No Comments

end of the year reflection

2011
06.06

At the beginning of the year, everyone was so young. our minds were fresh out of middle school. Weather we wanted to or not we were here to learn; our brains absorbing all the knowledge they can. After a giant kick of reality, we learned, and i learned, how high school should really portray to us. while we sit and think back at the beginning days of high school, we find it out sketched in our mind on what our tasks are to do, what goals to set, and how to keep them forever in our heads so we don’t forget what high school is really about.

Cyber English was a big step in my learning process. I was able to recap on some literary rules and terms that I had learned the previous year in the 8th grade. Because high school is such a big step up from middle school, so were the classes. Although cyber English wasn’t very challenging, the writing and blogging of it all were stressed filled moments. Sometimes when I were to type for my independent reading I would be frustrated, thinking it wouldn’t look or sound right. Or that maybe people would read my blogs and never believe I wrote them. Now that I know how challenging English class really was, I had to focus more about what I needed to do in order to become a successful writer.

Some of the things I’ve learned were how to make complete sentenced, and fix run on sentences and fragments. This was a big help because if I ever read through my stories, I could catch many of my mistakes that I saw in my blog posts.

Some of the changes that I noticed in myself from the beginning of the year were that I actually had the motivation to write on my blog posts. Before high school, English was doing worksheets and reading books chosen for us. Here in cyber English, there is more freedom. You get to read the books you want and all you have to do is post blog posts about the book and your understanding of it all. If you do that, you just have to use your knowledge to keep the paragraph making sense and giving the reader what they want to see; you’re unique and creative, individual words.

My favorite book had to be to kill a mocking bird. As crazy as that may seem, it’s the truth. It was the most well written novel I had ever read. I absolutely loved the characters and sometimes I got a little emotional whenever something went bad for Jem and scout

After remembering my beginning years as a freshman, every thing I learned is very useful information. If I were to ever forget this class, I wouldn’t be able to become an author or journalist, my dream career for well into the future. Thank you Ms. Hogue.

Category Uncategorized |

No Comments

Newspaper Project

2011
06.01

Maycomb weekly, the scoop on everything maycomb. This week’s issue is on Miss Maudie’s home on fire, Tim Johnson’s death, and a letter to the editor by our own Miss Stephanie Crawford. ENJOY!

Category TKAM |

No Comments

Penn’s Journal

2011
05.20

In this blog post I tried to show a journal that the main character would have and what he would write down in the last few days of his begining troubles.

Journal Entry #1: It seems that the voices weren’t from my parents arguing. It baffled me where in the world the voices came from. I refuse to accept that I’ve gone crazy or something like that. I figured it was probably someone outside but I knew those voices belonged to my parents. Matty said he heard nothing, and now he must think something’s wrong. The last thing I need is for my brother to worry about me, if he does he’ll end up telling our parents. Hopefully by tomorrow the voices will go away.

Journal Entry #2: I like the new girl, Daisy, from school. My fantasies of her and I being together are so real to me. My imagination leaves me wishing that it was reality. She’s only been here a few days and I’m pushing the word “love” into my head. When I talked to her she looked completely uninterested. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to talk to pretty girls. It shocked me that she wasn’t Chinese. She must think our school is bad now that everyone kept saying and thinking she was Chinese. I thought she was too. I don’t think I could take it if she didn’t like me.

Journal Entry #3: The voices have returned. This time I heard them in the café while I was with Matty. To make things worse my uncle showed up stuttering like a fool. A voice that belonged to my uncle told me that he controlled the voices and that only he could stop them. I was terrified, what am I going to do now? My uncle may not even know about these voices, yet he’s telling me things I don’t know where from. If this continues I’m afraid I’ll have to go to some mental hospital. That is the LAST thing I want to happen.

Category The King Of Pygmies |

No Comments

CJ May:Grades vs. Cyber English

2011
05.11

Report cards say multiple things about an individual. It shows if their trying, progressing in class, and earning their grades. If their report cards show no improvement and even doing worse than before, it shows their lack or respect for school, their teachers, and themselves. In order to do well in school you have to respect yourself and your future. If ones report card shows many D’s and F’s, they may not be trying. If ones report card shows many A’s and B’s, you know their education is important to them.

During Cyber English, your progress can only be shown in your blog. The amount of work you put into those blogs show how well you did. The majority of the effort you did does result into your grades but if your blog post show that they have improved, then only your blog can show your true quality in Cyber English.

Category Cyber Journal |

No Comments

A Lonely Boo

2011
05.10

Arthur “boo” Radley seems to be the loneliest character in To Kill a Mockingbird. This is unfortunate because of how the story turns out; he isn’t the worst guy out there. Boo turns out to be a kind, child minded man who just wishes for the safety of others.

Because of the conditions of Maycomb, being filled with many prejudice people, he finds it scary to be apart of the outside world even though it’s only Maycomb he knows of.

No one really bothered to find out the truth about the Radley family, they just started rumors like Miss Stephanie Crawford tended to do, time to time.

Even though Boo was an adult, he didn’t have any friends or company other than is brother. He was alone for his entire life and wanted to keep it that way. His only Friends he ever thought of keeping were Jem and Scout; never meeting or talking to them he still kept them close.

Occasionally sneaking out of the house at night, he could only help his friends by keeping them out of trouble. When Jem had caught his pants in the school yard fence, it was Boo that stitched them up and folded them. When Miss Maudie’s house caught on fire, it was Boo that put the blanket around Scout.

For being alone for so long, he still found happiness by helping and watching his friends from down the street. If Boo Radley weren’t so afraid of the outside world, who knows how Scout and Jem would have ended up.

