Shooter-Walter Dean Myers Cycle 4 pages 121-136

In this section of the reading the author decides to tell the story from a different perspective. Instead of telling the story through interrogation the author now starts to use newspaper articles to tell the story. Most of the articles uses refer to the three main characters, Cameron, Carla, and Len. The newspaper articles all refer to the shooting as an act of violence that should have been noticed by the school. The newspaper articles in the story now reveal what happened on the day of the shooting. The newspaper articles state that Cameron and Len were part of a Cult that initially ordered them into the shooting.
This portion of the book's form of writing is rather unusual. By using a newspaper perspective there are no biases like that of Carla and Cameron interviews. From an unbiased perspective the articles tell the story straightforward unlike that of the stories Carla and Cameron tell. The articles say that the shooting consisted of three people but in Carla's interview she said she hadn’t known of the plans to have a shooting at the school. Carla's interview revealed that she wasn’t really apart of the shooting but through the newspapers articles they stated that she was an accomplice.
From this portion of the reading it causes me to wonder what the real story of the shooting is. Why do the articles say that they were apart of a cult? In the next section of the reading I go into Len's Diary which I hope reveal the true secrets of the shooting.

Shooter-Walter Dean Myers cycle 3 Pages 106-121

In this section of the reading they switch interviews as it was usually Cameron, but now they are interviewing his friend Carla. During the interview they go a lot into Carla's background and what was happening right up to the moment of the shooting. During the interview I was able to find out the Carla was living a very bad life because she had to always take care of her parents. She said that they couldn’t fend for themselves so she ended up doing most of the work. With all of the duties taking a toll on her she was starting to fall behind in school and eventually made friends with Cameron and Len. She said she found both of them attractive and actually had a relationship with Len. The day before the shooting Len told Carla to buy a can of paint because they were going to vandalize the school. Carla agreed to this and when she met Len and Cameron 10 minutes before school started they were standing there with guns armed. They started shooting and she was dragged by Cameron and she became confused and delusional.
This new interview is very interesting because the interrogator voice seems to be more understanding of Carla than he was with Cameron. When Cameron avoided the question he would be persistent and keep pressing the same question. With Carla however when she says shes not going to answer the question he backs away. By the way Carla is talking she seems to be rather irritated or annoyed that she has to participate with the interview. By the words she chooses she seems really uninterested.
It was really interesting to find out what the events that led up to the shooting from a different person's perspective. From Carla's interview I was able to find out much more information about what happened during the actual shooting. The question though is why did Len want Carla to buy a can of paint to vandalize the school even if they were going to go through with the shooting? Why didn’t Carla realize what's going on? Hopefully my questions will be answered.

Quarter 4 Cycle 2 Post Shooter-Walter Dean Myers pages 91-106

The section I read this cycle was mostly about Len and his normal social life. At this point in the book, the author decided to switch interrogators. In the book Cameron says the Len had anger issues but never really hated anybody. They then again mention the "list" that Cameron writes names of the people that have caused him trouble. Len also had it with this teacher that told him that he wasn't the leading type. This really upset Len and he ended up telling Cameron that he wanted to shoot the teacher. Cameron thought nothing of it, but Len would keep telling him that he was going to shoot her but none of this really bothered Cameron. Cameron also said that they were "pushed around" a lot meaning that they were picked on. Cameron just got disappointed but Len on the other hand would get angry furthermore suggesting the motive for the shooting at the school.
Throughout this section of the reading I noticed that Cameron said that he was "disappointed" or "I thought nothing of it at the time" When Cameron says this it shows me that he has a very weak mind and is also unaware of what is going on around him. By having a weak mind Cameron would let the little things get to him. I think this also made him unaware of Lens actions due to the fact that Cameron is already at rock bottom.
From this section of the reading the motive starts to become much clearer. From learning that Len repeatedly said that he was going to shoot the teacher suggest that the teacher set him off pretty good. What makes me wonder is that Cameron didn’t think much of Len's actions or word choice. Why is Cameron so unaware of everything that is going around him? As I read further hopefully I unveil the real truth.

Shooter-Walter Dean Myers Quarter 4 Cycle 1 pages 76-91

The section I read this cycle goes into the relationship Cameron has with his best friend Len. Besides the fact that they both love to shoot Cameron and Len never seemed to have the same interest as Cameron likes physical activity and Len doesn't like to engage in anything physical. According to Cameron they just "got along" The relationship doesn’t seem to be really strong as a normal best friend's relationship would be. The reason Len liked him though was because Cameron didn’t game on him. Len's other friends however are racist because at the shooting range they will always shoot at other black people. This never seemed to bother Cameron because Len would just laugh it off and Cameron would do the same. I don’t understand how Cameron has no bad feelings towards this.

In this portion of the reading there weren’t any literary devices used but I noticed that it seems that Cameron is afraid of Len. When Cameron answers questions about Len he never says anything bad about him as if Len makes him hide all the stuff that goes on in their adventures.

This section of the reading continues to develop the motive for the shooting at the school. With Len being somewhat of a "racist" this leads me to think that he shot a black kid because of the way he was raised. At the shooting range all of the elders are always shooting at people such as Martin Luther King. It seems to me that Len was brought up this way and he has become completely brainwashed.

