Jaiden’s AP Blog

 Today we finished up step 2 in our project. We completed our cluster organizer and chose our main sub-topic. My group chose gun violence instead of terrorism and are focusing on gun control. We began our introduction and started to search for the background of how gun violence in schools became popular. We then finished up the day, by figuring out our question we wanted the readers to answer and what exactly our position was.

 Today we worked on setting up a new project. We got into 7 different groups and were given topics. I am in group 2, and we were given “mass violence.” We all made a cluster organizer for our topics and  sub-topics. After that, we looked over different sources we could use in our essay. 

 Today we went over our homework from the previous night about analyzing political images. We then opened our packet of different source examples and went into further detail of how to use them. We had to define more words like “compare,explain,analyze, and infer. After that, we answered some questions about how to properly use the sources.

 Today we had a bellringer on what Cedar Grove's honor code was like based on what would happen if a student was caught cheating. We then received a packet with a prompt on the same subject, and went through 6 different sources and summarized or analyzed how they would help with the position we chose. After skimming through each page, we thoroughly read through them, and underlined statements that would support our argument. We took a few notes down regarding definitions that would help us make a strong argument such as "evaluate,summarize,and direct quotations".

 Before we start, today is the first day of fall!! Yay, but on another note today we finished the other poem written by Emily Dickinson called “I felt a funeral, in my brain.” We first discussed what we thought the poem was going to be about based on the title. We then watched a person, perform it live at a poetry slam i believe. After that, we went through each stanza underlining words that stuck out and words we wanted to focus on. We finished off by connecting it to our real life, by explaining if we knew anyone who had lost their mind before. 

 Today we got our benchmark tests back and had to get them signed. We then logged in to ap students and got a prompt and had to write a essay in 40 minutes. Our prompt was about whether or not freedom and safety are valuable to contemporary society i believe. We needed to write down the details out and then start on the actual essay itself. 

 Today we read two poems by emily dickinson. We discussed what it meant to be somebody and nobody. And we, went through each stanza to analyze what she was talking about. We then wrote on the back of the paper how we related to the 2nd poem “heart,we will forgive him”. 

 Today we took a poetry test. There were 4 poems and 25 multiple choice questions. 

 Today we went over 4 of our classmates paragraphs on one of our old bellringers, and we reviewed whether or not they followed format for the introduction paragraph. We checked for where they stood in position regarding the prompt, their three claims, and their thesis. We covered why we couldn't use first or second person and the correct way to address the audience. We then got a new prompt and got 5 to 7 minutes to understand, and complete the question it asked. 

 Today we read "stopping by woods on a snowy evening"  and made a t-chart about literal and figurative verses.  And defined certain words like queer. We talked about a movie called backcountry, and related it to our poem. We then discussed the multiple claims that we thought of and found evidence to support them. We then answered comprehension questions on google classroom. 

 Today we read a poem called birches. It was about this man focusing on his past and wanting to go back to his childhood after seeing a tree that reminded him of it. We then went stanza by stanza to understand why he would have wanted to go back. We came up with multiple claims and wrote down a reminder that we do have a purpose in life. 

 So today we had a bellringer asking us to define childhood and answer a few questions on how we view the differences of it. We then read a poem called “out,out” and went over it a few times while analyzing it. We figured out multiple themes, how the outcome could change, and why the artists made the poem the way they did. After doing that, we got our progress reports and ended the day. 

 Hello, we basically did the same thing as yesterday. We finished taking our benchmark and then left. Anybody who didn’t take it, has to finish tomorrow and that was it honestly.

 Today we took a benchmark. It had two passages and was about 19 questions. All about basic comprehension skills, and how we can understand questions. The test went by fast but since quite a few people didn’t finish, we’re going to use tomorrow as well.

 Today we had a went over claims, thesis statement, and argumentative essays again. We wrote down a paragraph about whether or not mistakes are necessary to the human growth. We had 20 minutes to type our thesis and put our first body paragraph together. We confirmed whether or not we knew the template for the whole essay. Going over the prompt and then actually diving into the lesson itself basically took up the whole time, but at the end we were asked if there were any questions and ended it on that note. 

 Today we took notes on thesis statement and the different types. We wrote down different prompts regarding the school and highschool. We wrote down our topic claim, and then our three body paragraph claims. We created a box(umbrella) and used the question "what were the benefits of playing a team sport?" and answered it with putting 3 claims in the box and then starting our thesis statement sentence. We then, talked about what needs to be included in a thesis statement and how it should be worded.  

 What's up? Today, we wrote a paragraph containing our claim,two evidence sentence and explanations with our conclusion. We were going to take it as a full grade but because half the class was gone, we used today as a practice. Class was freezing as always but I felt as if it helped the ideas enter my head. And after figuring out the claims you want, it is kind of easy to get you first paragraph started. Overall it was a chill day, nothing too serious as usual. We're going to be working on them again next week and practice for the AP test.