December 8th 2010

Today in class, we finally turned in our Scarlet Letter Essays. It was a relief to finally be finished and to be able to rid my mind of the stress. We are moving on to thinking about and reviewing our semester's work for the midterm. It is interesting to see what we have done this year and how it has actually all connected. For example, all of the ideas that we worked on at the beginning of the year, such as transcendentalism and realism, connected to the reading of the Scarlet Letter. Without the knowledge it would have made reading the Scarlet Letter much more difficult and we would not have been able to understand it as deeply.

As we were reading over the midterm review today in class, I realized that the thing I was most nervous about is the ominous essay that seems to hold a million possibilities. We have a vague idea about what the essay will be, but I am still very anxious. We seem to have learned so much this year and it could be about any of them.

Other than that I the midterm is going to be very challenging and I am going to have to start studying immediately!

Therefore, my word of the day is diligent. Diligent means hard working and staying on task, both of which I am trying to do this coming weekend and week!

December 8th, 2010

Today in class, we first turned our final essays in (as well as our rough drafts) to Ms. Flournoy. Second, we spent a while on our course evaluations. After completing the course evaluations, Ms. Flournoy asked us to pull up the review for the midterm on our computers. We spent about 20 minutes talking through all the topics on the midterm. The class asked a lot of questions and it was really helpful because I sometimes don't think about certain things, and when my classmates bring them up, I'm so grateful because I could have missed them on the exam! Finally, for the last part of class, we got a list of famous writers (Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, J.K. Rowling, Ben Franklin, and Nathaniel Hawthorne) and our job was to research the thoughts and themes seen in their writings. We made a timeline on a piece of notebook paper and spread the authors out according to the time periods in which they lived. The purpose of this exercise was to prepare us for our midterm, for it is important that we understand how these authors thought and what their writings centered on. I really enjoyed today's class simply because I felt it was a great way to organize my thoughts about the midterm. Admist the craziness of the holidays, we can get really caught up in the unsettling idea of midterms. However, this class period helped me to put my exams into perspective and feel less intimidated by how much information they cover. A quote from Lauren Graham, "Perspective is the most important thing to have in life." This is so true, for we need to put our studies in perspective. We tend to make them seem much more scary than they really are, and if we buckle down and focus on organizing all the information we've learned, we realize that it really isn't that hard. We have learned everything that will show up on the test and should be confident in that fact. A new vocab word that I feel connects with today's events is the word "daunt." Used in a sentence, it reads like this: Although midterms may seem daunting at first, when we look at things from a confident viewpoint, we realize that we are more than capable of surviving them.

December 6th

Today in class we had to have our rough draft completed and printed. We spent the whole class self-editing our rough draft. Our homework for Wednesday is to have our completed final draft done and printed by the start of class. I found it very helpful to carefully read and mark all over my paper and make corrections. I think having a printed rough draft to edit is the easiest way to read and think about your paper without distractions or getting confused. I know that whenever I read things on my computer I can easily get confused, words get jumbled up, and I can't clearly think about what I'm trying to say. Getting a new perspective on things sometimes can be extremely helpful and eye opening. I decided to connect class today to a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. He said: "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." I like this quote because I think it represents what we all our doing and feeling as we write our papers. We are trying to write deep, intellectual papers that really analyze The Scarlet Letter, and that's a hard thing. I think this quote can help remind us that we can search and search for the perfect way to say something, and we can try our hardest to write a perfect paper, but these things do not exist. This can also connect to what I said about a new perspective. Maybe what Nietzsche is saying is that we all have our own ways, but it's important to look at other perspectives. Maybe next time we edit, we should peer edit to see other perspectives and get their take on ours. A vocab word I would like to share is vantage point. It means a place or situation affording some advantage especially a comprehensive view or commanding perspective. Example sentence: Although you may think your vantage point is superior to those around you, it can not be certain until you look through their perspective.

