Jordan's English Blog

 I feel like we should get a free day for these reasons. The first reason being that it’s Friday.  Who wouldn’t want a free day at the end of the week?  My next reason is that we’re all tired.  A lot happened this week and some of us have things to do later today.  Lastly, some of us have harder classes next and we need to refuel our energy for those classes.  

 Today we didn’t do anything because we had this thing going on for drunk driving awareness.  We had to go outside and watch this set up scene of a car crash and people acting out this scenario.  My friend was one of the actors in the scene.  This lasted pretty much the whole class period.  Before the bell rang, I left because I had to go change.  I had to change out of my ROTC uniform.  I definitely wasn't gonna wear it all day; those shoes hurt!

 Today was the first day back from break. There isn’t much to talk about because there’s not much that we did. We got 15 vocabulary words and had to write original sentences including them. Then we had to do exercises 1 and 3. Exercise 1 was filling in the blanks of scenarios with certain vocabulary words. Exercise 3 was two multiple choice questions. Throughout that time, my friends and I were talking and joking around but I finished my work on time. I’m proud of myself for that because I know I usually can’t talk and do work at the same time.

 In class today, we talked about being called something that we considered offensive. Everyone in class shared their word and mine was “stupid”.  I don’t know why but whenever someone calls me that, even if it’s just a joke, I get slightly triggered. I feel like just because I’m goofy or sometimes I might take longer to get things doesn’t make me stupid. After we all discussed that, we read a short narration of a boy who was called an offensive slur. The slur was the “N word” with the “er” at the end. Our assignment was to write a diary entry as if we were the narrator that had experienced that. That was pretty much all we did besides takes notes which I forgot to mention.

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 Happy Valentine’s Day! xoxo     Today was a different day. Mr.Rease didn't teach us; instead another lady did. Unfortunately, I forgot her name. Her overall lesson for us today was on the topic of oppression. That's what we wrote about for our bell ringer. The question was asking what oppression was.  I said that oppression is the suppression of one group by another and gave a few examples.  These examples included ageism, racism, and classism; which were all subjects of prejudice which is the biggest reason for oppression. After we read and analyzed her favorite poem which was Harlem by Langston Hughes.  Harlem was about what happens to dreams that we don't pursue.  We discussed and talked about that poem as well as shared some opinions about oppression in the black community.  In the end, she asked us what are dreams were and to write them down on a heart shaped paper.  I wrote mine in the form of a poem which basically said that I dream to share my artistic visions to t

    Today in class, we got another poem. This one was finally by a different author. We’ve had different authors but for the most part, it’s just been Emily Dickinson and I don’t care for her. The author we got this time was Maya Angelou. The poem’s name was ‘The Black Family’. It was about how the black community has started to become disconnected from their roots, ancestors, and spirituality. For this reason, our youth is becoming lost. In the end of the poem there was a pledge for the black community to basically not lose sight of where we came from and who we were.

  Today in class, we turned in our one pager for our poems. I didn’t finish coloring mine so I quickly colored what I could before turning it in. Everyone had to present. I saw some good illustrations on people’s projects and heard good presentations. I was the last person to go up. I wasn’t nervous but I didn’t know how to explain a lot of what I wanted due to a lack of vocabulary.  Besides that, I think my presentation was alright. Also, I got a 95 on that vocabulary test.

 

 I came to class late today so I missed whatever lesson there was in the beginning of class.  I was late because I was in a Junior conference.  When I came into class, they seemed to be talking about community intervention.  Mr. Rease gave us a writing prompt which was: “how should the city of atlanta  prevent gun violence among teens”?  We had to come up with our own solutions citing evidence from the passage.  I had a solution but Mr.Rease debunked it.  I then had to come up with another solution which was hard because I didn't want to sound repetitive with the original passage but I managed to get it done.

 Today in class, we finished reading a poem by Emily Dickinson.  Since we've been going over how to analyze poetic texts, we had to do it on our own. Once we came up with our on conclusions, we shared it with our teacher and the class. He would then decide whether what we got from the poem was actually what it was saying.  After that, we were assigned poems at random and put in groups with people who had the same poems.  In the group, we read the poems and analyzed each stanza carefully.  When we came to some kind of understanding, we paraphrased it like usual.  I did try to communicate with my group a little but I guess it was awkward since none of us really talk to each other and three of them just didn't talk at all. We did that until the bell rang and that was it.