John Yowan Hour 1
Ms. Keeley Type 3
Freshman English
25 November 2002
The
movie October Sky is about Homer Hickam and his three friends, O'Dell,
Royce, and Quentin building a rocket. It begins in October of 1957 when the
Soviet Union places the first man-made satellite, Sputnik One in space.
Homer
is inspired to build his own rocket after seeing Sputnik and he does, but it
did not work. He persuaded his two friends and another person named Quentin, a
very smart student at his high school to help him build a rocket. They tried to
build a rocket many times but they couldn't seem to make one that would work. Their
first rocket blows a hole in a picket fence in front of Homer's house. The
second one just misses some miners at the coal-mine, and Homer's dad John, the
mine supervisor, forbids further experimentation and confiscates all of their
stuff that they use to build rockets from the basement. Homer and his friends
keep working in a patch of land with woods all around it. They built a shelter
to protect themselves from the exploding rockets. They talk a machinist at the
mine into building them a rocket casing of stronger steel, and they use alcohol
as an ingredient in the rocket fuel. After that Homer and
his friends entered a science fair and they win first place, then they decided
to go to the National Science Fair. They find out that the school can only pay
for one of them to go so the decide to send Homer. Homer ended up winning the
at the National Science fair. All four of the boys went on to attend college
and they all ended up with well paying jobs.
Homer
and his Father have a conflict about which is more important, rocket building
or coal mining. Homer's Dad thinks that rocket building is unimportant so when
one of the rockets almost hits a coal miner he makes it so they can not build rockets
in Coalwood and takes away all of their rocket building supplies. Homer
disagrees with his dad and goes someplace eight miles away from his home to
build and launch rockets. Homers dad thinks that he should not work on the
rockets but should work in the coal mine instead. His Dad doesn't think college
is important and wants his son to follow in his footsteps. Homer thinks that he
should be able to work on the rockets and peruse his dream of becoming a rocket
scientist. He also believes that he should be able to go to college and that it
is very important to his life.
Homers
family lived in the late 1950s in a poverty-stricken town in West Virginia. Most
people in the town were not college educated and the main industry was coal mining.
People in the town didn't think college was important because most of the jobs
in the town didn't require a college degree. The only person in Homers family
to go to college before him was his older brother and that was on a football scholarship.
John
Hickam, Homers Father thinks that education beyond high school is not
important. He believes that high school is enough education and that people
should start working as soon as they are done with their high school career.
I
think that it is important for everyone to try to get a college education. With
a college education there are higher paying jobs available. I also think you
can have a better life and have more choices in what you can do for a living
once you have a college degree.