starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Dec 5, 2008 15:50:02 GMT -5
^ Maybe he is a Grandpa...we don't know much about his personal life.
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Post by icequeen on Dec 23, 2008 19:30:43 GMT -5
I think the title for this book is silly, but I was thinking perhaps the mystery is WHY Shawna cheated, and HOW will they get her to confess. Janine was awesome in this book and I'm really glad she stood by Claudia's side.
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Post by zoar3 on Sept 16, 2009 22:31:55 GMT -5
Besides MA and of course, Mr. Zorzi automatically accusing Claudia, I don't care if it was his first day at SMS ever, if he has reason to suspect cheating, both girls should have simply been immediately retested. For sake of "he was a sub" Mr. Taylor the prinicipal should have had the brains to have figured this out! Instead, he did nothing other than call Claud's parents followed by listening to Janine. (Definite kudos to her).
The "worst" people in all this, besides possibly poor Claudia herself for NOT standing up for herself at least at home, were her parents. Even in BSC-Land where 13=adult and parents take little or no responsibility for much of anything...no matter what Mr. and Mrs. Kishi thought (I do think it was rotten that they seemed to think Claudia cheated, yes, I can understand why but still) their first responsibility is to their daughter. I am guessing Mr. Taylor actually talked to one of them on the phone? As opposed to just leaving a message? At that time any of the three 'adults" should have simply said, "retest" the next day.
Also, as someone else pointed out (I admit this never occurred to me) but it had to have taken a lot of time/effort for Shawna to have copied Claudia's entire test problem by problem! Surely Mr. Zorzi to say nothing of Claudia herself (maybe even a neigboring student) someone should have noticed what was going on! But then there would not have been any "mystery."
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Post by candykane on Sept 25, 2009 8:16:02 GMT -5
Also, as someone else pointed out (I admit this never occurred to me) but it had to have taken a lot of time/effort for Shawna to have copied Claudia's entire test problem by problem! Surely Mr. Zorzi to say nothing of Claudia herself (maybe even a neigboring student) someone should have noticed what was going on! But then there would not have been any "mystery." Agree that it would have taken a lot of effort to copy the entire test. Mr. Zorzi must not have paid any attention to the class at all while they took the test to have missed that. I also agree with everyone who said both of them should have been re-tested immediately. I was happy for Claudia when she got the chance to re-test and got almost all the answers right. It must have felt great to prove that she wasn't the cheater.
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Post by sparklymouse on Sept 25, 2009 12:29:13 GMT -5
Another thing that bugged me about Mr. Zorzi. When Mr. Zorzi first talked to Claudia and Shawna, Claudia knew what she did wrong with the math problem she got incorrect and told Mr. Zorzi what she should have done instead. That should have given him some indication that Claudia was comfortable with the test material.
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Post by mafan4life on Oct 26, 2009 11:48:31 GMT -5
Absolutely. He shouldn't have accused either of them. He should have simply said, "You'll both retake the test after school." That's the only fair way to settle the matter. I think the problem falls on that he was a substitute teacher. If it had been Claudia's regular teacher, I doubt she would have been accused outright like that. Claudia may be a poor student, but she's not a troublemaker or a known cheater. The regular teacher probably would have handled the situation better, i.e. given a retest immediately. Shawna was the one who lied by saying she never cheats and Claudia tried to tell that to the teacher, but didn't let her finish.
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Post by booboobrewer on Oct 26, 2009 17:39:10 GMT -5
Something I just thought of: do you guys think if this was Jessi's book, the idea that the teacher was favoring a white girl over a black girl would be something that was included? Claudia never assumed her own race might have been a factor...
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Nov 4, 2009 14:03:28 GMT -5
^ That's a good point. If it was a later Jessi book, I'm sure the idea would have at least been brought up. If it was an earlier Jessi book, than I don't think it would have been an issue.
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Post by helsieboo on Nov 5, 2009 4:30:42 GMT -5
I reread this in the bath last night and it makes me so angry.
I felt SO sorry for Claudia, but I did think it was silly how she wouldn't let her parents sort things out, although I can see why she felt like that. She probably felt as if she was being talked about by her peers already, without her parents going in aswell. However, I really think the Kishi-Units should have gone in - how could they sit by and allow Claud to deal with it on her own?
Janine was all sorts of awesome in this book. She is one of my favourite characters.
Mr Zorzi should have been disciplined over the way he dealt with the situation. I think he was genuinely remorseful and happy for Claudia when she did so well the second time, but they both should have been re-tested straight away.
What if the stress and the nerves had got to Claud and she had done badly the second time around? A lot of people may have bombed under that kind of pressure.
Another interesting thing - Claud describes her earrings as 'Princess Di' earrings. However, in the British versions printed after 1997, the Princess Di reference has gone and they are referred to as princess earrings.
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Post by candykane on Nov 5, 2009 14:54:33 GMT -5
^Oh, I agree that Mr. Z should have been disciplined. That's something that never occurred to me before. Wouldn't the school have some kind of procedure for dealing with cheating?
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Post by booboobrewer on Apr 21, 2010 17:42:08 GMT -5
I found this book in the language arts class I was subbing for today. I read the whole thing during my free periods I feel much sorrier for Claudia now than I did as a kid...the night before her Ms. Frizzle school day she keeps repeating to herself "It's okay! I don't care!" in her head as she gets ready for bed. Sad. Her parents doubting her seemed to hit her hard (and I noticed Mr. Kishi was the one who said "we'd like to believe you" and then when Janine defends her, only Claudia's mom apologizes and hugs her...real nice, Pa Kishi.) Mr. Zorzi has Claudia take the re-test the same day but tells Shawna she can take it the following day. Unfair. Mr. Zorzi really sucks. Claudia's outfits still sound cute. Noticed both are blue/green combos. The Pike subplot...it's similar to the main plot which I actually never noticed before, but then again, I always skipped it...the triplets refuse to speak up (Claudia) about who broke the basement window out of loyalty to each other and someone smarter, Mallory (Janine) comes up with a solution to get them ungrounded. Not interesting. At least I finally understand Op Talk.
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digigirl02
Junior Sitter
The P is for Princess
Posts: 698
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Post by digigirl02 on Apr 21, 2010 19:33:24 GMT -5
Op talk has to be the most lamest langage ever.
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Post by sparklymouse on Apr 21, 2010 20:13:38 GMT -5
The only thing I remember with Op Talk is A Dop A Mop.
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Post by candykane on Apr 22, 2010 12:56:42 GMT -5
Agree, op-talk is pretty lame. It takes too long to say even the shortest sentences. Has anyone ever heard of it outside of the BSC books, or was it something that Ann invented for this book?
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Apr 22, 2010 14:37:01 GMT -5
There was a very similar language to Op Talk on The King Of Queens once, when Doug and Spence visited this classic toy convention. If you've never seen the show, you probably don't know what I'm talking about.
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