The Last Blog

AP senior English has definitely had its ups and downs this year. As I reflect on this past year, I have learned way more than I thought I would have and I am happy that it is coming to an end. I've learned how essay don't always turn out the way you expected when you get them back and hopefully that has prepared me for college. I have learned how to focus on one thing at a time, even though I might have 5 different things on my plate at a time. I haven't taken the easy road for classes this senior year and I have mixed feelings about it. I have had senioritis pretty bad these past few weeks and I've just had to keep doing everything because I would fail all of the major assignments if I didn't complete them. It's been hard to see people in different classes do nothing while I have a crazy amount of stuff to do. I think I'll be the most prepared for college level classes because I took my senior year pretty seriously and I haven't slacked off too much. I hope that I'm not shocked next year with all of the work because I've kept pretty busy this year. I hope that I get some credit for this class after all that I've done this year but I'm not sure if I'm prepared enough for the test. In my calc class I've done countless practice tests the past couple of weeks and hopefully that will be enough, but I haven't studied much for this AP test. I hope that the frequent essays and a couple of poetry m.c. will be enough next week.

Poetry Project (Completed)

After the completion of the poetry project, I think it was a good way to learn a lot of information in a little bit of time. The projects were so jammed full of information that it seemed too much to process at times. The information of the time periods before the actual introduction of poetry was a good background for what we were about to be presented, but sometimes there was no connection back to poetry. This was my part of the project so I tried to connect everything back together to how it influenced poetry. The poems that each group read aloud were very long and didn't leave much impact. Each poem would've been much more impacting if the groups gave a summary of what it meant and how it connected back to the time period. My favorite make it memorable group presentation was when Kim did the cup song to a Robert Frost poem. It was surprisingly awesome and she really pulled it off. Each group had really good information to present but it was boring at times. The quantity of slides, poems, and poets made me lose interest a few times. Each group did a great job overall and my favorite aspect by far for all of the groups was the make it memorable part of their presentations.

Poetry Project and Current Events

So far, I think that this poetry project won't be as bad as I thought it would be. My group split up the work and it doesn't seem too bad now. I have to research the time period and the religion, economics, and events going on during the Renaissance. Along with some research, I am helping with the Make it Memorable part of the project. I am excited to get this project done with and presented to the class. This week has by far been the craziest week in as long as I can remember. The preparation for different AP tests is crazy along with the horrible news of a bombing, an explosion, the Midwest floods today, and the recent news of just a few minutes ago, a possible shooting at MIT. I think that the weekend cannot come soon enough. I am completely in shock about the things that have happened this week and I wish I could hit a pause button to just fathom everything. These horrible events makes me look at my life in a different perspective. I can't imagine what some Americans are going through right now because an overload of schoolwork seems pretty small in comparison.

Not the Home Stretch of Senior Year

I cannot believe that there is so little time left this year. I wish that the time after spring break was relaxing, stress-free, and enjoyable, but it has been anything but those things in the past week. I have two AP tests to study for that I need to pass, along with homework that seems to never end. I am only at Dunbar for 3 hours a day but I spend so much time doing things for my classes when I am not at school. I was hoping that school would settle down after spring break, but I have been the busiest of all year during this past week. I have realized that school will probably only settle down after the AP tests. It is getting incredibly hard to focus on school when so many other things are going on around me. I probably have unrealistic expectations in my head because this is crunch time for school right now. I just hope that I pass the tests in May so the classes that I took will be worth the college credit. I am nervous about the timing because I have two tests back to back. At least I will have gotten them over with early on and I will have time to enjoy what is left of spring break after that.

http://m.urbandictionary.com/#define?term=crunch%20time

Movie and AP tests

I was really interested in the movie we watched today in class. It was the perfect movie to watch since spring break is so close. The movie actually really fit into the poetry unit that we are studying, and it made poetry seem not that bad. It was surprising to me to see that the group of boys enjoyed poetry enough to recreate a club just for poetry. They did it on their own free will, not as an assignment. I also liked the teaching techniques because they were completely crazy and the boys just went along with them. I hope I don't forget the details over spring break so I will know what's going on when we finish it. On another note, I am completely surprised by the amount of time we have until the AP tests. I have AP Calc and the Lit test to take this year. I think that the in class essays have hopefully preparedness enough to do well on that section. The practice multiple choice has also been helpful through out the year. My concerns is the choice of vocabulary used because I have a bad memory with the vocab quizzes, so I will have to go back and review all of that.

Updates

I really can't believe that I only have a couple of months left of senior year. Spring break is next week and graduation will be soon after. It was an exciting day in the NCAA tournament and most of my bracket choices have been accurate so far. I chose Ohio state for the national champion so I hope they pull through. On another note, the poetry section hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I have actually enjoyed a good amount of the poems we have read. It helps that they aren't pages long like I expected they would be. The poetry responses are helpful but somewhat difficult to write. It is hard to have enough things to write about. I feel that I am repetitive when writing them, but I don't have much to say about some short poems. I think the poetry responses would be worth our time if we had some basic questions to answer and expand on. I think that I haven't been benefitting much from the responses because I don't know what to say. I try to expand on analyzing certain lines and parts of the poems, but I think I am just saying the same thing over and over.

Poetry

I have mixed feelings about poetry. For the most part, I despise it. It can be boring, difficult to understand, and painful to read. I have studied and read poetry throughout high school and for the most part I have disliked it. I think it would be easier to understand if I read it slower and multiple times. Shakespeare has shaped my opinion of poetry and I think it is because of the old language and terms. I have tried to use translation guides and help websites to understand it but I still hard a difficult time. Although I don't enjoy poetry, I respect the writers. They write with elegance and beauty and somehow make it sound great. I have no clue how they manage to make the lines rhyme and have purpose at the same time. I enjoy reading poetry much more than writing it. I hope that the upcoming poetry section changes my previous opinions about poetry. I hope that the poems are more interesting and that I understand the meaning and language used. I hope that I can also recognize the techniques used to write the poetry and the figurative language used.