Tim's blog

 Yesterday (Friday), we went over a presentation about using formal vs. informal language. I learned about what it takes to have proper formal language as well as many things in general about informal language. It impacted me because I did not know many things in this presentation that I initially thought would be sort of elementary. With this knowledge, I plan on doing a lot better in my soon-to-come writing assignments in every class. I liked how the slides worked. The presentation was smooth, clear, and easy to follow. I also liked how the sentences being corrected worked.  Today, I am feeling tired. I have to go do some work at our meeting hall putting some cabinets up, but I was told it will be about 5 hours of labor. I am happy to serve the Lord in this way though! Plus, my dad said that doing this, I can get whatever I want from wings 101, my favorite wing place.

 on Wednesday we watched the final scene of Fences  and then took an assessment on the play.  What I learned was some new insight from different perspectives in the play. Answering the comprehension questions made me think about parts of the play, that I hadn't previously considered, impacted me. With this knowledge, I think I will be able to write a much better essay about Fences .  I liked that we had an hour and 40 minutes of class. We finished the movie version of the play and still had an hour of class left to start and finish our assessment. I used to despise block days, but when I focus on productivity it feels like I have a lot more time to sit down and get something done than I do in my regular  schedule, 55 minute classes. Today (I am finishing this post up 2 days late so "today" is Friday) I am feeling thankful. I am thankful that even when someone very close to me says something cold that could resonate poorly in my mind, I can remember to simpl...

I was absent today. (Tuesday)

 Today, we finished  Fences but I missed everything except for the last page because I was late, as always. I'll try to sleep earlier tonight so I don't keep snoozing my alarm and waking up at 7:15, which, if I don't skip breakfast, is why I arrive so late. After finishing the play, we typed a short narrative that explained how Troy might have died, because in Fences  it wasn't made known to us. Only the funeral was described. (I still haven't read much of Act II Scene 5) I learned that I can whip up a narrative about a part of the story that I don't even have too much information on quicker than I had previously thought I could. It impacted me by making me realize that writing the essay on Wednesday analyzing Fences  will probably be easier than I have been assuming. With this knowledge, I plan to do well on the Fences analysis essay, but I know that I need to review the rubric/guidelines before I feel fully confident.  What I liked about the lesson, specifical...

We didn't have class on Thursday the 21st. Today, I came in just in time to get a part for the reading. I was reading Cory's lines, and I'd like to think I did a good job. Not Oscar-earning, but I think I delivered the part well enough. I learned just how serious Troy really is about the things he says. It would have been satisfying to see Troy back down when Cory started confronting him with the baseball bat, because Troy really doesn't morally deserve his family or rights that he demands after what he has done, much less how he still feels after time has gone by. Troy putting his head out for Cory to kill him with the baseball bat impacted me a lot. It was quite a move, but I could see why Troy would do that because it's pretty obvious Cory isn't going to kill his dad over something like this. I plan to use this knowledge in my essay to bring some points across. I'm not sure how I'll tie this scene into everything, but this one and the other climactic,...

Today I got to class late, but I came in time to see that we were finishing up going over the requirements for an analysis essay about Fences  we'll be doing. After being instructed about the essay, we read another scene from Fences  that was the climax of the whole play. I learned that our suspicion of Troy's unfaithfulness was a reality. The scene was him confessing to Rose that he got another lady pregnant. This impacted me a lot because it still caught me off guard, even though it was quite predictable of Troy. Troy kept using baseball analogies that came so rapidly, I couldn't understand each one. With this developed knowledge of the play, I plan on making more educated guesses about the rest of it. Mr. Rease said we should be able to finish on Friday, but we only have a 30 minute class so I feel like we might not be able to. I'm not sure how far into the book we are page-wise because I've used a downloaded version on my computer for most of the days, but the m...

 Today, we continued reading Fences  and for the first time, I had a part to play. I was Bono, and it was fun reading but I missed a couple words in the beginning, which I noticed was because I'm living on 6.5 hours of sleep today. I learned more about Bono and Troy's relationship through playing my part, but the scene really grabbed my attention and impact me when Troy reflected on his memories of his father, from when Troy was only 14 years old. This part really caught me by surprise. (no need to go into details there) I plan to use this knowledge of this father experience to be 1. grateful for my family upbringing, and 2. keep in mind other families, or kids who have gone through similar situations. What a horrible world we live in. What I liked about today's lesson was when Mr. Rease said he liked my blog posts. I'm assuming this is because I follow the format as closely as possible. I put the basic elements of the format on a google doc, which I can refer to back a...