Shooter-Walter Dean Myers Cycle 6 pages 61-76

The section I read this cycle went a lot more into Cameron's best friend Len. According to Cameron, Len had a real temper problem and would get mad really easily. This sort of twines the plot of the book with Len because now the Author is starting to reveal motives and reasons for the shooting in the school. In this section I found out the Cameron knew about an enemies list that Len had. The enemies list was a list that Len put people on when they did something bad to him or something he disliked. He would then tell the people he put them on his list.
As I kept reading I noticed that the answers Cameron was giving back to the interrogator was becoming more and more vague as they continued talking about his friend Len. The interrogator has to keep asking follow up question because Cameron really isn’t getting to the point. This reveals to me the Cameron is trying to hide something from the interrogator to protect his friend. Cameron seems to be loyal to his friend but in past pages Len bosses around Cameron. I think that Cameron is actually afraid of Len and that’s why he isn’t revealing anything about him.
This section of the reading now begins to stop with all of the background information and goes into more of the plot of the shooting in the school. The enemies list was a real surprise to me because I did not think that Len would make a whole list of enemies and people he was eventually going to get back at. I think that the shooting happened because Len couldn’t take it anymore and he ended up having many people on his list. The question that's really bothering me though is why Cameron is almost like trying to cover up for Len?

Shooter- Walter Dean Myers Cycle 5 pages 46-61

The section I read this cycle was really interesting because now I have found out that Cameron and his friend Len have been members of this club and that is how they got into shooting guns. Shooting however became a problem for them because they were always shooting. One example, is that shooting became the reason for Len breaking up with his girlfriend Carla. One day Len took Carla and Cameron up to the shooting range to shoot at targets. There were five bags hanging from the trees and Carla and Cameron both shot at them. Carla and Cameron both had a bad feeling about it and when they opened the bags there were pet turtles you can buy at the pet store in each of the bags.
I noticed throughout this part of the book or interview that Cameron uses the words "we knew" and "I had a bad feeling" This was leading me to think that Cameron could actually be a normal kid on the inside but just to fit in wants to go with the crowd. For example the Cameron said "Len took us to a shooting range to shoot at targets and when we got there, there were five orange bags hanging from the trees. I had a bad feeling about it." This to me shows that Cameron knew something was up but just to please his friend Len, he went along with the plan and shot at the "targets" Cameron then goes onto say "We knew something was in there" which also suggest the Cameron doesn’t have the guts to stand up to his friend. It can also suggest that Cameron cannot think for himself and has to follow others because he is not independent.
This section of the reading was really interesting for me because it revealed a lot of things about Cameron and Len. Finding out that they both like to shoot was a real surprise because I thought the shooting happened out of anger, but now I am beginning to think that maybe they just wanted to shoot for fun. Also the shooting of turtles was shocking because most people shoot at non living things and when Len was shooting at the live turtles he got a thrill out of it which suggest that he wanted to shoot living things. Now I think that due to his low social status and his thrill to shoot guns was the motive of the shooting at his highschool.

Shooter- Walter Dean Myers cycle 3 pages 16-31

The next section of the book that I have read got more into my main characters personal life and school life. Through the interrogations the author begins to reveal what happens to Cameron during his normal day at school and how his personal family life goes about. During the interrogations that interrogator brings up that Cameron has a criminal record from graffiti he did on walls of a church with his friend Len. The only reason Cameron did it though was because he was following his friend Len, which leads me to think that Cameron is not able to think on his own because he always has to follow people. By revealing more of Cameron's personal life the author begins to give small hints that may have lead to motive of the shooting. Cameron also has a few problems at home because his dad puts a lot of pressure on him. The basketball team is a good example because when Cameron got cut, the dad told him that he played like a girl and needed to man up.
When the interrogator speaks the author's word choice is used to make subtle hints towards what he is trying to imply. In the book the author chooses to go around things instead of directly going to the point. You have to make inferences and sometimes I even have to read the lines twice just so that I am clear on what each character is saying. This makes the book sometimes challenging because if I do not read thoroughly through it I don’t understand how the conversation is going about which makes have to go back and read the lines over again.
My second section of the reading really got me into the book this time leaving me with a lot of cliffhangers. The book is sucking me practically into the story because every page there's a twist and turn which leaves me in suspense. "Did you think you were depressed before you started taking the pills?" This quote was very interesting to me because this lead me to think that the reason why he did the shooting is because he was depressed. This left me with a cliff hanger ending. Was the motive because he was depressed? What caused him to be depressed? Hopefully I will be able to find more as I continue with the story.

Shooter- Walter Dean Myers, Cycle 2 1-15

The book shooter is a compelling book about a shooting of a White Male at Madison High school. The first fifteen pages of the book is written in the form of an interview in which an interrogator is interviewing the suspect about the incident. Though only through the first fifteen pages through the form of an interview the book reveals a lot of key components to the main character. For example, when the interviewer asked "Your father was upset that you didn’t make the team?" The suspect Cameron talked about how his father will always put him down and how he played like a girl. The rest of the pages I read was background information about the character. The character revealed that he didn’t have many friends I didn’t get out of the house much.

The pages I have read are written in an interview form which reveals how each character acts in particular by their choice in words. Most of the reading I did is straight forward but in some lines I have to draw an inference from what I have read. For example, the main character Cameron says, "You're trying to fit me in right? I have to be either a ballplayer or a loner, or what? You need to fit me in someplace right?" This quote required me to do some critical thinking. Since most of it has been background information I inferred that Cameron was one of the outcast at his school and how no real identity to him. The references to if he had any friends occurred multiple times perhaps showing that Cameron wasn’t much of the friendly type or wasn’t liked by others. This could be key to the rest of the story by hinting the motive or why he decided to shoot.

The first fifteen pages really drew me in to the book and I am eager to read on. The way the book is written is unique since it is mostly written in the form of dialogue and interviews. Since the book is formatted in this particular way I have to draw inferences about each of the character since there is no specific background information. I have to read in between the lines like I did in the quote I mentioned earlier. That particular quote required me to draw conclusions that may or may not be correct. The book has left me with some unanswered questions. Why is he being interviewed 6 months after the shooting? What was the motive? These unanswered questions make me want to keep continuing on with the book as it makes me think about what the next possible move can be.