Landry's English 1 Blog

Anna Katherine: Strengths and challenges Emma P: Hits and Misses

I feel that my strengths as a writer have significantly grown this year. Through writing different types of papers, I learned what my strengths and weaknesses were and what I enjoyed. I found that I was strong in writing personal narratives and blog posts which made me realize that I enjoyed creative writing. In these papers, I included strong word choice and voice, which included vivid detail and personality, originality, and passion. These aspects are important to these papers because they speak to the audience and make the reader interested in the paper. After writing my literary analysis and research paper, I found I struggled with these styles of writing. I found my organization in these papers to be a challenge. This includes the structure of my paper, such as the order of events, and making my paragraphs flow together seamlessly. I also found it difficult to stimulate ideas for which direction I wanted to take these papers in. I eventually decided on ideas after I took time...

This year I was exposed to many different pieces of writing such as blog posts, literary analyses, research papers, and personal narratives. Some of these were more difficult than others. I struggled the most with the research paper. I found this difficult because it was extended over a long period of time and it was focused on one specific topic. While I did learn a lot about the topic I was writing about, I found it extremely difficult to write the actual paper. It was just piecing together information and I felt that I couldn't include much of my own opinion. The writing process for this paper is the longest I have ever experienced, and I did not enjoy this aspect of the paper.  The piece of writing I enjoyed the most and felt the most successful writing was the personal narrative. In this paper I used lots of vivid details and focused my paper on one very short specific moment. I like this type of writing because the vivid detail creates imagery causing the reader to reall...

Naya: Prompts from List Zoe: purple hibiscus

Throughout Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the main character and narrator Kambili, does not have much of a voice. She goes through so many traumatic experiences and so much stress in her daily life that she bottles it up. Her father holds extremely high expectations for her, constantly keeping her on edge. Before her trip to Nsukka, Kambili abided by what her father asked of her and was extremely polite, making it seem to others, such as girls at school or her cousins, that she didn't have a personality. She also gave off the impression that her wealth made her too good for others. While in Nsukka, Kambili builds up more confidence and meets people like Father Amadi who make her comfortable to express herself. She laughs and smiles for the first time in her life when surrounded by Aunty Ifeoma and her cousins, people she looked up to for their ability to be so comfortable and happy. Another aspect of the novel that I noticed was Papa's reaction every time he be...

Traveling is something that almost everyone experiences. Wether traveling to another city, state, or even continent, you can experience or learn something new from it. I have been lucky enough to travel pretty often with my family or even alone. My family loves to travel and could do it all the time if possible. Unfortunately, my sister and I typically have a lot of commitments to sports, etc. that prevent us from traveling too often. However, we almost always travel over breaks such as Mardi Gras break, Christmas break, and Thanksgiving break. Up until last year, I had always traveled with my family or friends and had only been around the states. This changed last summer when I decided to travel to Maui, Hawaii alone! Now you're probably thinking how did I travel alone, and I wasn't completely alone. I traveled to Hawaii for a camp with boys and girls around my age from around the world. Going into this I was extremely excited to get to experience a new state I had dreamed a...

Ellie: Trump VS. Amazon Julia: Political Post

This past week, Judge Reinhardt died at the age of 87. He was a longtime liberal on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit has been difficult for conservatives to deal with due to its influence of liberals such as Judge Reinhardt. However, with this vacancy on the court, along with eight others, President Trump has an opportunity to change the court to his advantage by choosing who will take the openings. He has put forth two nominees, Mark Bennett and Ryan Bounds. Bennett has support from the two democratic senators, however Bounds does not. Despite efforts made by Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior democrat on the Judiciary Committee, President Trump will choose a nominee much different than Judge Reinhardt. After reading this article, I find it interesting to see the split between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the courts and replacements. Even though the Democrats will oppose the nominees President Trump picks, I believe the ...

Katherine: Purple Hibiscus Emma P: My love for Fat Cow

Spring break is by far the best break. Comes at a great time, when many are sick of school, ready to bake in the sun. Whether you are beach bound or bed bound, you are guaranteed to have a great time. Anything better than feeling drowned in school work.

