Dec. 16, 2010

The past 3 days in this class we have talked about pathos. Since Tuesday of this week we started reviewing blogs of how people felt when they saw a TIME magazine cover. This exercise was to see how much pathos the students got out of a simple picture. Each picture represented a certain feeling for each student. Everyones feelings were very close to the image that they chose. During the past few days the term Pathos was burned into our head (in a good way), because the strong feelings that everyone felt. Some students showed personal connections to the magazine cover while others just found some emotion by simply glancing at the cover.

Cesar Bernal & Josh Bell 12-13-10

This image speaks to us because we, as children, live with parents that need to be more trusting with their child's decision. This image shows a child being maneuvered by strings, which can only be assumed as his parents decisions and commands; and he doesn't have enough power to change anything yet.

*picture provided by Time Magazine

SSR Dec. 10, 2010

Today in SSR I read the final chapters in The Indian in the Cupboard. The final chapters consisted of the character Omri sending back his beloved indian Little Bear back to his home. Omri hid the key which may lead to future adventures.
-Cesar Bernal

Today in SSR, I read Pokemon Rangers and the Temple of the Sea. I like the part when Ash and May helped Manaphy put back the jewels into the Sea Crown from the Temple.
-Josh

Dec. 9, 2010 Pathos and Logos

Today in class we learned more about pathos and logos. For logos we learned to look carefully for the logic of the paragraph. For pathos we learned that every paragraph has some for of emotional appeal, whether its to the reader or in general.

Dec. 7, 2010

This paragraph mentions two different topics, one topic mentions activist trying to improve on the city's "existing patchwork while keeping costs low", and the other topic mentions another all-day summer academy that educates kids through stealth learning.

pathos-  could not find anything
logos- could not find anything

Dec. 2, 2010

The argument this speaker is trying to make is that kids lose a significant amount of knowledge during summer, and that there are summer programs that help kids gain intelligence without them knowing. A piece of information missing is feedback from an underprivileged kid, the author does not have children's statements of what the kids are doing during their summer.

Dec. 1, 2010

In the East 10th United Methodist Church on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis they have a local summer all- day program that offers a different theme every year for some selected few elementary school children, while they unintentionally learn about math and science

Barriers of Cost Culture revision

Does? Informs

Education reformers talk about lengthening the school year, but quickly run into barriers when they notice that state and local governments cut, not grow, the school budgets.

The Romance of Summer

Does? Illustrates

This paragraph illustrates, with the example of huckleberry finn, how summer can be made into an educational resource without taking the fun out of the season.

11/23/10

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!  ENJOY YOUR WEEK!!!!!  EAT A LOT!!!!!

have a great time
- Cesar B. Joshua B.

The Case Against Summer Vacation paragraph 4 & 5 revision

The paragraph connects the idea that students are the same as athletes or musicians; if the athletes or musicians performance suffers without practice, the students education will suffer without practice too. Paragraph 4 continues to say that the idyllic view of summer is not the same for underprivileged kids.

Paragraph 5 mentions Ron Fairchild and his organization being a small part of a larger movement that dramatizes how to "stop the summer slide by coordinating, expanding and improvising summer enrichment programs." It presents the idea that there is a lot of supporters like President Obama, who has created a national summer learning day to bring attention to the issue.

David Von Drehle

Today in class we focused on the article writer David Von Drehle who is a reporter for Time magazine. In his 32 year career he has written 3 books and many journalistic articles. He is a graduate of Oxford University with a masters in literature as a marshall scholar. We also learned about logos, ethos, and pathos. Those 3 words basically helps us break down the article we read into how logical the article is, how much of an expert the writer is, and how emotional the author gets with his writing.

The Case Against Summer Vacation re-reading

When re-reading the article, we answered questions associated with it.

What is summer associated with? And school?

Summer is associated with liberty, creativity, and play. While school is associated with oppression, regimen, and work.

Why is larking through summer a luxury we can no longer afford?

Student are competing with around the world, who are in many cases spending four weeks longer in each school year.

Is summer really a lark for many children? What is it really? For many children, especially of low income families, summer is a season of boredom, inactivity, and isolation. 

Is that your experience as well?

For us, summer is a season to relax. Its a season to spend time with friends and family

What is healthy stimulation during the summer months according to the authors? 

To keep their minds and bodies exercising, kids can attend sleep away camps, go on family vacations, spend times in museums and libraries. They can also attend enrichment classes

If they keep the same schedule when you are parents, what kind of summer activities will you plan for your children and why?

If the same schedule does continue, we could make them sign up for any social activities. That way they would not be home all day.

