APEnglish–Los Al

Period 6

Wyatt Johnson

Class Scribe

As most of the class came trickling into 6th period, we saw Kate and Shira outside dumping out the fish.  I guess it died by being crushed by the rocks in the little glass tank.

Class started and we got back a few of our past essays.  Some were good.  Some were bad.  The syntax worksheet was on a sentence that had been split by a colon.  After a long discussion on why we thought it was there, Mr. Eldridge told us that its purpose was to put emphasis on the second clause.

Somehow the class started to get into the subject of lying and Mr. E showed us a book called chaos that had graphs of things that someone would not know there could be graphs on like: the predictability of weather or iron after a magnetic rod was pulled through it.  It was really cool with a ton of neat pictures.

The homework is the story called, “A web of Brands” in the Bedford Reader.  Also, the essay worksheet needs to be complete by tomorrow.

Period 5, November 2, 2009

Today was an exciting day as students settled in to not only a daily worksheet on syntax, but also a plethora of graded papers and essays. Scores were much higher than usual and Mr. E made a few comments on our improvement. However, it was silently discussed between table groups that it seemed as though Mr. Eldridge might just be grading with less enthusiasm and thus, more forgiveness. In any case, the majority of the class was pleased.

From there, we moved on the the syntax worksheet. The paper focused on a sentence with a colon within it that was designed to place more emphasis on the second phrase. Somehow, our discussion trailed off and Mr. E began blessing us with his knowledge of famous author, James Joyce. I found it very interesting how he made it a major point in his lecture to stress the amount of time Joyce would spend on his work – “writing only 4 words in one day”. But despite this applaud to Joyce’s patient and careful work ethic, Eldridge once again attempted to pressure us to hastily finish our Apply sections.

Next it was time to discuss our returned essays. We briefly went over the prompt of a few of the papers and from there, Mr. E began introducing us to the sure fire, mechanical way to write a passing essay. He advised us to first explore the piece for DETAIL, DICTION, IMAGERY, SYNTAX, and/or TONE, and then develop the rest of our essay based around a few of those elements.

To further stress this process we were given a worksheet to start and complete for homework. We were also asked to read Naomi Kline’s “A Web of Brands”. That about sums up this day.

P.S. sorry for the lack of attention to detail that some of the other scribes seemed to have so thoughtfully tended to, but I hope most of you can sympathize considering the amount of work from other advanced classes.

-Chris Cammiso

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Period 5

Today we started off with discussing the quotes “Know Thyself” and “The unexamined life is not worth living”. We determined that everyone needs to give their life meaning, and find a purpose in everything everything you do. Why are you doing what you do?

We then did the Imagery #8 worksheet. The passage was written by Helen Keller, which was interesting because the visual descriptions seemed most specific, and she was blind.  We also learned that Helen Keller was a major supporter of communism, which is something that people usually leave out when telling her story.

Lastly, we read more of “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Don’t forget to do you Journal to Essay, due tommorow!

-mackenzie

Period 6

• We did a worksheet on Helen Keller’s “Visual” images—she used tactile images to describe the scenes
• Helen Keller’s a communist.
• Mr. Eldridge taught the class about the Monroe Doctrine—contrary to popular belief, the US gained no respect because it didn’t have an army or navy.
• According to Kate, Helen Keller’s a conspiracy
• Mr. E used the “Clap once, Clap Twice” method to get everyone’s attention.
• Class Discussion: are babies born as blank slates or are they born “programmed?”
• Wyatt wants to punch a deaf and blind nany to see if t would make it angry.
• We discussed Helen Keller Jokes and Dead Baby Jokes

• There’s something in DNA that keeps DNA from mutating when it’s copied so much.
• Why should cells die? They just keep replacing themselves.
• KPS and Mr. Eldridge got in a debate about mitochondria and dilution.
• We worked more from the Nature worksheet:
• No one knows about integrity. à Math. It means whole.
• Moral values are meant to keep one whole.
• We own land, not landscapes.
• For about 3-4 minutes, the entire class was eerily quiet. What’s up with that?
• KPS wants Mr. Eldridge to watch Pi, Faith, in Chaos.
• Spirit of infancy”—according to Mr. Eldridge, that describes me (Shira). J
• Nature doesn’t just register happiness. It registers everything. “From breathless noon to grimmest midnight”
• There’s a “Boston Common”—land that everyone can use.
• “Glad to the point of fear”—emotions that are so powerful they’re scary. Intense emotions.
• In the city, you don’t have reason and faith, which you do in the woods.
• Join with God through nature. The Soul dissolves and you become one with everything.
• Sympathy in nature.
• Man is ot just part of nature. Nature is how you dissolve into the divine.

