Jermaine's AP Blog

Today we watched the current event presentations. All of them had very interesting topics. I think my favorite presentation to watch today was on sex trafficking because thats a very big issue that younger people are facing today.

Today we didn't go to class because we were on a field trip. We went to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and it was very fun. We got to see lots of interesting aquatic animals and we got to touch some as well. The highlight of the trip was the squid dissection. This was fun and very educational seeing the anatomy of the squid. Overall, this was a very fun trip and im glad I got to go.

Today we looked at how to find credible sources for our projects. Mr. Rease showed us many different resources we could use to do our projects and they were pretty easy to access once he showed us. The Alabama Virtual Library is a very useful tool to find information on, and until today, I never knew about it. I am sure that I will use some of the resources he showed us on my project.

Today in class, we answered a question from the essay we read yesterday. The question challenged our perspectives on a past event in our lives, and made the event seem better and more vivid in our imaginations. After this assignment, we were given our projects that will count for our end of the quarter test grade. The project is a current events project and everyone has their own unique topic. My topic is genetic cloning and I feel good about this project.

Today in class, we looked at the process of elimination more. We looked at a passage from an old AP exam and answered the multiple choice questions associated with it. Our answers were actually graded today and we got to see where we stood. Its safe to say we did miserably and still need work on the skill. I want to work on it more because it will be helpful to me in the long run.

Today in class, we looked at more poems. With these poems, we practiced using the process of elimination to answer multiple choice questions. I am starting to master this skill because it is becoming easier to do this on assignments even out of this class. I find myself doing it in other classes on tests as well. We were also given a homework assignment to write a poem for a competition. I am going to try my best even though poems are not my strong suit.

Mr. Rease was absent today. The class went to another teacher's class. In there we talked about perspectives as it relates to history. We discussed how history is told based on the perspectives of others and it can cause controversy when the perspectives of different people about historical events differ. This talk made me reflect on the history I knew about the world and to think of some of the other perspectives it could come from.

Today we looked at another AP exam writing prompt. This prompt required us to examine factors for our argument using the sources given. We mainly looked at the sources and decided what factor the source contributed to for the majority of class. After we looked through all of the sources, we composed a thesis statement based on the factors we found. I feel like I really needed todays lesson because I wasn't very comfortable with finding the factors the way the prompt asked, and I feel like I got better at it after the lesson.