Story Comments and Analysis

Henry:
Your cool person shows her true self. She is not pressured by the higher authority and speaks her mind.

Rachel:
Your story seems to be about the cool looks and her attitude. From your story, cool means to be mysterious, have the "I don't care" attitude, and be distant from others.

Kate:
I like how you made the narrator a well respected kid and she is not cocky about it.

Carrie:
I like how you mirrored our society in your story; people are pressured to look cool and try to model others' thoughts on cool.

Jia Min:
Your story is about a cool person standing up to the fake cool person. It seems like the cooler person do positive things and the fake cool person is the bad guy.

Elements of cool are to resist the higher authority for the good, to be mysterious, to be distant from others, and to speak your mind or be yourself. In Henry's story, the girl was being herself when she told the teacher that she could not explain the way she thought and while doing this, she was resisting the higher authority (the teacher). In Kate's story, the girl was debating over whether or not she should resist the fake cool and stand up for the weaker ones, thus, becoming the real cool. Similar in Jia Min's story, her character stood up to the bully and saved an underclassman (someone lower than her). Rachel's and Carrie's cool characters were distant and just being themselves.

In all these stories, there were the hero, a loner (but in a cool way), and the revolutionary (like the hero). I would say Henry's character was more a revolutionary because she stood up against the teacher and set a revolutionary model. She was also a hero to herself because she did not let the teacher pressure her into doing something she did not want to. Kate's and Jia Min's characters was a hero to another person; they stood up to bullies and saved someone from getting hurt. Rachel's and Carrie's cool characters were loners, but loners with a distant, a mysterious, an "I-don't-care" attitude and this made them cool.