Last Blog of the Year!

My favorite topic was the topic of what we like today and what type of things we think are good.
My least favorite topic was Harlem. I did not like it because I found it very long and confusing.
I think I put a lot of effort into my blogs. I put more effort into the ones I thought were interesting rather than the ones that I did not like so much and you can tell which ones I liked by how much I wrote about them. I definitely wrote the minimum for the blogs that I did not like.
I think overall the blogs were a good experience and way to learn about the topics being discussed in class. I also enjoyed very much that the blogs did not have a specific due date so I could do them when I had the time since the life of a high schooler is already so busy.
I have learned about each individual topic that we had to write about such as Native Americans, African American slaves and many other topics.
My top three stories that we have read this year:
1) The Pit and the Pendelum
2) The Fall of the House of Usher
3) The Notorious Jumping Frog

Advice

Advice to Miss Wolff:   
     1) Allowing the students to be creative and actually do activities such as the graffiti board rather than regularly discussing stories, books, and poems has been a nice change of pace and was very helpful. Take notes on Ms. Williams teaching style!
     2) Watching movies that relate to the topics of discussion in class really help the students to understand the time period in which the story was held.

The Great Gatsby Music

I believe that the song "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin relates to The Great Gatsby because it talks about a man that is so in love with a woman, but they are seperated, like Gatsby and Daisy were in their lives after Louisville. Gatsby was consumed by missing Daisy and he could "never get used to it".

"The Best Things In Life Are Free" by The Ink Spots goes along with the events in our book because even though Gatsby had all of the money he could have ever wanted, he was still unhappy because he did not have the love or Daisy.

Mark Twain

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear." -Mark Twain
I like this quote because there are a lot of people out there who think they are brave and that they are not afraid of anything, but in reality everyone has fears. I think that the real couragous people are the ones that don't let their fears get in the way of persuing their dreams and doing what they want. I wish I could be able to be more courageous and do what I want to do without my fears getting in my way.

What's Good.

There are so many things that I could write about that I love right now. My favorite movie, tv show, singer, and book. I can not pick between them so I will do a couple sentences about each. :)

My all time favorite movie is Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey. I love this movie because it is a great chick flick about two best friends falling in love. It is adorable, really funny, and I could watch it over and over again.

My favorite tv show is definitely Criminal Minds. This show is extremely addicting and I even got my parents addicted to it. It can be gross and give me the creeps sometimes, but I love the characters and it is really interesting to see them analyze serial killers. Also, the fact that my math teacher reminds my friends and I of one of the characters, Spencer Reid, makes it interesting.



Next, my favorite singer is Luke Bryan. I love country music, I always have, always will and Luke Bryan is one of the best country singers I have ever heard. He has a great voice, his music just makes me want to put on my cowgirl boots and get lost out in the country. The fact that he is super attractive is also a plus. I love all of his songs and I can't wait to see him in concert again this summer.<3


Finally, my favorite book is The Hunger Games. The entire Hunger Games series (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins is so good, but the first book is by far the best. The book is filled with excitement, a little bit of a love story, action and cliff hangers. Everyone I know who has read these books loves them just as much as I do.

Stories of the Quest for Civil Rights

http://www.aclu.org/blog/content/remembering-legacy-civil-rights-pioneer

The story on this link is about a man that was not recognized during the Civil Rights Movement. Bayard Rustin had many accomplishments towards the civil rights movement. He did things similar to that of MLK Jr. in hopes of having equality for the African-Americans of this time. Many of the issues that the Delany sisters in HOS dealt with, were addressed by Rustin. There are a lot of people that should get credit for their efforts during the movement, but many did not get that recognition.

Harlem

The Harlem Hospital became a very important aspect of Harlem. Its original purpose as just a reception center for patients getting ready for transfer quickly changed to be much more important with expansions and many new patients. At the beginning, all of the nurses at the hospital were white. As the hospital began to grow and time went on more African American nurses started to work there. This was frowned upon by many of the white nurses and a lot of them resigned as a result. This situation was also repeated when the first African American physician, Dr. Louis T. Wright was hired. I believe this relates to what Bessie and Sadie said about how much black people were looked down upon. I think this also shows what kind of perseverence that these men and women must have had (like the sisters said). They wanted to do the best they could and work their jobs despite what the white people must have said about them. The hostility that Dr. Wright got from his co workers only made him want to prove to everyone how good he was even more.
http://www2.si.umich.edu/chico/Harlem/text/hospital.html

Having My Say

Something that I have a very strong oppinion on is lying. When someone lies to me and I find out about it, I am completely crushed. I think it is one of the worst things you could do. There is a difference between a little white lie and straight up lying to someone to their face. I believe that if you tell someone something, especially if it is important, you should truely mean it. Follow through on your promises and if you really have something you feel like you need to lie about than you probably shouldn't have done it in the first place. If you want to be apart of someone's future, lying to them will quickly make you just apart of their past.

Expressions in Art

This drawing relates to the struggles that the African American had during the middle passage. Sadie and Bessie discussed numerous topics similar to this one and how strongly they felt about how poorly African Americans were treated in that time. This picture, I think, truely shows the stuggles and pain that the passangers felt in their forced travels and during the slavery they had to endure. I think it is terribly sad what was done to them and I could never imagine what that must have been like. I am just glad that those types of things are not done today.

Connections from Whitman

To me, this poem talks about how when children see something, they adapt to it. Children will change what they like or what they do if other kids are doing the same thing. Adapting with these things will make the child apart of who they are in the future. Later in the poem it talks about how when a child is born their parents give them everything thing they have. They give birth and parent them because from that moment the child is apart of them. Everything the child is exposed to will form what kind of person they will grow up to be.

http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ebatke/logr/log_190.html

Emily Dickinson's Garden of Poetry

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10058
The Daisy follows soft the Sun by Emily Dickinson

The Daisy follows soft the Sun --
And when his golden walk is done --
Sits shyly at his feet --
He -- waking -- finds the flower there --
Wherefore -- Marauder -- art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!

We are the Flower -- Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline --
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamored of the parting West --
The peace -- the flight -- the Amethyst --
Night's possibility!

     I believe Dickinson is trying to convey that the Daisy is the people of the world and the Sun is God. We follow God throughout our lives. It could also be interpreted literally as flowers blooming as the sun comes up in the east and following the sun till it sets in the west.

Affirmations of Life

     To positively handle something that is not so good requires a positive outlook on the situation. To handle something that is bad you also have to have patience and you have to be calm. It all depends on the exact situation to determine how else to handle it.

The Truth About Nature

     I believe I have a connection to nature when I go up to my cabin and just relax. My family and I sit out on the pier and just look out at the lake. I do not think I neccessarily found truth in this experience. I do not think that this alters my way of thinking but it does make me much more relaxed and I appreciate nature a little more each time. I like going up to my cabin because I can be connected to nature because it is not in the city. Being in nature takes away my stress that I have back in the city.

Team Edgar

I chose team Edgar because although Edgar's work was very disturbing in many aspects, I still feel that his stories were more interesting than Nathaniel's stories. I enjoyed the scandal part of "The Scarlet Letter" but besides that I felt that Hawthorne's stories were very boring and confusing.