Strenghts and Weaknesses

   As a moderately experienced writer, I have come to find my strengths and weaknesses in writing. I have always been decent at getting my point across. I always try to use sufficient detail to make sure I have everything I need to prove my point. I also reflect upon my information with my own thoughts to help the reader understand what I am ring to get across. With sufficient detail and my own thought process behind it, my reader can understand exactly what point I want to get across.

     However, I have one huge weakness that can sometimes overpower my strengths and completely ruin my writing. Whenever I jump deep into a topic or source, I often lose my coherence. So even though I provide detail and my own thoughts, the reader still might be confused on my writing. If they cannot keep up with my writing or if I jumped around to much when I wrote it, it completely defeats the point of me writing it.

Hits and Misses

     Every writer has their own personal preferences on the techniques and topics they want to write about. This year we had multiple opportunities to figure out what we liked most to write about. My "hit" would have to be he research project. The research project took a long time and was extremely challenging but was extremely beneficial to me. We were given an opportunity to write an arguable thesis about anything related to World History. I learned how to extract factual information from trustworthy sources and cite them properly. It was a huge learning experience.

     I could not come up with any piece of writing that we did that was unable to teach me something valuable about English and literature. Everything that ranged from easy to near impossible to write still taught me at least one important thing about writing. However, the personal narrative was the least helpful to me, and I consider it a miss because I have already written multiple pieces similar to it. Even though it was the least helpful, it still taught me much I did not already know.

Comments

Nick Delehaye 

Saad Ali

Digital Effects from social media

     As a frequent user of social media, I have my own opinions on how it affects the human brain. Apps such as Instagram are addicting and seem like a great way to share your experiences with friends and family. As you start off you might have a smaller amount of followers, but you will still get some likes or comments. The first time you get some likes or a comment, your brain gets shot with a chemical called dopamine that makes you feel like you are having a social interaction with a person  even though you are not.

     This is where a problem arises. Once you feel the thrill of getting some likes or comments on a post, it somewhat replaces the need for you interact with people outside of the internet. We are a social species that needs face to face interaction to maintain good health. However, these apps take advantage of every person’s want to feel accepted and be given attention and make people feel as though they are having these needs met. There are so many teens who have thousands of Instagram followers but have trouble interacting in real life with actual people.

Purple Hibiscus Readingg Response

     Purple Hibiscus up to the page 216 has a pattern of two issues, uncomfortable social situations and physical abuse. Almost all of these instances can be tracked down to an interaction with Papa. Papa is severely religious and forces his own beliefs upon his family or punishes them for their disobedience. Whenever Papa is around his family, he seems to be searching for something to call them out on. He has such strict rules that his family must follow that no normal human would consider logical. Papa’s pregnant wife was feeling sick before church, but Papa practically forced her to go inside.

     As I described in the previous paragraph, Papa is willing to make his family beyond uncomfortable in the name of religion. However, Papa is also ready to take matters into his own hands when he deems it necessary. In multiple scenes, Papa is beating either his wife or his to kids because of their “sins”. Kambile returned home from her aunt’s house with a painting of her grandfather, who was not christian, and was found admiring it. Papa saw this admiration as an act of Satan himself and beats his daughter to near death. These examples I explained show how Papa is the cause of most issues in this novel.

Comments

JC

Katie

Political post

Fox News

     President Trump recently suggested that between 2000-4000 National Guard troops be stationed at the US-Mexico border in order to stop the "lawlessness that continues" in this place. This request was placed under federal law Title 32, which allows state governors control over troops of their state. The article describes multiple states responses to this request from President Trump. Arizona's republican governor, Doug Ducey, decided to send 338 Guards in the name of public safety and stated that these Guards will provide air support, assist with building the border, and keep close watch of it. Democratic governor of California, Jerry Brown, has not replied to this request.

     Susana Martinez, republican governor of New Mexico, responded and sent 80 troops but says 250 will eventually serve at the border. Lastly, Texas' republican governor, Greg Abbott, agreed to send 1000 troops to the border over time to end illegal immigration. Whatever viewpoint one has on this matter, they cannot deny that it is happening. Highly skilled troops are being sent to the US-Mexico border and security will be tighter than ever. I stumbled upon this topic when I realized how many of my friends' parents were Immigrants, and I found an article from Fox News and knew it would have factual information for me to use. Immigration is an extremely controversial subject that I want to better understand, so that one day in the future I might be able implement humane laws that insure the public safety of the United States.

Comments

Zoe

Saad

Purple Hibiscus reading response

     Throughout Purple Hibiscus, Adichie depicts tension between a father named Papa and his family. Papa is a very religious man who is thought of as a caring man who gives to the community. However, his actions toward his family completely contradict the popular belief of this man. Papa is actually an extremely unstable man who claims to be religious but instead is violent and deceiving. In one scene, Kambili hears a loud thumping sound against the wall of her house. Papa was beating his pregnant wife in order to kill the baby.

