Top 10 Reasons to Participate in an Investment Club

An investment club prepares you for the future by teaching and encouraging you to save money.  Below is an excerpt taken from the Motley Fool's, a popular financial magazine, website.  Read the ten reason's to join an investment club provided by a teenager and answer the question that follows.  *Remeber to include your first and last name for full credit.

1. You'll learn about something that schools forget to teach you, something that will have a huge impact on your life.
2. You'll have a strong chance of making money.
3. You have something more valuable than money, something that you will not have for much longer and that you should take advantage of: You have time.
4. It's a good extracurricular activity that colleges will look at.
5. It also looks good on a resume.
6. You can make contacts in the business world that you would not have otherwise made.
7. You get to hang out with friends while learning something and still having a good time.
8. You may even end up being covered on the news or in the newspaper.
9. You'll earn the respect of fellow classmates, parents, and teachers.
10. You'll have the opportunity to change your life.

-- Bryan Sims, 18
source: http://www.fool.com/teens/teens09.htm

 Do you agree?  Explain what persuasive technique you found to be the most convincing.

The Lorax

Follow this link to read Dr. Suess' The Lorax and respond to the following question:
Why is the Lorax called a cautionary tale?

Untitled

Give the following short memoir a title.  Explain why you would select this as your title.  Use story details in your response.

By l_p_b, Arlington, MA

I never used to pay much attention to what was happening outside the car window. The route to school was nothing but a blurred cruise through suburbia, one splattered with blotches of vegetation, rushing vehicles, and the sun’s glaring reflection on the windshield.

At night, streetlights danced and multiplied, darting through the sky. Masses of granite or brick bulged out of the darkness, suddenly caught by the headlights. Forms swayed in the shadows, forests were cloaked in darkness, only the faint network of branches remained visible. Hazy fields of stars held up the rising moon and its nimbus. The night was constantly in motion.

Over time, my smeared vision began to prevent me from reading numbers on the whiteboard. Thanks to my squinting and my sluggish reading pace, I was sent to an eye doctor. Two appointments later, I had a prescription.

It was winter when I got my contact lenses, and I shielded my eyes as I walked to the car – through scintillating, blinding snowdrifts. Once in the car, I allowed my eyes to recover from the barrage of light. With the car rolling away and sunglasses cooling my sensitive pupils, I took my first look at the new world.

Tree limbs burned amber in the morning light, branching out like cobwebs against the crisp and cloudless sky. Hills and buildings leapt out of the background, with borders sharp enough to slice through ice. There was no sound, only the jagged, perfect landscape.

I felt the chill of precision, of focus. I saw dust particles fluttering through the steaming beam of a projector. On computer screens, which used to be composed of a flat jumble of black and white text, bold letters carved their proper places in sentences. Assertive punctuation connected it all. Life was coming alive in front of me – line by line, corner by corner.

Later, with the cold smothering the day’s excitement, and my breath showing against the tenebrous night, I gazed skyward. No longer dim smudges, but radiant specks sprinkled across the sky, the stars blazed. In their flickering stillness, they conveyed a sense of the infinite.

Aesop's Fables

Select and read one of the stories below.   Answer the following two questions:  Why do you think Aesop uses animal's in many of the stories? Explain how the story connects to your life and the moral of the story. 

 *Remeber to put your first and last name for your post to earn full credit.

 The Crow and the Pitcher

  A CROW perishing with thirst saw a pitcher, and hoping to find
water, flew to it with delight.  When he reached it, he
discovered to his grief that it contained so little water that he
could not possibly get at it.  He tried everything he could think
of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in vain.  At last
he collected as many stones as he could carry and dropped them
one by one with his beak into the pitcher, until he brought the
water within his reach and thus saved his life.

The Dog and the Hare


  A HOUND having started a Hare on the hillside pursued her for
some distance, at one time biting her with his teeth as if he
would take her life, and at another fawning upon her, as if in
play with another dog.  The Hare said to him, "I wish you would
act sincerely by me, and show yourself in your true colors.  If
you are a friend, why do you bite me so hard? If an enemy, why do
you fawn on me?' 

The Dove and the Ant  An Ant, going to a river to drink, fell in, and was carried along in
the stream. A Dove pitied her condition, and threw into the river a
small bough, by means of which the Ant gained the shore. The Ant
afterward, seeing a man with a fowling-piece aiming at the Dove, stung
him in the foot sharply, and made him miss his aim, and so saved the
Dove's life.

The Miser
  A MISER sold all that he had and bought a lump of gold, which he
buried in a hole in the ground by the side of an old wall and
went to look at daily.  One of his workmen observed his frequent
visits to the spot and decided to watch his movements.  He soon
discovered the secret of the hidden treasure, and digging down,
came to the lump of gold, and stole it.  The Miser, on his next
visit, found the hole empty and began to tear his hair and to
make loud lamentations.  A neighbor, seeing him overcome with
grief and learning the cause, said, "Pray do not grieve so; but
go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fancy that the
gold is still lying there.  It will do you quite the same
service; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did
not make the slightest use of it."