Aditi Lohe blog post #25

Yes, this time of year is always very stressful with AP tests, EOCs, and finals. However, even though many ask how i handle my stress, the truth is that i honestly don't. I seriously i have no clue what to do with my stress and it has a huge effect on me. I always end up curling into a all in bed and trying to ignore all of the pressing assignments. But this has also proven to only make things worse because i end up not getting any rest because i am constantly worrying and at this point, i have also wasted a couple of hours. i highly recommend you do not use my technique for "dealing" with stress. I do not know how to mange all of my stress so i need some help too.

Aditi Lohe blog post #24

Junior year has been stressed by practically everyone that it will be the toughest one of our high school career. With college talks, ACT's, SATs, and so many other things, it has been slightly overwhelming. However I actually enjoyed this year quite a bit. Junior year flew by and my issue was that i was never prepared for what was coming. I procrastinated and lost motivation to work so i need to make sure i don't do that again. But overall, I had a great year. I made lots of new friends, did interesting extracurriculers, and learned a lot. For this summer, I plan to get a job and also work on my senior mentoring project. I am trying to get 100 hours of the project in before senior year starts. During senior year i will mainly jst focus on maintaining my grades and and staying up to date with all of the colleges i plan to apply to.

Thomas Werner assignment 26

I felt confident going into the AP test. I feel like I was prepared well.

What was effective was all the practice timed writings and getting feedback on how I did. That allowed me to pinpoint bad habits in my writing and fix them, as well as discover what I was effective at and allowed me to be confident about those things and use them more.

What I would have liked to done more of would be to have more focus on the time aspect of the writing. That was the only thing I was worried about on the test, if I would run out of time or not. I think there should be more emphasis on the time portion of the writing, and not let us edit/take it home as much as to put more focus on getting our ideas out and well put in the appropriate amount of time. I would suggest this be more implemented later in the year, after students have had the extra time to write, to explore and develop their writing without the stress of time until later.

assignment 25 thomas werner

Stress is an incessant, universal issue. Everyone gets it. Especially in times of the year when we can be overwhelmed, such as the last couple weeks of school, it can even seem hard to breathe.

However, there are ways of coping with it.

Mine is simply to make a list. I make a list of everything I have to do, and keep it at the ready. I’m not quite sure why, but this does wonders for handling stress. Maybe it’s due to a visual representation of all the work, showing your brain that there are a finite number of things that can be checked off one by one and then you will be done. Who knows. But when you can strike something off the list, it’s so satisfying and then you’re jonesing to finish the next thing. Maybe it’s due to allowing your brain to take one one thing at a time and chisel down the work. Who knows. But I know, the list works.

assignment 24 thomas werner

Junior year has definitely taught me a lot about life. It feels like I have begun to remove the cushion between my decisions and the real world. I finally feel in control of my life, in the sense that I can both make choices to propel me to success at the same as make choices that can seriously hamper, ruin, or even end it. It’s a sense of harsh freedom.

One of my biggest successes been the relationships i’ve made and strengthened. Without these people I would be completely lost. Another success is the steps I’ve made to begin making a difference in the world, such as helping found Side by Side news.

My failures have been my failures to take risks. I have been very lucky to have some of the best things I could ask for come naturally, but there could be so much more if I step out of my comfort zone more and stop letting gravity win.

Last blog post :( :( :( Annie Deitz (26)

This is my last blog. :(
This is so sad. :(

I'll just jump right into it. Like many others will likely say, the writing with style reading was super helpful. I'm really glad that the sophomores will be reading it over the summer, I think it will help them out a lot.

Oh god you're going to teach the sophomores next year. They're going to be juniors. That's so weird. What if you like them more? Ahhhhh.

Sorry, you can ignore my end of the year nostalgic sentiment. I tend to get over emotional.

I (personally) didn't find the vocab first semester all that much. It turned out that I just crammed before every test and then forgot everything the next day. In my own ACT prep, I found it more helpful just to study different roots and prefixes. But then again, that's just my personal preference.

I know we touched on this in class, but I think that you should change the Socratic seminar format a small bit. Maybe do them throughout the entire year. Also, the three different types of questions confused me the entire time, but then again I am generally confused.

Loved the blogs. Best homework assignment of my high school career.

Which brings me back to the fact that this is my last blog post. And I'm really upset about that. I'm really going to miss this class. Thank you, Mr. Logsdon, for being such a great teacher and a great person. I've thoroughly enjoyed being in your class in fourth hour, and I really think you have helped me improve as a writer.