December 3, 2010

Today in class we started off my learning how to build your essay. Mrs. Flournoy taught us the buildingsroman, which means the coming of age. She explained how our basic essay should include an Introduction and sentences that go from very basic information to a narrowing focus. Then we learned that a body must include a Topic Sentence, 1 Commentary Detail, and 2 Commentary Sentences. There can be up to four body paragraphs in this essay. After finishing the body paragraphs, you need to write a conclusion that connects and finalizes your whole essay. Mrs. Flournoy told us to question our conclusion and say "so what?". This helped us question our whole essay and give it a great point. In class, we are told to write our thoughts for our essay down. We are constantly reminded that writing your thoughts down is very significant because you find great ideas and writings from letting your ideas out. After we discussed the Buildingsroman, we discussed our heading and header for our paper and how it should be formatted on a word document. Mrs. Flournoy informed us that the Heading is different from the Header because the heading is only on the first page and includes: Your name, Subject, Teacher, and Date of Due Assignment. The header is on ever page and for this paper our header is including our last name and the page number. We then included our Title and have our double space paper! Even though we already know the basic format of an essay, this was a great review and there were several questions asked, so this cleared everything up. We then were given the rest of class to continue our essays and work on strengthening our body paragraphs. Getting time in class to work on our essays is essential because we are able to ask questions and work diligently. The Scarlet Letter essays are coming out great and we are all working hard in class. This essay is our last one before the semester ends and our printed completed essays are due on Monday as Rough Drafts. We made a lot of progress today because we had a lot of time to work on our drafts!

I thought that the review of the format of our essay was extremely helpful! I did not know the proper heading, so I am glad that we went over it in class. I really like having time in class to work on our essays. I think that all of us value the time in class that we have to write. Writing in class gives us the opportunity to really concentrate in a good environment and progress. This allows us to ask questions and work on the needed areas in our essays. A quote that I believe is a good connection is, “Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.” -Francis Bacon. We are told to write down our thoughts and ideas. Even though we may think that we are not on the right track or that our writing is irrelevant, it is actually great. As we prepare to complete our drafts, it is good to remember that we need to keep our ideas fresh and let them out.

The vocabulary term that I think defines what we did in class is "headway". This term means a forward movement or progress. My Sample Sentence for headway is: We were making headway in working on finishing our Rough Drafts today in class. Overall, today’s class was very productive and I think that we all made progress on our essays.

Tuesday, November 30

On Tuesday in class we worked on our Scarlet Letter papers. We began with Ms. Flournoy checking our thesis's for completion and working with a partner to improve them. We tweaked them and discussed how to write a paper well. We talked about the importance of depth in a paper rather than length or the "big picture". Thesis's should also be in depth and a topic sentence to a paragraph is like a mini thesis and should be detailed and important. We then had individual meetings with Ms. Flournoy to check our thesis's and work on them. While individual meetings were going on, students were able to work on their papers. The homework was to work on the paper (rough draft due Monday) and write a body paragraph for Thursday.

I thought this time in class was really helpful for writing the paper. It's a time to focus and also Ms. Flournoy was available for questions and thoughts on writing. A quote I thought related to our class experiences was "Writing is thinking on paper."-
William Zinsser. A lot of the thoughts we put into our papers turn into beautiful and thoughtful writing. The thoughts that seem messy and unorganized can be put together to create beautiful writing, even for book essays.

My new vocab word is insistent- compelling attention. Students need to be insistent with their work on their papers in order to be successful.

