21st century english classroom... #real talk

My feelings toward the activities we do in a 21st century English classroom? I actually like what we do in class. Blogging, facebooking, and fremdenging. I'm not a tweeter... can't figure that thing out ): But anyway, the activities we do are easier for us. It's not like a blow off thing because we still have to do the work which we do in the blogs, but then we get extra credit for just posting our blogs to facebook and twitter. Easiest extra credit ever? I think so. Writing 5 paragraph analysis papers over books is old news now.. Everyone hates that. So I like that we do something different than the normal English classroom. I think interacting with another school across the state is something new and interesting. The text of the books are so much easier to understand this way because you can do different things with the blogs like the picture blog, link up, vlog and so on. So not everyone has to think the same exact way. I would hate having to read the book aloud in class. That would mean that everyone would have to read the same book, everyone has different taste so that usually doesn't work out. Also I enjoy my new book it's one of those books that you don't want to put down. So i can keep my own pace with my reading and don't have to worry about being ahead of anyone in class like I would if we were reading it aloud in class. Blogging= good (:

(insert creative title about sparknotes here)

So, I just read the sparknotes article thing whatever it's called of my new book Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Needless to say... these sparknotes are not a substitute for reading the text whatsoever! I am outraged by the absence of.. the stuff I read in the book.. That was my dramatic talk for the night. (: Anyway, I think that reading an online summary of a book keeps people from actually connecting to the book itself. I'll admit, yes I do use sparknotes on occasion when I don't have time to read a book I'm supposed to, when i absolutely hate the book, or when it's written in all smart language and I'm too slow to understand it and I need sparknotes to dumb it down for me. This book though, I actually like so I won't be using sparknotes on this one. When you use sparknotes and websites like it you don't get the true understanding of the text and you don't see the author's point of view. You also miss out on the emotion portrayed in the book. Some books if you give them a chance you can get into it and it'll be one of those book where you just want to know what happens next and you don't want to put it down. This is what my book is like for me. Others, however, not so much. Either way people should always give books a try, and if you're slowly dying because the book is so boring and you're halfway through and nothing interesting is happening, I would sparknote it. But! you should still skim through the book and pick up the parts that sparknotes leaves out (:

Creeping & commenting on my classmates.

To Zach Tripp:
Zachary! I got a better grade than you on the first quarter blog (: Are you jealous? You know you are. I liked your blog for first quarter though. You should put more personality into your blog for this quarter though. Since I'm sitting like one person away from you right now, and I've known you since like 2nd grade I know you're funnier than what you make your blog seem to be. Adding humor to the blog will make it easier to read. Just a little constructive critisism there...so don't be butthurt. (: I see you're reading that book about a monkey, monkeys are cool. So that means you better have some cool blog prompts this quarter. I'll be creeping on your blog every once in a while to see if they're legit. So...do it big bro. Nice blog. :D

To Michael Wilkison:
Wilky... reading "Goodman Richard lord praisin Ketter" 's comment, and your blog... makes me realize i associate myself with weird people... haha. Well, since you "me gusta" blogging, I'm assuming you got a good grade? You told me your score but I forgot... whoops. Your blogs entertain me, especially the titles. You just told me I better be constructive. So... um... work harder, make your blog even funnier... you're slacking. By the way... "fish-craving rednecks?" I resent that. I don't like fish. It's icky. K bye.

To Stevie Dailey:
Dear Steven, I applaud your acceptance of your first quarter blog grade. I am oh so proud of you. You are correct it is all a learning experience! & we both know how long it takes both of us to learn... hahaha especially new cheers. Oops! off subject. My apologies. Is this comment weird? Are you still going to be my friend? You have to. But here's some constructive criticism, you haven't finished all your sentences.. might want to get on that man.. If it helps, I liked your blog from last quarter. (: But guess who got a 98%? ME :D Better step it up this quarter! I'll cheer you on. GO STEVEN! yes that is your name. (: bye.