Blog Post 25 annie deitz

This was written a tad later than the prompt intended, but I can vividly recall the extreme amount of stress that I had to deal with. And by deal with it, I mean I didn't deal with it, I don't know how to deal with stress, I just let it consume me until I am a giant ball of anxiety for the rest of all time. So yeah. Not necessarily great. Usually I "deal with it" by yelling at my younger brother or throwing my things across the room. I've heard that coloring is supposed to relief stress. It really doesn't for me. I find it enjoyable, but my hands also shake when I'm trying hard to keep steady, and so I end up drawing outside of the lines. And then I get frustrated, and then I'm even more stressed than I was before I began coloring. Sometimes I go for a run, but generally my most stressful moments occur at midnight, when it's too late to run. Also I don't like running, despite the fact that I'm on the cross country team. Hmm. Oftentimes when I find myself in a stressful situation (especially one in which I am expected to do many things in a short amount of time) I take a nap. Which is a great idea, because rather than actually fixing the issues that cause the stress, I procrastinate and end up being even MORE stressed than I was originally. So yeah, if you read this in order to find new ways to deal with your stress, sorry. You definitely shouldn't be taking any type of advice from me, especially about dealing with stress.

Holden Huffman Blog #26

This year in English has been pretty awesome.  Most things that you did to teach us were very effective and helped me grow.  I feel like my writing has improved significantly since being in your class and I find myself using the techniques you taught us every time that I write.  One thing that I really liked about your teaching was the amount of practice writing/class grading that we did.  I was able to begin seeing a lot more of my flaws in writing because of this (cough, cough...development) and I now am more concious of the choices I make when writing.  One thing that I wasn't a big fan of was the Socratic Seminar.  While it did help with my analysis of writing, I didn't find it to be too helpful with the AP test or anything else that we did in class.  It also put us in a very "forced to talk" environment, which put more pressure on us to say something.  I find situations like this to be stressful and in turn I don't talk as much.  Overall, though, I loved this class.  The way that you approach teaching is awesome and I thank you for being such a great teacher this year, Mr. Logsdon.

Nathan Dutch Assignment 26

I would like to start out by saying that I really think that you did a good job of preparing us for the AP test and more importantly improving our writing skills. I feel as though I have left your class with significantly improved writing skills that will be useful for the rest of my life. I think that unit in the beginning of the year looking over Trimble's book was great and most of the most effective areas of the class. I learned a lot about how to write for others and not for yourself and that was a crucial skill on the AP test and will be a crucial skill in life. One thing that I would have liked to change about your class although was I would like to receive more essay feedback from you yourself. I didn't think I or my classmates were familiar enough with the essays and grading procedures to give helpful and accurate feedback. I think that less class discussion and more one on one conferences would go a long way towards preparing us for the AP test. Thank you for a wonderful year of learning, improvement, and laughter.

Nathan Dutch Assignement 24

I would say overall junior year was a success. I managed to take 6 AP classes and 6 AP tests without killing myself for starters. but what really surprised me was the fact that I honestly had less work this year than I did as a sophomore. I think I was most proud of myself for keeping up with U.S. History readings and chapter questions unlike last year in World History and it really paid off on the AP test, where I felt confident as could be. The one class I definitely could have done a better job in was AP Spanish. The entire class really was just practice for the AP test and I spent most of that time on my phone or sleeping. It showed on the test. This summer I'm hoping to take lots of time to crush my mentoring project and get my hundred summer hours out of the way making my senior year far easier. Senior year will be lots of relaxing and just enjoying life.

Blog 26- Tori

Okay. I think just about everything was helpful to me. After the fact, I realized I would've liked to have started doing the group discussions and analysing passages, because that helped me understand the rhetoric piece we had to write. So maybe start those right at the beginning?

I like the timed writing, and especially the grading. It put everything in perspective.

Another thing I would've liked, is to not have the timed writings blocked off. Like where we did just rhetoric, and then just analysis, and then just synthesis. Maybe putting them on a rotation would help? Like, here let's learn about rhetoric, and write one, grade it, talk about what would be better to do. Here's analysis, write one etc.

This also may be a just me thing, but I like lists. Before the test I made lists of specific things I need to make sure I have on each of my pieces, and maybe say specific things, when you're teaching them, that people need to have?

These are just nitpicky things. This year was great and I felt extremely prepared for the test. It was all helpful, and I don't think any of it felt unnecessary.

Thanks for being a cool dude, and a great teacher. Hope I passed the test lol

Blog 25- Tori

Stress.

I have so much stress. So many stress levels.

