Jermaine's AP Blog

Today we had to compose our first rhetorical analysis for a grade. I know that I did not do good at all on this because I dont feel like I was as ready as I needed to be. Mr. Rease's help did benefit me on the amount I did write, but I sadly ran out of time and did not get to finish my essay. I wont let this failure get me down. I will move on and try to do better on the next one.

I was not in class for most of the block today. I was out because I had to work the Call Of Duty Tournament for the National Honor Society. Even though i had a nice time working the event, I wish i could have stayed im class to prepare for the upcoming rhetorical analysis test. I am not ready for this test because I really don't quite understand how to do it yet. I am still going to try my best and hope for the better.

I was absent today. 

Class today was pretty eye opening. At the very beginning of class, we were instructed to write a paragraph on a given prompt. After this we were put into groups, and graded each others papers based on the given criteria. To see the amount of errors and things the class needs to work on as a whole within the paragraphs was shocking. The class as a whole is not on the level needed for an AP class. This honestly motivated me to want to work harder.

I was absent today.

Today in class, we had a big lesson on subject vs. object pronouns. Up until this point, I never knew that there were specific circumstances for these types of pronouns, or how to use some of them in the proper way even though it may not sound correct. After this lesson, we worked on writing a paragraph of our rhetorical analysis essay. I did not get to finish because i was having a hard time writing it. I will keep learning how to write one and hopefully I will improve.

Today in class, we took notes. We learned and took notes on the difference between tone and mood. I learned that even though these two can be similar, there is still a big difference between them. Tone is the writer's attitude and mood is the atmosphere. We also took notes on things like diction and syntax. We got to see how they were used in a text as well.

Today we had our third vocabulary quiz. For this one we had to choose objects to represent the words. This was my favorite one so far because of the creativity. Everyone brought very nice and creative stuff for their words. The explanations for the things was funny and it was a good way to help remember these words. I hope the next quiz is fun like this one.

Today we looked at Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. This speech is very motivational, but we were not analyzing the speech, we were analyzing the rhetorical strategies Martin Luther King Jr. used to convey his message in the speech. I am starting to understand rhetorical analysis a little bit more because of doing this activity. We also talked about using the SOAPSTone strategy to do a rhetorical analysis. This was also helpful with this speech.

Love is like a war Two opposing foes on the battle front One common cause Both soldiers are fighting for Sometimes there is gunfire That rains above their heads Sometimes there are stalemates When the soldiers need a break from fighting A time to get their heads together Once the fighting is finally over The soldiers take a stand United or separated they decide But one thing is for sure, All is fair in love and war

During the first half of class, we took a test on a poem we read yesterday about how poets risk death and absurdity when writing poems. It was a nice poem and the test was pretty easy to me. After the test, we recited our poems. There were lots of really good poems and I really enjoyed them. After this, we read the lyrics from a poetic song by Tupac and analyzed it. It had very deep and meaningful lyrics that showed why he was one of the best rappers that ever lived.