So far, I am enjoying reading Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . Right away the timeline of events in the book is in a different order which I find interesting. The novel is separated into sections titled "Palm Sunday", "Before Palm Sunday", "After Palm Sunday", and "Present". This creates a sense of mystery as to what happens on Palm Sunday and why the novel is based off of this one day. Also with the sections, they are titled relating to the religious Palm Sunday. This shows the novel has a religious aspect which determines much of how the family lives. Another aspect of the book I find interesting is how much Papa controls his children's lives. He creates strict weekly schedules for his entire family. He also administers his children's participation in school and their grades. He holds Kambili and Jaja to extremely high expectations and does not accept anything lower than the best. An example of this is how disappointed he...

Zoe: billie jean - EDEN Drew: Track Athlete Poem

I chose to analyze the song Umbrella by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z. I focused my analysis on the chorus of the song. Immediately in the first line of the chorus, I notice a repetition of 's' and 'sh' sounds–sibilance–in "sun shine, we shine". In the next line I notice a euphony or repetition of smooth consonants such as l, r, and m. With these two sound patterns, especially used together, they make the song flow easily and create a smooth, pleasing image. Throughout the entire song, vivid imagery is used to describe how much the guy she is singing about means to her. The writer also uses enjambement and caesura to create significant pauses and focus on certain words or phrases. This stands out to the reader and causes the reader to think about the reason to significance of this technique used. Finally, I noticed a slant rhyme scheme, which is common in many songs.

Waking up at six, feeling like a ton of bricks. Not wanting to move, still not getting into the new groove. Reminiscing about summer, thinking about school being such a bummer. Made it to the car feeling like nothing near a star. Texting friends, happy we made amends. Arriving at school, makes me want to drool. Tools/techniques used: rhyme scheme (AABBCCDDEEFF), enjambment, hyperbole, cacophony

Bronwyn: Launch Response Dylan: Free Post: Normal Weekend

This past weekend was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well on Friday and had to miss Launch day. I was super disappointed because many people were telling me how fun it was going to be. After talking to my friends that went, they said it was very successful and they had a great time. On Saturday, I went to the mall with my friends for a few hours and shopped. On Sunday it was a beautiful day. My mom and I attended my little sister's soccer game where here team unfortunately lost. The team they played was a year older and much more advanced than her team. Overall my weekend was pretty uneventful which I enjoyed to give me time to relax and get a lot of homework finished.

Hearing about launch day for the first time, I was very confused. I knew it had to do with a group of seniors presenting their thesis projects but I didn't know about anything else, such as the schedule and how it worked. Unfortunately I was not able to be at school on Friday, so I did not get to experience launch day. However, I heard from one senior Wednesday and three on Thursday so I was able to hear a few of the presentations. My favorite from the ones I had heard on Thursday was Louise's about the power of social media and "It girls". I found this really interesting because her topic was very relevant to our society today and how these girls influence so much of most girl's lives. I could tell her thesis was on a topic she was passionate about and knew lots of information on. I also found it interesting because many girls I know, including myself, look up to the same girls she talked about.

Dylan: Reading response to Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Nick: Research Project: Boer War

Absolutely True Diary of an Indian is a humorous book that includes important topics. The book is written from a teenagers perspective so it is funny. Junior writes about his experiences growing up as an Indian boy that goes to a white school. The format of the book is a diary so he draws many funny comics which make the book more interesting. Junior's writing makes the book very light-hearted even though he goes through challenging experiences. Junior lives on an Indian reservation but decides to move to a white school in another town nearby. As he does this, he experiences racial issues from both people on the reservation and students and teachers in his new school. He has an interesting home life with a drunk dad and a run away sister who moved to Montana. Balancing home and racial issues, Junior finds a way to make it all work.

My topic for my research paper is the stages of the Holocaust. I focused on how the Jewish people were treated during the Holocaust and how their treatment evolved. The Holocaust was a time when the Nazis systematically murdered almost six million European Jews. The Nazis murdered the Jews through a plan made to answer "The Jewish Question".  Through this extermination of the Jewish population, other groups were targeted as well. My topic is important due to the underlying aspect of anti-semitism throughout history. My categories for my paper are the historical context, Jewish rights taken away, ghettos, deportation, and camps. These are the stages I chose to represent the evolution of the treatment of the Jews. It started with their rights slowly being taken away such as their citizenship. Second, they were isolated to ghettos that were under resourced and housed thirty to forty Jews in one home. Next, they were packed into cattle cars with no water and many died. Finally,...