So when I'm stressed, I read Harry Potter, I watch 8 Mile, and I listen to music.  I listen to The Cure, and Jack's Mannequin, and Jimmy Eat World to decrease stress levels. If I'm way stressed, I listen to Eminem. Sometimes I workout, but that can sometimes make it worse, so I don't do that a lot.

These are pretty effective, the amount of anxiety I have about everything needs effective methods to handle.

Music really calms me down, so that's what I use the most.

Yup, alrighty. Stress. Yippie.

Blog 24- Tori

Lessons learned: don't procrastinate. Go above and beyond,  because while it may totally suck right then, it will pay off at the end of the semester, and for the tests. Don't rely on teachers giving you a second chance because you should've done it the first time.

Sucesses: taking more chances, and not being so afraid to go for things I want.

Failures: trying harder at some things , than others and having uneven success and failure rates.

My junior year was pretty cool. I branched out and made new friends, I let myself go and have fun. I read more, and tried more things. My anxiety lessened and I was able to do the things I wanted. I made a lot of memories this year.

Over the summer I'm going to read books on my to read list, I'm going to listen to the top 20 rated albums of all time and try to memorize them, I'm going to watch as many of the most top rated movies as I can. I'm going to work out, make money, and hang out with friends.

I'm gonna make memories.

For my senior year, I want to continue to branch out, and I want to work my ass off to boost my résumé, and get into college!

Thomas Winterton- Post 26

What you did well
-I appreciated the writing practice we received on timed writings. I feel it helped me with timing and also made me a better writer when we graded them. Allowed me to hear the critiques of other people and apply those to my AP test.
-I really appreciate Life Lessons with Logsdon. Especially the tid bit about how debt isn't necessary and such. It shows you care about your students or at least care alot about looking like you care, which doesn't really matter because the students will perceive it as caring nonetheless and this will better engage them.
-My favorite aspect of your teaching was the confidence you helped instill in us through the benchmarks and the AP score graph that broke down what you need on the MC and essay portions to see what score you got. I was able to walk into the AP test knowing I was a better writer than the average person who took that test, and that I would get an above average score. That confidence in itself helped me stay calm and that calmness translated into better, less frantic writing.

Your job was to get us to pass that test and I would say you did that marvelously.

What could be improved
-I personally enjoyed your class and understood that on the days where we had to read benchmark after benchmark, that it was a cumulative process and we had to do it, so that is not so bad. I would say I probably would've liked spending more time writing essays. And more toward the end of the year, the chance to write an essay to a prompt that I am not the best with like synthesis or whatever an individual struggles with to help get the last possible improvement.
-Ummm... Not really sure what else to improve on aside from dirty little nit picks.

Thank you Mr. Logsdon for helping me become a better and more confident writer as well as being a cool teacher, I am sure I am not alone in saying this but credit should be given where it is due. Enjoy summer break!!!

Thomas Winterton- Post 24

My successes for Junior year are as follows, I've recovered from my knee injury and proved to myself that I can perform at a high level again, along with winning a state championship. I also feel very confident about my performance on my AP tests I took this year. I rekindled an amazing relationship with someone I truly care for. And I am preparing for college and being responsible about saving money for the future.

I would say some of my failures would be that I got my car towed and got into a minor accident. That I've dropped the ball in some of my classes this past semester in some of my classes. I wish I applied myself more a little bit, and I also wish that I was able to save my relationship with my dad. But oh well, hakuna matata.

This summer I will be life guarding and I will really enjoy it. I like helping people and making money, so win win. I will also be doing my summer mentoring project which im still a little shaky on.

I want my senior to be relaxed, but I want to stay consistent with my work.

Allie Gregory Post #24

          Junior year... It's been interesting. To use the phrase "never a dull moment" would be lying, though I suppose it's been rather eventful. To be cliche, let's say it's been a year of firsts. (I think it'd be hard to go a whole year without doing new things, but I guess this year is no exception? Yay me.) cross country was technically my first high school sport. I got an Instagram so first social media. First party, first date, first caving expedition, first college visits... So that's been fun. Ish. There have been ups a downs to be certain.

          Successes? Yes, here and there. I'm rather proud of the breeze that calculus has been for me. Even though I never got good at cross country and my tendinitis made the season even more of a struggle than it would have been normally, I'm happy with what I did. It's far from something I regret. I think my time management has made some serious improvement, which is something I desperately needed. Not that it's great now but baby steps. Generally I would say class and my grades have been a success, but we'll see about that after finals.