 On Monday, we answered 19 questions about what we've read so far in Fences .  With these comprehension questions, I learned a lot more about Fences  than I had already known. It impacted me by being surprising, how many things about characters became clear to me that I hadn't known prior to answering these questions, because I had to look some of the answers up and revisit certain pages for quotes supporting ideas. With this knowledge, I plan (more predict) that I will do much better on the quiz we will inevitably have on this play. I liked that because we had a sub, (nothing personal, Mr. Rease) it was very chill and we could work more at our own pace from the start to end of the period on an assignment given at the beginning. Having a sub was just a nice switch-up of pace. I am doing this post a day late, but yesterday I was feeling a little stressed. I am starting a Bible-reading club and I need 15 signatures of interest from students (by Friday) to make it happen. I ...

 Today I got to our class just 10 minutes before it ended. (sorry Mr. Rease that I'm always late...) I was told to log onto Illuminate Online and I started taking a short-story/autobiography analysis quiz. I would have finished it in my 2nd period but I ended up being too busy in that class. I started up again in 3rd period, but I got locked out of the quiz. After getting the code from Mr. Rease, I can finally do it but my classes today are very busy and I'm going camping so I'm getting checked out at the beginning of 5th period. I'm more intent on doing this blog post than finishing the Illuminate quiz, because I feel like its more time sensitive and urgent at this point. From this story that we were quizzed on, I got a refreshed perspective of just how interesting books can be to some people. What impacted me about the story is that it showed me how a person's love for books can lead to them becoming authors of their own books later in their lives. I think that...

 Today, we read more scenes from "Fences" and answered some questions analyzing different aspects of it, as well as watching a scene from the movie version of the play. I learned a lot more about each character's relationships and conflicts with each other. It impacted me in a way of giving a new perspective. I realized that some of Troy's reasons for why Lyons shouldn't play football aren't too solid, but his foundational argument as Lyons' father is justified that Lyons has to do what Troy tells him. I plan to use this knowledge to have a deeper understanding next time we read. I liked a lot of the jokes that "Fences" has in it. It is very entertaining to read. I also enjoy hearing different students in our class having different roles in each scene, it gives all of us an opportunity to read every once in a while without us waiting weeks to have our part. I struggled a bit with finding where we were reading at, but I downloaded the PDF so I can...

 I was absent today. (Tuesday)

 Today I got to class a little late. Thankfully, I came in just in time to hear the beginning of the play "Fences," that we are going to be reading and doing activities on for the foreseeable future. I learned about some of the characters' basic traits and I got a good mental image for the setting of the story. It impacted me by showing me a new perspective on how difficult it really was for African Americans to move up in the sports industry in this time period. I'll use this knowledge to appreciate how far we've came from this type of discrimination in sports. I liked this lesson because some parts of the story were very funny, like they way that Troy said some things. I feel like I've never heard some of the expressions used.\ Today I am feeling less productive than I was on Friday, but it's related to some slight procrastination that I think I can easily build a habit of overcoming.

 Today, we gave our own word that we would take as offensive and why, then we went over a poem showing a theme of how one offensive word can be very negativelyimpactful in someone's future. At the end of class, we replaced the word in the poem with our own and improvised our own end of the story. I learned just how much some words can impact people, as well the words some of my classmates would hate to be called which impacted me. I plan to be sure not to call any of my classmates these words with this knowledge of what words they don't like. I liked the value this lesson brought to us. I struggled with finishing my ending of the poem with all 14 sentences on time, but I finished it right at the end of class. I am feeling great today. I just did a test in 3rd period that I think went well, and I'm glad I can make up "The Rockpile" test on thursday during advisement, instead of having done two tests back to back this morning.

 I forgot to post this last week.

 I was absent on Tuesday, September 5.

 August 31 was a block day without Mr. Rease's class and I was absent on September 1. I knew we were going to take a quiz on "The Rockpile", so I will have to make it up.

 On Wednesday, we went over some questions about "The Rockpile" for the  quiz. I came into class a little late and I thought this was just for studying, so when Mr. Rease picked it up I was a little surprised. Thankfully, I found another copy and took it home to study further because I missed some questions on the sheet in class. The questions were about the theme of "The Rockpile" among other things that gave me even newer perspectives than I had the day before on family dynamics and favoritism.

on Tuesday we finished "The Rockpile", the short story we had started the day before. The story gave me a new perspective on favoritism inside of a family dynamic. I don't have any step-siblings and my parents don't really get as mad as the father in this story, but I can see just from reading it how being a step-child can have such a disadvantage when their step-father gets angry. Even if the father is angry at all of the children equally, the story shows how being the step-child can make someone an easy target for blame.

On Monday, August 28 we started reading "The Rockpile" and were asked to connect it to our own childhoods growing up. My childhood was very very different than the setting of The Rockpile. I grew up in a very safe neighborhood in Athens. We didn't know our neighbors too well (that we weren't already close to for other reasons) but it seemed there wasn't such a need to know them.