Chocolate War Robert Cormier Summariser (Final Lit Circles)

Lit Circles- Summarizer

The Chocolate War is a story told in very short scenes and chapters and is pretty easy to read. At the start of the book, Jerry, the main character is in football practice at the all-boys Catholic Trinity High School in the fictional town of Monument, Massachusetts. In the book there is a boy named Archie, the "Assignor". He is the brains of a secret organization called The Vigils. They are a group that write down assignments.

It is important to note that the assignments are cruel pranks and practical jokes that students are chosen to do. They have no choice but to obey The Vigils or face the consequences.

A man called Brother Leon is the acting headmaster of Trinity, and he and Archie had formed, somewhat of an alliance. They wanted to organize an annual chocolate sale. Leon overextended school funds for this chocolate sale to happen. He turns greedy and wants all students to sell chocolates.

Jerry's assignment is to not participate in the chocolate sale for ten days, and so he does. But after the 10 days, he decided still not to sell the chocolates. He was somewhat of a rebel. He decided to refuse to see the chocolates because of the cruelty around him, in Trinity. This leads to heavy persecution of Jerry by The Vigils who beat him up severely...

Leon is somewhat threatened by Jerry and he doesn’t want the other students to act like that. He felt as if the chocolate sale would “die” because of Jerry. Therefore, Leon and Archie organize a cruel boxing match in front of the whole school starring Jerry and Emile Janza, a school bully.

Janza and Jerry fight, but Janza stopped playing by the rules and was just too good for Jerry. Jerry is beaten so severely that he loses consciousness. Before he leaves he tells his best friend to go along with whatever Trinity and The Vigils want him to do in the future, or he may end up like him. What the book implies with the ending is that Jerry might of had died after the fight but that is not certain.

The main theme of this novel is defiance of authority. It shows how fear and manipulation can be very powerful and costly. So sometimes it's even better to follow bad orders of bad people rather than sacrificing your own life. Moreover there are no female characters, and the story is mainly about boys. It is very realistic and emotional.

Blog post #4- Discussion director

For this blog post we finished the book. It was a very interesting book and I was a discussion director.
Ther results:

Questions:

What's Jerry’s favourite drink?

Adam: Milkshake

Aleksa: Milkshake

Luka:Milkshake

Vishesh:Soda

What year is he in school?

Adam: Freshman

Aleksa:Freshman

Luka:Freshman

Vishesh:Freshman

What sport does he train?

Adam: Football

Aleksa:Football

Luka:Football

Vishesh:Football

What happens to Jerry that influences the book a lot?

Adam: Breaks his jaw(fight)

Aleksa:Fight

Luka:Fight

Vishesh:Fight

How does the story end?

Adam: walk in the dark

Aleksa:walked in the dark

Luka:walked in the dark

Vishesh:Walk in the dark

Literacy Circles- Chocolate War Illustrator

For our first meeting of Chocolate War, a book by Robert Cormier I had the job of the illustrator.

I illustrated how growing up influences what you do and what you buy. The main character, Jerry Renault went to a magazine store (chapter 3) where he bought a rather inappropriate magazine. He used all his budget to buy this magazine. This demonstrates how, at different ages, we all have different needs. Jerry Renault's is at a stage of puberty and buying an inappropriate magazine was something that he felt the need of buying.

Here is the picture that I llustrated-

Jerry Shopping at the Magazine Shop

Literacy circles- Connector

My connection was from chapter 23 when the goober wanted to quit playing football in the Trinity.  When i was nine years old i was playing soccer at a club for a few years.At the beggining everything was going really good we had good coaches and good players. One day the best coach of the club left and the one who came instead of him was not really good. Many kids did not like the new coach and they left the team and the things were getting worse by time. I also wanted to quit until i realised that a few good players were left and I was one of them so if we quitted one by one the club would turn out to be awful. So i stayed and the next reason the club did better. That is why the goober should re-consider about quitting the team maybe they need him more than he knows.

The chocolate War - Summarizer

The beginning of chapter 20 is based on a scene that happened earlier in the book. When the Goober unscrewed Brother Jacques’ room, the room broke down in the beginning of the chapter. Archie was satisfied with himself and felt triumph but the other students were not convinced. Then, at a different setting, a kid by the name of Kevin Chartier had gone to half a dozen houses to sell the chocolates but had sold only one box to his aunt, who had diabetes. So he called up one of his friends. His friend, Danny, hadn’t had any luck either. The two talked about how Jerry was doing well to annoy Brother Leon. How Jerry was rebelling against the school, the spirit of Trinity. The chocolate sales were not going well, obviously. The kids either did not have the spirit or just could not sell the chocolates. So Brother Leon complained about the sale to Archie, who was also very mad. But little did they know that something would happen to the sales. Then came the discussion between Jerry and Archie. It was a very long chat. Archie tried to tempt Jerry to selling the chocolates. But Jerry would not listen. He will continue declining the chocolate sale. A day after that, a junior by the name of Frankie Rollo was called to a chat with Archie. Archie asked for his name because it was ritual to call for the name but Rollo thought this was kind of joke and got all smart about it. And the two got into a big argument about it and Carter, Archie’s bodyguard, punched Rollo in the face and Rollo fell flat. He was ignored then because the bell rang. When Jerry came back from football practice, in his apartment, he got a call. But when he said hello, no one was there. He repeated. And then a small chuckle came out of the phone. Jerry was scared. But suddenly hung up. Later that night, he got the same call, but his father picked up. The same thing happened to his father but he regarded it has some sort of joke. But Jerry was not so sure. The next day at school, Jerry opened his locker and the locked was trashed. Everything lying in the wrong place, marks on the locker wall. Hours later, something miraculous happened to the chocolate sale. The numbers went up and Brother Leon was delighted. They had sold fifteen thousand and only needed five thousand left to sell before the sale was completed.

Chocolate War - Vocabulary Enricher

                                                           The Chocolate War

I was vocabulary enricher for the my group and were reading the Chocolate War. The words I chose were:

Resentful: Full of or marked by indignant ill will.

Buoyant: Characterized by liveliness and lightheaded.

Ravenous: Extremely Hungry

Tardy: After the expected or usual time.

Disadvantage: The quality of having an inferior or less favorable position.

I am satisfied with my group for telling me the definition of most of these words. They guessed four out of five. 

Adam Chocolate War- Vocabulary Enricher

villainous-relating to, constituting, or guilty of wicked or criminal behaviour.( Evil)

muss- messy

quarterback-  a position in American football. ( Main character in the team)

Swayed- a motion, movement

This meeting I was vocabulary enricher and I am very happy with the knowledge of my lit circle group. They knew all of my words. I also put these words because they seemed knew form me.