          Failures? Yeah, I guess there have been those too. I don't really know why I'm admitting this (probably because I don't really think anyone cares), but I wish I'd gotten out more. And I'm not saying I hide inside all the time because no that's not me. But the adventures I go on are with my family. And when I hang out with people it's just sometimes a couple friends. I think that's just the kind of person I am and the kind of friend group I have, but I sometimes wish I got a little bit more of what I imagined high school to be like. I wouldn't mind trying to be a real teenager every once in a while... But yeah, that's my biggest regret/failure of this school year. 

          To be perfectly honest, all I want to do this summer is boat, fix up the farm, finish up the last bit of my room redesign, and finish my book. I'd also like to see Hamilton on Broadway, but since that's a virtual impossibility, I'll put it on some kind of maybe list. I have a bunch of real plans (camping, trip to New York, two mission trips, numerous college visits), but I'm determined to work in as much as I can of my own goals. (And they asked me why I rejected GSP. Maybe my priorities are screwy but I have them.) I'm excited about this summer and what I can get done. I'm excited to unwind and not be stressed all the time. Oh, and I'm excited about my mentorship. I'm working with the Lexington Opera Theater as an assistant stage manager and I'm super pumped about that. So, yep, lots of plans this summer.

          Senior year will hold its own challenges I'm sure, but I'll handle them as they come. I plan to get As if I can. Pass my APs if I can. Publish my book. And maybe get out more, but, you know, we'll see.

Assignment 26: Help! I need somebody. Help!

I wanna be better in all things.  It's easy for teachers to get stuck and comfortable in patterns and activities that are completely legitimate but perhaps have become stale and even ineffective.  Throughout the semester I've asked that you work hard to prepare for the AP Language and Composition test.  I taught to the test.  I'm sorta fine with that.  As I've said, I believe that the skills the test assesses are important and some of the most important skills you will develop in your lifetime - the ability to think, process, synthesize, and argue.

To that end I've tried to develop every assignment to focus on one element of the test and hone those skills required for success.  Now that you've taken the test - multiple tests (ACT, PSAT, AP) what suggestions do you have?

I'm not asking for what you "liked" or what was "fun" but rather what was effective.  I know not everything connected with everyone and with 97 students I will get a plethora of responses.  Though I am asking for honesty I'm not asking for a tongue-lashing nor do I expect "all sunshines and rainbows." I know I'm flawed but I also know that I am effective.  I want to minimize my flaws and increase my effectiveness.  I need your help to do that.




Minimum of 150 words - due on Sunday, May 22nd at 11:59 pm

(Last day to turn in make up assignments 24-25)

Post 21- Gloria Pulley

(Hella cheesy because I have no idea what to write for this)

There’s quite a few things going on right now in the universe I suppose…

At this very moment, somewhere in the universe there’s people enjoying themselves (okay I can’t say that without thinking of cut-throat b*tch’s ghost from House).  No this isn’t a creepy dead lady hallucination singing that song in a super creepy manner.  It’s someone having a good day.  It’s them waking up early, before the sun has risen completely and there’s still dew out in the grass.  It’s the cold kitchen floor on their bare feet as they make coffee and watch morning cat videos.  It’s pulling warm clothes out of the dryer after taking a long shower.  It’s awesome. 

It’s grabbing their keys and driving to wherever they desire.  Maybe that place might be the beach, to go catch a few waves or fall repeatedly off a paddle board (hopefully not get eaten by a giant sea pancake).  Maybe it’s through the mountains, taking in the massive peaks that and feeling the winding road beneath their tires.  Maybe it’s just to the store (except the best time to go is really late at night so you can be crazy and bound through the aisles or dance wildly) to get some fruit or new pens.

Maybe it’s not going anywhere at all.  Maybe it’s staying inside and cleaning the entire house then getting it all dirty again while wrestling with your dogs.  Maybe it’s going outside and picking some flowers for the table.  Maybe it’s just lying in the grass and reading natgeo magazines or a good book.  Sometimes its swing dancing in the kitchen to the Chordettes and making soup. 

The point is, there is always an opportunity for a good day (ESPECIALLY SINCE SUMMER IS 14 DAYS AWAY!!!)

Reflections and a lame game i just made up (blog post 24, Annie Deitz) (*winner of my game gets a dollar* woo play)

This blog post is unnecessarily lengthy and not super exciting, I spend half of the time droning on about myself and the other half making up this strange and irrelevant game. 10/10 would not read. I'm so so so sorry it's so long. I would appreciate it if you played the game though, I would love to see what you all come up with.

If anyone does want to just skip to my game, go to the purple part. It's not a game in the sense that... you can just see for yourself if you want.

When I originally read the assignment title, I was terrified that you'd make us write about our goals for the future. But you only partially did, so thanks for that. I'm probably not going to do that. We'll see how this goes.

