12/11/2010

This week I was only at school for two days, so I'm not entirely sure what they did in class most of the week.  On Monday, my group shared our opinions and discussion questions about homosexuals in school.  It was interesting to hear everyone's opinions and ideas regarding the issue.  Then on Friday, we read a story about two enemies facing each other, and being unexpectedly peaceful.  I liked the story because it had a lot deeper of a meaning than it originally seemed to have.  After that, we watched the older version of When A Stranger Calls.  It was kind of random, but fun.  And that was my week in English.

12/04/2010

This week in English, we read a lot of stories dealing with concentration camps in Germany and in America.  It kind of surprised me, because I never knew about the internment camps that they placed Japanese Americans in.  Ironically, we started learning about them at the exact same time in History.  Also, we watched most of a movie about a family in the holocaust.  Which, I'll admit, almost made me cry.  I stand by my previous comment about liking this unit better than the last...it's a lot more interesting to learn about.

The Great Debaters, Nightjohn, and Mascot. 11/27/2010

      During the chapters that we read of Nightjohn, John was brought to the same place as Sarny to work as a slave.  One night, while most people were asleep, she gives him tobacco, and in return, he agrees to teach her the letters A, B, and C.  Later on, Alice ran away and was whipped until her back was bleeding terribly and opened up.  The story also told about two other men who had also attempted to run away.  Later, Sarny finds out that John was, at some point, free.  But, he had come back to the south for the sole purpose of teaching people to read.
      The chapters from Mascot were a little bit different.  The main character, Malcolm X, was sent to live with Mrs. Swerlin at a reform school.  He was given a large amount of freedom, but soon began to realize that the Swerlin family thought of him as no more than a pet.  He then went to visit Ella in Boston, and realized how diverse and non-racist it was there.  When Malcolm returned back home, he became very bitter and annoyed with the people around him, because before going to Boston, he had never noticed how differently everyone had treated him.
      The Great Debaters related to these two stories in many ways.  For example, Nightjohn and the movie both had a white man torturing a black man for no reason.  Also, both were in the time period that all white people considered themselves superior.  However, the major difference was that in Nightjohn, the main characters were slaves, while in The Great Debaters they were all free. 
      Mascot was a little bit more like the movie, in the way that all of the main characters were free.  Another similarity was that the city of Boston had a big impact on the story.  However, in Mascot Malcolm X went to a mostly white school, while The Great Debaters went to an all black school.  For the most part, though, they all had a similar message.

11/21/2010

Well, I just remembered that our blogs were due today, so I'll probably lose a few points...oops.
Anyway, this week we read a lot of stories about civil rights', and then we watched a movie called "The Great Debators".  So far it's really good, but a couple of people have told me that I'm going to cry...which I'm not looking forward to.  I'm glad that we finished the whole trial section (or so I hope), and moved on to civil rights'.  In my opinion, it's much more important to know about, anyway.
Well, that's about it...except next week we only have school on Monday and Tuesday :D.  I'm super excited to go to Indiana with my mom.  Hopefully we won't have to do a blog this week...?

11/14/10

Basically all we did this week in English was watch 12 Angry Men.  Except, on Wednesday all sophmores got to go see the play To Kill A Mockingbird during 2nd and 3rd period.  For the most part, it was good, although I feel like it left out a lot.  In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Boo Radley had a huge role in ithe beginning.  However, in their play he wasn't really mentioned until the final scene.  I think it would have been a lot better if they had explained it more along the way.  If I hadn't already read the book, I probably wouldn't have known what was going on.  Still, the acting was really good, and they did fit most of the important scenes in...so it was a fairly good play, and I enjoyed it.

11/06/2010

This week in english, we started reading the play 12 Angry Men.  I really wasn't looking forward to it because I've already seen the movie, and I remember how riveting that was (sarcasm intended).  Then again, I was like seven at the time, so I can't say that I understood any of it, either.  I remembered the ending, as well as bits and pieces of the rest...so I guess that was somewhat amusing to see what I forgot.  I'm kind of hoping that we DON'T watch the movie, though, because it was pretty dull.  Honestly, I don't understand the whole connection between trials and English that this class has seemed to take on.  I couldn't care less about these kind of things, which has made it difficult for me to get into any of the projects/assignments that we've done.  Although, I will admit that To Kill A Mockingbird turned out to be a lot better than I'd expected.  I was suprised about how easy it was to understand (for the most part), and also liked the realistic aspect of it.  Overall, I'd say it was my favorite unit so far this year.

Yep..

Well, here I am writing my first ever blog post...woo!  Yeah, I probably should have started this thing a while ago.  I'm not even sure how many I'm supposed to have posted xD oops.  But, since I don't have any intentions on failing English, I figured that I'd give this thing a go sooner rather than later. 
So, this week was pretty crazy.  I'm liking the whole 'only 3 days of school' thing, expecially since I was absent for one.  Wednesday had a late arrival, which was also a nice bonus.  Although, I was a little panic-y last night because I hadn't done my colorguard routine for a week or so.  But then we got to Grove City and performed, and it was all good:).  Except I ended up on the complete wrong side of the field, but the audience doesn't have to know...  So yep, that's all I got.  Hopefully that will be enough for this week.