March 29 (2009): **<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">

2. Think about problems that the characters face. Are there complications that add enough suspense, tension, or interest? Is there a climax that satisfies you? Is the resolution satisfying? What could be added or changed?

3. Think of characterization—are the characters life-like? Are characters likable and enjoyable? Do we get a good sense of character from many of these: description, dialogue, narrator's opinion, discussion from other characters, the character’s own actions?

4. Think of imagery and details. Do they help you //<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">see // and //<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">hear // and //<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">experience // the story? What details would you like to see in the next revision of the story?

5. What areas of the story need the most improvement? What suggestions do you have for the author?

<span style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">Technical Details
1. Punctuation, grammar, word choice.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Starting - April 19 (2009): **<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">

<span style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">The Alien King's Decision
1. On the level of story-telling: if you were the King (or the aliens), would you allow this story-teller to live another day? If no,why not?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Starting May 3 (2009): **<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">

2. Be specific, try not to merely write, " this was good", instead explain what was good about it and why.

3. Nominate "Hall of Fame" stories. <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; text-decoration: none;">