Junior year has been okay. That was a lie. It was worse than freshman year. It was worse than sixth grade when I had absolutely no friends and ran a ten minute mile and just played monopoly ALONE for most of the time. But I also don't want to talk about why it wasn't super awesome, because that's boring. Most people have sucky junior years. That's just the nature of the American public education system, and I'm fine with that.

Now that I've spent eleven sentences discussing things I wished not to discuss, I'll discuss things I do want to discuss, slightly out of order nonetheless.

Mistakes Made? Hells to the yeah. Do I regret making them? Hells to the yeah. Have I learned from them? Other than the seemingly useless "maybe you should not do that again?" Not in particular. Maybe I have yet to discover that I've learned anything, but rather than teaching me, my mistakes decided to lodge themselves into my stomach as rocks of guilt, anxiety, and sadness. fUN :)


Risks Taken: very few. The ones I have taken have ultimately either led to the mistakes discussed briefly earlier or completely led nowhere.

OKAY I PROMISED YOU A GAME. This year, I feel like I've learned a lot more about biases and seeing the world through different lenses. We all acknowledge that we have biases and different points of view, but we never think enough about how this affects our interactions with other people on a deep enough level. Or at least I rarely did prior too my "lesson learned," or more fully developed over the course of the year. I'm expecting 0 people besides myself to play this game, especially considering this is the absolute worst time of year timewise, but I would be really interested in seeing what you all have to say.
Basically, I'm going to assign you a few different traits, based on your birthday and shirt color and such. From there, you have to write your views on a specific topic BASED ONLY ON THE CHARACTERISTICS I GIVE YOU. YOU CANNOT BE SATIRICAL, YOU CANNOT PORTRAY WRITE IN A WAY THAT CAN BE SEEN AS OFFENSIVE, YOU CANNOT ALLOW YOUR OWN BIASES TO CLOUD YOUR WRITING. As I wrote the second point I realize that this could end poorly. Please please please do not write in a way that can be seen as offensive to a group of people you are representing.
Leave them in the comments. I guess the best one will win a dollar. I cannot emphasize how little I want to start a political altercation, so please leave all of your instinctual biases and political stigmas in the pockets of your not-writing pants, and put your positive attitude and PC diction in your writing-pants.
Topic: let's see... Medicare.... okay yeah Medicaid.

Choose Your Ethnicity Via Your Birthday Month (as opposed to equally dividing you all into majority AND minority ethnic groups, there will be a few with multiple months)
-White- January, May, August, October, November
-Black- July, September, December
-Hispanic- February, March, November
-Asian- April, June

Choose your Gender Via Your Eye Color
-Male- Blue
-Female- Brown
-Other- Green

Choose your Religion Via Your Hair Color (I acknowledge that there are more than four, you all just have little variance in hair color)
-Christianity- dark brown
-Islam- black
-Judaism- blonde
-Atheist- light brown

Choose Your Socioeconomic Class Via Your Favorite Subject
Upper- social studies
Upper Middle- math
Middle- art
Lower Middle- English
Lower- science

Choose the Region of the US in which you live Via your Favorite Season
Northeast- Winter
South- Spring
Midwest- Summer
West- Fall

Choose Your Age Via the color shirt you're currently wearing
12-18 Red/Pink
19-29 Blue/ Purple
30-40 Green/ Yellow
41-60 Black/ Grey
61-100 Any others

Choose Your Political Ideology Via The Middle Letter of your Middle Name
A-F- extremely conservative
G-M- moderately conservative
N-S- moderately liberal
T-Z-extremely liberal

I think that's it, I'll do an example in the comments. I'd really appreciate it if you all played. You would just need to write a few sentences. It would be a lot of fun. Not really. But do not forget that this was not intended to start fights about political ideologies, I solely wanted to experiment in the idea of biases and points of view.

If you have stuck around this long, thanks I am impressed. I hope the rest of your week is absolutely fabulous.

 

Assignment 25 - STRESS!!

This is a Makeup Blog Post.  If you have a score that is less than a 30/30, this will replace that grade

Inspired by Keanu Gomez

As high school students, you are becoming more and more involved and in control of your school life as well as your "real" life. You face the many challenges of being a high school student in the Liberal Arts Academy as well as the growing responsibility of independence. Many of you are about to experience the dreadful two weeks of multiple high stakes tests as well as your Final for US History. To get through these two weeks and other weeks like these, how do you manage all that stress? What are your stress relieving activities? Are they effective? 

Minimum of 150 words.  Due on May 8th @ 11:59 pm


(The last day to submit blogs 24 - 26 will be May 22)