The Case Against Summer Vacation

Today in class we read an article titled The Case Against Summer Vacation. The article, in my opinion, focuses on the point of summer vacation taking away from kids learning. Also, this article talks about giving kids more education without them thinking that their summer is being taken away. It mentions programs all around the world that help kids keep learning during the summer, instead of them being at home and forgetting what they have learned

10/21/10 Revised Essay

While editing the essay, we made the following changes. We noticed a sentences being repeated continuously. Also while reading it we noticed that sentences did not make sense and were very unclear. To start off the editing we would of made sentences "hold hands" in some paragraphs. Reading over this essay, some paragraphs were set up correctly, while others had more potential to capture the readers eye.

Weekly Reflection 09/ 20/ 10 − 09/ 24/ 10

09/20/10

Today in expository reading and writing, we continued to edit a specific essay. This essay talk about responsibility and the dream of a student to become a automotive technician. Today we learned to stay on topic and to put 1 TOPIC PER PARAGRAPH. We also learned the usages of a COMMA.

09/21/10

Today in expository reading and writing, we continued essay editing. Today we started a new paragraph to edit. In this paragraph we focused on the topic of money issues. We also talked more about how there should be 1 topic per paragraph and if you change the topic, you have to change the paragraph.

09/22/10

Today in expository reading and writing, the class started a new essay to edit and make justice. While editing this specific essay we learned that the first sentence determines the direction of the entire paragraph. We also talked about the fact that a paragraph should only have 1 topic, not several different ones. We were also told to remember that a reader want to read an essay, not an big huge paragraph. THE BURDEN FOR CLEAR WRITING REST WITH THE WRITER!

09/24/10

Today in expository reading and writing we had SSR. I, Cesar, continued to read the book THE INDIAN AND THE CUPBOARD. In todays reading it got to the point in the book where the little boy, Omri, has shared his secret about the real- live indian to his friend patrick. Also in the read, its getting harder for Omri to keep it a secret from his family. And I, Josh, read Kingdom Hearts vol. II & III. I'm at the part when Sora, Donald, & Goofy went to the Olympis Colluseum, where Hercules train, for the tournament and when they won, they were about to go to another world, they got eaten, by Monstro the giant whale, but they escaped, with a little help from Gepetto and Pinnocchio.

Data Reflection 09/13/10 − 09/ 17/ 10

09/ 13/ 10

Today in class we reviewed more of what we have been talking about since the first day of school. Today we talked about word choice always being important in every work of writing. The class again brought up the fact that the burden is on the writer, not the reader. There has to be logic in all forms of writing. In every form of writing, the writer has to stay on topic.

09/ 14/ 10

Today in expository reading and writing, we continued to edit scholarship essays. We learned metacognition, which means making a short term memory into a long term memory. While editing the essays we talked about how every sentence has to "hold hands" so it stays connected and the rest of the paper doesn't go off track.

09/ 15/ 10

Today in expository reading and writing we took a break from editing essays and focused on  specific piece of writing. We continued to talk about sentences needing to "hold hands". We learned today that the secret to a clear and readable style is in the first five or six sentences. We also discussed that at the start of every sentence, we have to keep the reader in familiar territory.

09/ 16/ 10

Today in expository reading and writing we went back to editing essays. Mr Hamilton talked to us about a sentence he constructed after class yesterday. He asked us if we knew how many ideas there should be in a paragraph. There should be one idea per paragraph. He also brought up the usage of metacognition in real life, turn short term into long term memory. We learned that we should always start a sentence with a character , then add a nice verb. Mr Hamilton talked to us about combining sentences to create sentence variety.

09/ 17/ 10

Today is friday which meant sustained silent reading. I, cesar bernal, continued in chapters 3 and 4 of The Indian and the Cupboard. These two chapters continued on with Omri discovering more about the toy indian that he can  magically make come to life by putting it in the cupboard.  And I, Josh, read Eyewitness Reptiles, which talks about reptiles and show some interesting facts.

DATA Sustained reading 09/10/10

Today in class was sustained reading. Josh read kingdom hearts and I read the indian in the cupboard. Josh was reading and read, when Sora, Donald, and Goofy went to Agrabah. I read Indian in the Cupboard, it is about a little boy named Omri who got a cupboard and a toy indian for his birthday.

Data Reflection 09/09/10

Today in expository writing, we learned about the importance about avoiding double negatives in an essay. We also learned that there is two critical points to every writing, the beginning and the end. We were taught that concise writing is more vigorous. The beginning sentence of an essay always has to make sense so that the reader does not get confused.

Data Reflection 09/ 08/ 10

Today in class we continued editing, learned redundancy and to spend our words wisely. We were also taught that " the burden for clear writing rest with the writer ". In a well written essay confusion seems to be a main problem.  AVOID confusion when writing an essay. The subject in a well written essay always needs to be clear so confusion does not occur.

Data Reflection 09/07/10

Today we learned editing paragraphs into short, to the point simple sentences. Writing long paragraphs isn't always good for the reader. Keep all written paragraphs short and simple so that you don't confuse the reader and throw them off track. Every paragraph written should make sense and be clear on who or what the subject is. Are short paragraphs that are simple always the best thing?