Category TKAM |

1 Comment

CJ April: Book Choice

2011
04.29

When we choose the books for independent reading I think we feel the freedom we get when we are allowed to read what ever genre or subject we want. When I choose a book and I don’t like it I can’t complain because I’m the one who chose it. Also I have the choice to get a new book. When we are to read books like To Kill a Mockingbird and don’t like it we know we have to but don’t have to enjoy it. When we read books we choose we imagine things clearer or in our own way. When we read books that are chosen for us we know there’s a lesson to be learn so we look for it deliberately. There’s nothing wrong with either ways of reading just as long as we understand the book itself.

Category Cyber Journal |

No Comments

Growing up quickly

2011
04.25

As soon as part two starts with chapter twelve, Jem grows up to be twelve years old. As he grew up, he changed quite a lot. Everyone including Scout, Calpurnia, and Atticus notice this. The only one of them that has a problem with it is Scout, his littler sister.

In the earlier chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem is more playful, relaxed, and always coming up with new ways to have fun with Dill and Scout. The first few days he and Scout became friends with Dill, they were thinking of ways to get Boo Radley to come out, or making their own scripts and plays about the Radley family.

During the older chapters, Jem becomes a more serious character. He wants to be left alone most of the time, he doesn’t bother going up in the tree house anymore, and always has his nose in a football magazine. This is a big change because he is considered an adult even at the age of twelve. Calpurnia calls him mister Jem, and even Jem himself threatens to spank Scout for misbehaving as if he was an adult figure to her.

This isn’t exactly a bad thing. Jem feels as though he needs to become like an adult so he can take care of his family. He constantly worries about Atticus, knowing something wrong is happening. He says “I’ve just got this feeling…” right before he, Dill and Scout go out of the house at night to see Atticus surrounded by strangers. Once they got home, he lets Scout sleep in his bed because she had been crying in her bedroom.

As Jem grows up he does have the right to be called mister even at such a young age. His attitude grows more and more like an adult and he acts protective in many ways. As the story goes on, it is certain that Jem will let his role a young adult grow stronger and will help future conflicts that may happen.

Category TKAM |

No Comments

March CJ

2011
04.04

The access of Power School is very important to me and my GPA. Of course Power school shows my GPA every day while it can be updated by all the teachers I have. This allows me to know what I’ve improved on in the past semesters, quarters; I can even see the previous classes I’ve had. While Power School is running I’m allowed to see if I can work on bad grades or see if I’m missing any assignments given to me in the past. As long as Power School is accessible to me every day for me to check, I can observe my grades and see if my GPA is getting closer and closer to a 4.0.

Not only is this a benefit to me but also to my parents, and many other parents. Once they know how to log in on their child’s name, they can see if they have improved or how well they are doing in school. I’m sure that seeing good grades and a high GPA is a great thing to see everyday. Power School even reminds me of the goals I have set and is a great influence on my grades, for the most part.

Category Cyber Journal |

No Comments

A Familar Setting

2011
04.04

The setting of shiver is familiar to our world because of the weather and climate conditions. If anything, the setting reminds me a lot of Wisconsin, just that there is no mention of cattle at all, just wolves; still familiar though. Where the main characters live, it’s a harshly cold area where slush and snow are always in the streets and when summer finally comes, it’s not long enough.

While I read this book I’m most familiar with the woods and how they would look like if you were just outside of them. I can imagine tall thin trees that are striped of their leaves, shaking in the treetops from the wind.

Even a scene in the book is familiar, while Sam investigates a house that belonged to a boy who recently ‘died’, he finds a room full of stuffed animals such as deer heads and other wild animals. You could easily imagine what it would look like from the main characters point of view. The only unfamiliar setting I can remember is when Sam was taken to the hospital by Grace. All I could imagine was a different scene from a movie, because in the movie there had been a hospital scene.

All in all, the book shiver has a very Wisconsin like feel to it, just without the farms.

Category Shiver |

No Comments

Food Culture Reflection

2011
04.04

My first reaction when I was introduced to this topic was “Does that mean I have to change?” I figured that out of everything I learned that I just might. All the eating habits that are frowned upon by all of these documentaries or articles leaves me thinking that I might be doing something wrong.

The first video that I had watched about the food culture was Super Size Me, the documentary that showed how bad McDonalds is and how cheap and unhealthy food it held. The man did an experiment by eating McDonalds for every meal for thirty days. His health results were poor and at one time very dangerous for his heart. He even found out more information on McDonalds and the obesity rate it caused.

That documentary was what we were to watch in both science and culinary arts. Even for this unit in cyber English, we had already found out some of the flaws in eating properly.

This unit started out with a video on a TED talk about children and families struggling to eat healthy. The man who was on the video showed how expensive healthy food is and how cheap unhealthy food is. He proved his point, showing a family that couldn’t even buy a pound of grapes but could buy 5 things on a dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. To me this looked like a serious problem, and the man said so too. He even pointed out that because of America’s bad eating habits, that other countries like England were doing the same too. I kind of felt guilty.

After we had watched the TED talk, we watched Food inc. which illustrated how food corporations and slaughter houses worked. It terrified me to think how cruel and secretive some companies can be. The abuse of animals, flavor disguising chemicals, and even diseases like E. coli were results in this documentary. My question was “How could America let this happen?”

Video after video I watched how our nation was developing in a scary and unhealthy way. It made me want to help in some way and I found out I could. With a little bit of effort and determination I could grow gardens, feed future children healthy food, and put a statement on the healthy life that could be and should be ours.

Category Assignments |

« Older Entries