Jonah’s English Blog

 Today we finished up our murals. I was the summarize so I summarized the beginning, middle, and end of the story, "The Rockpile." We also worked on discussion questions for the story. I learned how to quickly skim through a story and get the necessary information to understand what is going on. I think that this assignment has been fun and rather simple so far. I have enjoyed working in a group with friends. Today is Halloween, and I am excited to hang out with friends tonight. I am a little upset that it's on a school night because we can't stay out as late. I also have swim practice after school which is normally pretty fun. 

 Today we continued our project on "The Rockpile" by James Baldwin. I finished reading the story and made good progress on my part of our Mural presentation. I enjoyed the story and am trying to find a deeper meaning of it for my summaries. I think that our final project will look pretty good and fulfill the assignment. My day today has been good so far. I'm going to have a busy night tonight because I have swim practice as well as a baseball game later. I also have some physics homework to work on when I get home. 

 Today in class we started working on a group project. We are to fulfill our part of the assignment by completing the actions given to us in our assigned roles. My role is the summarize, which seems simple but also challenging at the same time. This assignment will be fun to complete with a group and the story seems interesting. So far I have learned how to use a new website called "Mural" and have started reading and analyzing the first two pages of the story. My day today was overall pretty good. We had our first swim practice today which was fun, and I also had a team banquet for water polo that was also fun and entertaining. At the banquet, we had Mexican food for a delicious dinner. I received the "no-show" reward because I never went to any of the games because baseball conflicted with it. 

 Today we wrote a paragraph using an article on the effects of social media. We had to create a thesis statement and then back up one claim using the evidence from the article. I learned how to better format my argument essays. I thought this assignment was helpful because I improved my skills and knowledge. My day today has been good so far, I’m excited for the weekend and hoco. I have a few tests today but I think that I am well prepared. 

 Today we finished our worksheet on evidence. We have a shorter class period today because of the pep rally at the end of the day. Luckily, the assignment was fairly simple and I was able to finish it before the end of class. I enjoyed the assignment because we worked independently. I learned how to find evidence and back up claims using it. My day has been good so far, I’m excited for the homecoming football game later tonight. I have some tests tomorrow so I’ll have to study for those tonight. 

 Absent

 Today we worked on an assignment where we read an article about Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving. Then we analyzed some of the claims and found the evidence the author used to back them up. I learned how to better locate and analyze claims and evidence, and I will use this knowledge in my own writing to help improve it. I enjoyed this lesson because it was fairly simple and easy to understand, while also helping me learn how to back up claims with evidence. My day today has been good. I did well in swim tryouts yesterday and I think that I will make the team. Today is also my dad's birthday so I'm excited to celebrate him later tonight. 

 Today we worked on our vocabulary for Lesson 5. I created a slideshow on Google Slides that shows different images that represent the words and their definitions. I explained my reason for choosing the image and how it represents the vocab word. I enjoyed the work for today because it was a fairly simple assignment and I was able to work independently. My day has been good so far, I have swim tryouts after school which I am a little nervous for. I have been conditioning and working out though so I think I will do well. I am sad that the break is over but I am also glad to have something to do instead of just playing video games all day. I also got a new dog this break which is very fun and exciting. 

 Today we talked about the poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks and worked on a paper where we analyzed the poem. I thought the poem was very interesting and enjoyed going in-depth in it. I learned that the poem talked about how we can be uncertain about what is cool and what is not cool. I think that through experiences in life, we can learn more about ourselves and see that what we thought was cool is actually not. My day today has been good so far, we watched a movie in Spanish class about the famous singer Selena. I thought it was a good movie and I learned about her life and impact. I am very excited about the upcoming break, I need a break from school and I think this will be fun and relaxing. 

 Today we worked on an assignment where we had to identify 10 claims from an article and identify what type of claim they were. I learned how to easily identify claims and also that articles are full of claims that you might not even realize are there. I enjoyed this assignment because it was fairly simple and we were able to work independently on it. My day today has been good so far, I have nothing after school except for an art project to work on and homework to do. I am looking forward to the upcoming break. 

 Today we worked on an assignment in which we backed up our claims from a prompt using evidence. We put into practice what we learned yesterday and are using our experiences, observations, and reading as evidence. I learned how to more efficiently come up with and use evidence to back up an argument. I thought that this lesson was interesting and helpful but also a little boring because we were just working in silence the whole class period. My day today has been good, I had pancakes for breakfast which were delicious. I had to write a DBQ in APUSH which was hard but other than that school has been pretty easy today. I also have baseball later today which I am excited for. 

Today we took notes on evidence. I learned that evidence can come from 3 categories; experiences, observations, and readings. I learned you must have credible evidence to support a claim or argument. I enjoyed this lesson and hearing everyone's opinions on Lakeside when we discussed the issues here. I thought it was interesting to compare it to other schools. My day today has been good. I have nothing after school today so I am just going to chill at home and do homework for physics. 

 Today we worked on a paper about finding criteria for a claim for an argument. I found it was very interesting and I enjoyed this assignment. I learned how to establish a claim and find criteria to back it up. My day today has been pretty good. I happy that it is Friday and the weekend is coming up. However, I’m not going to be able to relax this weekend because I am going to Florida with my church to help clean up the damage from the recent hurricane. 

 Today we took a benchmark test. It was pretty easy in my opinion. I found the text was easy to understand and I didn’t have a hard time writing my essay. My day today has been good so far, I have a physics test coming up that I think will be pretty hard. So hopefully I do good on it. 

 Today we learned that when presenting an argument, it is vitally important to know your audience. if you say something wrong or offensive you could completely ruin your whole argument and turn everyone in the audience against you. We also started working on a sheet where we use either logos, pathos, or ethos to try to convince an audience. You need to adapt your argument based on the audience you are speaking to. My day today has been good so far, I have nothing after school so I am planning on just relaxing and doing homework. I also need to finish up my National Honor Society application. 

 Today we learned about arguments and took notes on logos, pathos, and ethos. We watched videos of advertisements and analyzed how they are arguments and whether they used logos, pathos, or ethos. I found this lesson very interesting because it is cool to learn about how different things affect us and manipulate our decisions and actions. My day today has been good, I had waffles for breakfast which were delicious and have water polo practice later today.