Monday, November 29th

We started class today with a quick exercise. We all wrote down a small description of things that we saw, touched, tasted, heard, and smelled over the Thanksgiving break. We then went around the room and each person shared one response and the class identified what sense the description appealed to. Next, Ms. Flournoy handed out a sheet of paper containing the Scarlet Letter paper topics to each of us and we went over it as a class. We took a few minutes to review the topics individually to see which one interested us. Then, we looked in our actual book to get ideas about possible topics. Next, we were instructed to make a diagram type structure to form more ideas. After, we opened our laptops and wrote down thoughts that came to mind about our topics. All of these exercises helped our minds start flowing and helped us get an idea of what we want to write about. At one point in class, we discussed scope and sequence and depth over breadth. Ms. Flournoy explained to us that it is important to focus in on one area of the book and go into great depth analyzing it. Also, a few important things were written on the board. For the thesis, focus on the subject matter and what you will argue. And, a few questions to think about: Which concrete elements of the text will you examine?, Which literary devices will you explore?, and What is your overarching point?/What ties everything together?. Our homework for tonight is to create a thesis for our paper.

I thought the different methods we used today to get our minds thinking about what topic we would like to do were very helpful. I especially liked free writing on our laptops. I think this is a really great way to get all your thoughts onto a page. Then, you can you those thoughts and ideas to move forward with your paper.

A quote that I think is very relevant to the process of picking a good topic is as follows, “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” I think it is very important to pick a topic that really interests you. If you are interested in and excited about a certain topic, you will easily go into depth with the topic. And, it might be enjoyable to write the paper because you can use your creativity to come up with a totally original idea about the subject matter and think of great ways to argue your thoughts.

The vocab word for today is “ruminate”. Ruminate means to think deeply about something, to reflect on, or to ponder. Sample sentence: We need to ruminate before starting our papers by looking over each topic and refreshing our minds about the main ideas in the novel.

English Class on Monday, November 15th

Hi Guys!

The first thing we did in class today was learn about the schedule for the next few weeks. Ms. Flournoy explained that we are going to finish The Scarlet Letter by Friday and that will be learning about our paper soon after that. After a week of working on our papers after Thanksgiving, we will be going straight into review week. And then Midterms! After that, Ms. Flournoy had us write assertions about important occurrences from our reading over the weekend (ch. 16-18). As we read them aloud, I noticed that most people focused on the theme of sunlight. Some people connected it to purity, God, and goodness saying that it shied away from the sinful Hester. Others commented on how it represented a renewed chance at life for Hester and Dimmesdale. One of my favorite points of the discussion was the connection made between Hester and Janie from Their Eyes Were Watching God. It hadn't even occurred to me that they both had transforming moments in which they let down their hair down and left behind items of their past selves.  My own assertion had more to do with this concept than it did sunshine. I speculated that the discarding of the scarlet letter was symbolic of Hester's release from sin and her past identity; however, the fact that the scarlet letter did not land in the stream and float away represents its remaining presence among the characters. The last part of our discussion was a debate centered around if Hester and Dimmesdales' meeting in the forest was good or bad. There were many conflicting ideas about this, and the predominate answer came to be that it was both good and bad. Finally, our homework for tonight is to read the next two chapters (pg. 19 and 20).
One of the things I struggle most with in this book is that there is no definite right or wrong. Being a person who likes answers rather black and white, the many different interpretations of the book get me all confused. It sometimes frustrates me, for even when I have a eureka! moment, I soon after get lost in deeper analysis. But, I guess that is also part of the beauty of writing and literature. It can mean many different things to many different people. Because of that, I really enjoy our group discussions in class. I've recently found a really good quote about confusion, that helped me come to terms with the difficulties that come with interpreting literature. “Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity,” said by Michael J. Gelb. I liked this quote, for it helped me realize that great ideas can come from just pulling things out of the confused wad of thoughts in your head. This is also a helpful concept for writing papers, for while at first you may not know what to write about, you may eventually come up with some extremely creative ideas. Lastly, the word of the day is "wicked." I think there is so much power behind just the pronunciation of this word. This word is defined as evil, immoral, bad, or playfully malicious. I thought that this was a great descriptive word to use in reference to Pearl's behavior. Sample Sentence: The wicked children taunted the poor substitute teacher by switching names, dropping things on the floor, and pulling pranks.