Look in the mirror... what do you see? A reflection silly (:

Dang... it's already the second quarter. Already time for me to do my second blog. My first one, personally I didn't think was that great. I don't find myself very creative at all, so basically for my first one I just took it as kind of a joke, typed something or added a picture that made me laugh. Apparently it worked, because I received a 98%. Oh yeah (: Obviously I am overly happy about my grade since i expected to receive a C or below. I guess making the blog seem like a joke and funny made it easier to read and reflected my personality. My blog was well organized according to my rubric, OCD helps there... just kidding... I'm only OCD about little things (: Also my rubric said my pictures and personal reflections explained my book well, yay! gold star for me (: Same for the classical music, I wasn't really sure how to explain my book through music, especially classical which is the only music I hate with a burning passion... my apologies to the composers. I just listened to random pieces which made my head hurt... then one sounded somewhat cool so i choose it and connected it to my book the best I could. The vlog... oh boy, that was awkward... I had to redo that so many times. I actually liked doing the vlog though, it was one of my favorite prompts. When we did the comments on our classmates blogs, i thought was particularly easy, because we could just comment on our friends blog and joke with them and tell them what was good and bad about their blogs. If we have to do that with people we don't know... I'll feel all bad about critiquing theirs and then they might get mad at me... ): ha ha. So to wrap up this long paragraph... sorry if I am boring you by the way. The last comments I got on my rubric were about grammatical errors. (sad face) If it was because of the I's not being capitalized... no offense to the makers of blogspot... but in Microsoft Word they automatically capitalize them for you... this site doesn't... not cool. It's all okay though.. like I said I got a 98% (: So I guess one of my goals for this second quarter blog is to capitalize my I's. Am I doing good so far? (:

I apologize for that really long paragraph... I was feeling really talkative (: After the first quarter blog, I think I'm getting quite used to doing this whole blogging deal. I know that some people complained about blogging and there were time where I got annoyed with some of the prompts. Honestly, I think this is WAY better than writing boring analysis papers. It changes things up a little bit, and it makes English class more interesting. So I don't know why people complain so much because they hate writing long 5 paragraph essays. I'm glad that this quarter we have more freedom to what our prompts will be. That way I can attempt to be creative since I'm lacking in that category... But again, I actually do like blogging, I don't have a problem with it, because it's nothing that's impossible to do, I finished all my prompts from last quarter no matter what they were, so I know that I can do it.

The book I'm reading for my second quarter blog is called Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. It's about this girl named.. well Vera. Her best friend had just died but it hasn't flat out said how yet. It hints some reasons that led up to it. It switches points of view a lot so it's kind of confusing but so far I really like it. We have way more freedom this quarter with our blog like I had already said. I'm not really sure what to tell you to expect because I myself am not sure yet even though I'm the one who has to create my prompt. I can assure you there will be no classical music, animotos, or 189795904363653975 links. I hated those prompts with a strong passion. ha ha. There could be a vlog maybe most of them will be vlogs. There might also be a musical connection, but it will be to the kind of music I actually like to listen to and I won't slowly die trying to pick a song...But other than that, I guess you will just have to wait and see what my next blog has in store so....enjoy (:.... and if you don't enjoy... then... get off my blog.. jerk..

Three Black Swans

Three Black Swans

whaddup animoto?

<object id="vp1XLedb" width="432" height="240" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1317930042&f=XLedb4S1ph1gz8ZlKiAS1Q&d=37&m=b&r=360p&volume=100&start_res=360p&i=m&options="></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed id="vp1XLedb" src="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1317930042&f=XLedb4S1ph1gz8ZlKiAS1Q&d=37&m=b&r=360p&volume=100&start_res=360p&i=m&options=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="432" height="240"></embed></object><p>Create your own <a href="http://animoto.com%22%3evideo/ slideshow</a> at animoto.com.</p>

la.. la.. la.. links! i know... i'm cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut

In my book one of the main characters is Missy. Missy is from Connecticut. This URL is to a page all about Connecticut with pictures also so you can see the setting when the book talks about Missy.