• Raea fell asleep.

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Period 5

NO TSL QUIZ!!!!

• Slide show of pictures of Salem: small town. old, church-like architecture with Victorian style roofs.
• Salem Witch House- the oldest building in Salem. Abnormal architecture.

Our essays on Okefenokee Swamp were returned (and Jake ruined his perfect essay streak)

• Passage 1: objective and denotative description. Purpose to inform and educate.
• Passage 2: subjective and connotative description. Purpose to entertain, personify, persuade, and intrigue.

End of the Month, from Journal to Essay paper due on Friday, October 30.

Salem Witch House:

Okefenokee Swamp:

-Allyson Wilhite

Period 6

Scribe Notes
27 October 2009
And so begins another eventful day in Mr. Eldridge’s 6th period English class…

• •    The class started off with us getting back some previous worksheets and our in class essays on the Okefenokee Swamp.

• •    We then progressed into starting the imagery worksheet, containing a passage from Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim.  Wyatt had trouble focusing, so he had to go outside and do his worksheet.  While trying to answer one of Mr. Eldridge’s questions, we somehow get on the topic of Russians, who seem to be a wee bit more logical than Americans when it comes to space technology.  While Americans spent millions of dollars inventing a space pen, the Russians decided to use a pencil while in space, which proved equally useful.  Once we got back on topic, numerous students were still not able to answer Mr. Eldridge’s question, until Sharon was finally able to explain that the land described was devouring the sunshine.  Adrian was able to further emphasize on the darkness of this passage as well.  While working on this worksheet, Mr. Eldridge noticed that Kate has fallen a little behind on the Bedford Reader; she blames this on the difficulty of AP US.

• •    After we completed this worksheet, we went on to review our essays that were passed back.  The first passage we were supposed to read expressed a tone of reverence and awe towards the Okefenokee Swamp, and the 2nd passage, not necessarily being negative, explained that the swamp was something beyond belief.  While reviewing, Kate was able to make it all the way to the “Compare and Contrast” chapter in Bedford.  Yay Kate!  We also reviewed the multiple-choice section, which apparently was in the Bedford Reader, I don’t think too many people realized that.

• •    Instead of taking a Scarlet Letter quiz today, we looked at pictures of Salem and whatnot.  Then the bell rang, and yeah, that was basically it.

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Period 6

Today in English

Class we wrote an essay so

I don’t have much to

Write about and to

Make it more “interesting” I

Am writing in Haiku

Today we had a

Sub who gave us multiple choice

Test questions and a

Prompt for an essay

About descriptions of O

Kefanokee Swamp

Since we had an es-

Say nobody really talked

I have nothing else

To document so

I guess I’m done except to

Wish everyone a

Good weekend, Have a

Good weekend everybody

The the the the end.

Adrian Foy

Period 5

• Our sub’s name was Mrs. Ward and she is really BIG on respect.
• She took role and handed out the test and essays. In order to manage our time, she told us when there were 15, 10, 5, and 1 minutes left. (she was sort of upset because there was no clock in the classroom)
• The essay topic was to explain the purpose of two different passages about the Okefenokee Swamp in Florida.
• The multiple choise test was on a medical passage given to us.
• Ok, I’m not really sure what you want to do with that……I can just be the scribe on Monday if you really need me too.

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Period 5

Today we started off class with a detail worksheet. The scene confused most people in the class and the question of “who’s Janie” and “who’s dying” arose many times. After Mr. Eldridge explained the scene we proceeded to finish the worksheet. Mr. Eldridge then told Monica, Andy, Lynne and Marilyn that they were the quietest table and asked if they communicated telepathically. Chelsea, Chelsey, Karly and Jake shared their sentences about a fight from the apply section of the detail worksheet. At the end of class, each group was assigned a question from “Neat People Vs. Sloppy People” or “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out”. The groups started the questions and the bell rang so we are all going to share tomorrow. Pretty much and uneventful day in english. Remember to study for the Scarlet Letter vocab test.

Jenna

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