     Kambili immediately knew what happened to her mom, however she refused to believe it. Kambili and her brother Jaja have an odd relationship in where the deny the situation with their father. On my opinion, they do this because they don’t want to admit how bad their situation is with their father. It is some kind of a coping mechanism. It’s horrible that he two refuse to talk about it, because the two would be better able to deal with this if they did.

Creative Free Post

    Theater has been such an invigorating path that I have taken in the last few years of my life. I have made sims unlikely relationships with people I did not particularly like at first. The environment that my director created is so accepting and rarely causes any form of awkwardness. My short career just started 2 years ago in the 7th grade where I was in a musical called the “Lion King”. I was a hyena among many others in the most exciting ensemble scene.

     In my second production I was in a different musical, this time in 8th grade, called “Willy Wonka”. This time I was an extremely rich British man named Mr. Salt. This was a humorous part and a lot of fun to me play. This would be a big step from my hyena part last year, but luckily it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. My latest role was in the play “Evangeline” where I played a Cajun man who was obsessed with finding “Da One”. This awesome experience is getting better by each passing year, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me!

comments

Zoe

Fox

Song Interpretation

   The song "When I Was Your Man" from Bruno Mars describes a person's views and regrets of a past relationship. Throughout the song it has a slow beat the emphasizes how the speaker was upset with how a relationship turned out after they treated their partner wrongly. The song uses many techniques to support the dreadful feeling the song portrays.

   In the middle of the song, Bruno adds in some slant rhyme to make the song be slightly more catchy be uses good word choice to make sure the point gets across. He uses personification whenever describing how the emotions he felt were "Tearing" him apart. These techniques helped emphasize just how powerful and painful the emotions were for the speaker, and they truly help individuals better understand the point Bruno Mars was trying to get across.

https://genius.com/Bruno-mars-when-i-was-your-man-lyrics

Waffle Fries

Waffle Fries

are a large prize

for anyone to eat

As I arrive, I can not hide, it's time to stuff my face

There was a man who ate at a ridiculous pace

I thought I ate faster the the entire human race

However this fat man put me right back in my place

I cannot wait, for it's my fate, i might lay down a beat

He would rate eight out of eight, but i did it for the yeet

Now I have become super late, guess ill eat some meat

Comments

Naya

Cason

Motives and Breaks

   It is extremely important to use time to get work done and be productive. Whenever you find yourself at school or work, you should work hard and purposely. However it would impossible to do this without two things, motives and breaks. The motives help you push through the work while the breaks give time to calm down after working hard.Whenever you find yourself exhausted and want to give up or sleep, just remember why you are doing something.

    There are many reasons why you are working so hard. Many people are fighting for their future, and others are fighting for the future of their children. However, you can’t just fight on forever without a proper break from it all. Breaks keep your brain fresh and keep you happy. Ideally, you should have something exciting planned once a weekend to look forward to and work hard to reach it.  And once your reach your weekend, enjoy yourself and prepare to begin working next weekend.

Launch Day

     I was sadly unable to attend Launch day because I was ill the day of. So, I have decided to write a blog on what I thought would be an intriguing topic for a Launch day of a future year. The topic could be about the extreme importance of time management and how to manage one's time better. I think the main point that it would address is how each individual decides what they believe is important to use their time towards.

    Many people dedicate all of their time to school, or all of their times to sports. Other people are able to balance multiple activities into  their schedules. However it is imperative that you don't commit to more than you can handle. I have personally wanted to do way to many things at once, but even though they are all exciting, it overall makes things too stressful.

Comments

Kc Shimada

Fox 

Research Post

   My research project is about Pearl Harbor. I am trying to answer the question of what were Japan's motives behind Pearl Harbor and short-term effects of it. Japan wanted to conquer Southeast Asia and parts of the Pacific to essentially make the Pacific Ocean Japan's lake. However, the U.S. was not a fan of this conquest, so Japan needed a way to delay America from preventing this conquering. What makes this topic so interesting to me is how well planned the attack was and how well it worked at first.

   Japan was extremely careful in making sure that fleet that the fleet traveling to Pearl Harbor had complete radio silence. The fleet sailed behind a large weather front to remain undetected from radar. Furthermore, Japan knew that Pearl Harbor had loose security on Sunday mornings and they used it to their advantage. The attack was so successful because off the great planning behind the attack.

Reading Reflection

   In the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a young Indian boy describes his experiences  of leaving his comfort zone and joining an all white school. The story is very humorous and has funny references that most teens would enjoy. Though depressing as times, Junior always manages to sneak in comedy to make the story less dark and more friendly. However the comedy is not too ridiculous to prevent getting important points across.

   It is interesting to see how Junior has such guts even though he is considered as a weak boy. Whenever the huge bully got up in his face, Junior punched him even though the bully would win in a fight. This story allows you to see the world through a poor Indian's eyes who is fighting for some stability in his life.

Comments

Gregory Field
Robert Xing