http://www.iloveny.com/

This URL is a link to a website all about New York. It shows pictures and talks about what there is to do in New York. Claire and Genevieve the other two main characters both live in different parts of New York in the book, so you can see what their life is kind of like.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Westchester_County%2c_New_York

This link is to a page that has information all about Westchester County, New York. This is the town that Claire is from. So you can see even more what the setting is when it talks about Claire.

http://www.longislandexchange.com/longisland.html

This link is to a page about Long Island, New York. In the book, this is where Genevieve and the 3 girls birth parents live. All the characters in the book go there at the end, so you can see the pictures on the page and get a better feel of the setting.


http://www.carolinebcooneybooks.com/

This link is to the author of my book, Caroline B. Cooney's website. It talks about her life and all the different kinds of books she's written. Once you read about the author of a book I think it makes it easier to understand the book from their point of view.


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hoax

This link is to the definition of the word hoax. The whole story of my book is started because of a hoax. If you don't know what that is, you would probably be lost the entire book, so it's a good definition to know (:

http://survivingtriplets.blogspot.com/

This link is to a blog posted by a woman who has her own set of triplets. Since the book is about triplet girls I think having this woman's point of view would help to better understand the book. This woman actually kept hers though instead of the family in the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption

This link is about adoption. In the book the girls all wondered whether they were adopted. In the end only 2 of them were, understanding the process of adoption would help to understand the book.


http://family-law.freeadvice.com/family-law/adoption_law/independent_adoption.htm

This link talks about private adoptions. The adoption in the book was considered a private one. The legal one was at least, as the other was an illegal adoption.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Black_swan_theory

This link is about the black swan theory. This theory is talked about multiple times throughout the book. Understanding the theory helped me understand the book a lot better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_birth

This link is to a page about multiple births. This whole story is based off of a multiple birth. So this link is just a little background information on how 3 identical babies can be born at once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slbeTHBFrrc

This link is to a YouTube video about triplets. These three adult triplet girls are all pregnant and around the same time. This is just an example on how alike identical siblings can be.

http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2008/06/triplet-telepathy.html

This is a link to a page about triplet telepathy. In the book there were times the girls wondered if they were thinking the same thing, then they realized they were. This article talks about real tests given on triplets that prove that there are phsycological connections between identical triplets.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-egypt-adoption-idUSTRE58G2M720090917

This link is to an actual article about an illegal adoption. In the book you find out that Missy's adoption was not legal. It wasn't like the one in the article but it shows you how difficult the process of adoption can be.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7295079-three-black-swans

This link is to a short and sweet summary of the book. It's just one of those things you can read to get the feel of the book and see if you will like it or not before you actually read it. You can also buy the book from this website, so if it looks interesting to you...why not? (:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1567542/Identical-twins-reunited-after-35-years.html

This link is to an article about two real life identical twins who were separated at birth. At the beginning of the book, Missy and Claire thought they were twins and they had no idea about Genevieve. This article is a lot different from the book because it has to do with the twins being separated for an experiment that they didn't find about about until they were adults.

http://lornareiko.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/identical-twins-who-were-separated-at-birth-what-are-they-like/

This link is to another page about identical siblings separated at birth. The first set of guys were separated named the same name, married, divorced, and re-married women with the same name, had a dog with the same name, and named their sons the same names. This shows how alike identicals are even if they don't know each other.

http://multiples.about.com/od/funfacts/Fun_Facts_Statistics_and_Trivia_About_Twins_and_Multiples.htm



http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20077622,00.html

This link is about 3 college boys who find out they are triplets. This article is very similar to what happened in the book. When I read this article it seemed like it could almost be a sequel to Three Black Swans. This just comes to show you that the dramatic things that happen in books can actually happen.

http://www.lhj.com/relationships/family/raising-kids/real-adoption-stories-baby-of-their-dreams/

This link is to a page about an adoption that seems to be becoming more common these days. One couple "adopted" the other couples child as it was a frozen embryo. This page just shows how many different forms of adoption there is.