APEnglish–Los Al

Period 4

I could sum up today’s scribe notes with one word: context. But that would be boring for you and lazy on my part.

The room had interesting scents today, surprisingly both were not food related… at first it smelt like wet paint, and then burning stuff later on… then again, Colleen may have had some weird food again… no, but seriously. Why does the room smell weird?!? Which reminds me of the walkway of my house which smells like rotting fish and dead carcasses. I do not know the source of the horrid smell, but it is ten (possibly twenty) times worse than any of Mr. Eldridge’s room’s smells. My dad thinks an animal died inside the 100-year-old olive tree in our front yard… Which translates to: I don’t think the smell is going to go away any time soon, good grief.

Mr. E took [sic] “of” number 4 of the TSL quiz (Ch. 16-18) cause it was actually from Ch. 19. [Sic] is used when quoting something that has a mistake, the mistake is acknowledged but not fixed. Anyways, Mr. E asked Steve (not me, Nicki D.) if she had read any of TSL. Steve said she had only read a “few chapters… in the middle,” because she doesn’t like the book. Then Mr. E asked why she didn’t like it, she responded with: “There’s so much writing in this book!” Then Steve drew an ocean scene with fish, jellyfish, and what seemed to be a mermaid.  Michelle L. said something about the drawing, and Steve responded (unaware of the pun), “Sorry if my drawing is not to scale.”

After the quiz Mr. E explained how he has been giving us tiny doses, or little weights of TSL, so that when we get into bigger books, we will be acclimated. Then he related it to weight lifting, which also came up during physics today, but for a completely different reason. Interesting fact from Mr. Eldridge: more thinking = more folds in your brain!!! Mr. E read it somewhere and Mr. E confirmed it, so it must be true! (Epistemology, my dear Watson) With our brain it is either “use it or loose it.”

Then we got the tone worksheet of a Malcolm X criticism of white men which we worked on for 2 minutes. The class got off on a tangent about the clock and why it never has the correct time. It’s that why so that the sophomores don’t pack up early. Mr. E said a few “bright” students it out, and Ed claimed that he has it figured out too….hmmm.

We then went over an example response to the Frederick Douglass essay from Friday. Mr. E assured us it was not perfect, but it was very good.

Here’s why:

• -To the point
• -Parallel structure
• -Good use of prepositional phrases
• - Every sentence was an argument
• - Quotes served the function of the sentence, not the other way around
• - No ornamentation quoting
• -About 10% of essay was quotes, but well-chosen quotes

Mr. E’s clipboard + podium = boom

¡¡ Warning !!

For the next section, context is very, VERY important!

CONTEXT CHANGES EVERYTHING!!

Okay, not everything, but you get my point.

Mr. E started to discuss Naylor’s “The Meaning of a Word”, which began with Olivia who could not bring her self to say “the ‘n’ word,” thus proving Mr. E’s point on how everyone was scared to say it because of the connotations and the racial meaning of the word.

Mr. E: “Uh-oh, don’t say it”

Everyone in class didn’t say “nigger”, except Patrick, which proved Mr. E’s other point on how we think only black people can say it without it having a bad connotation.  Naylor’s main argument was that the meaning of the word is based on the context in which it is used. The boy did not say the word to her he “spit” out the word after “snatching” the paper from her.

Then we watched “The NIggar Family” from the David Chappelle show. It showed how the context in which the word is used in can change the meaning entirely. If you want to see it again click HERE.

Mr. E: “That’s not Chris Rock! ‘Y’all look alike.’”

After the video was over, Ed, Sean, and others kept on asking Mr. E: “What word again?”

Mr. E lectured us on how we were laughing at the video, when 30 seconds before, we were scared to death to even say “nigger.”

Nicki D. thought the class had gotten really quiet, and then the bell rang.

While people were packing up, Mr. E explained how when words are used hatefully, all other words become hateful too.

If you have gotten this far in my rambling scribe notes, I congratulate you.

Now for some fun!!

Ever since I got my schedule, I have been wondering, what Eldridge means?

Well, thanks to surnames.behindthename.com,

Eldridge is derived from the middle English given name Eldric, a variant of Aldrick. (I’m too lazy to look that up. If you want to look it up to satisfy your own curiosity, knock yourself out.)

Okay, I’m done. Don’t forget the two tone worksheets and read “Needs” by Sowell in the Bedford Reader. (By the way, does anyone else have a computer that freaks out on the quizzes?) Oh, and don’t forget your outside read.

-Steven Jones

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Now for

The 50 Most Common Surnames (in the US)

Rank      Surname           %

1.        Smith              1.006

2.        Johnson       0.810

3.        Williams      0.699

4.        Jones              0.621

5.        Brown         0.621

6.        Davis              0.480

7.        Miller             0.424

8.        Wilson        0.339

9.        Moore         0.312

10.       Taylor        0.311

11.       Anderson      0.311

12.       Thomas        0.311

13.       Jackson       0.310

14.       White              0.279

15.       Harris        0.275

16.       Martin        0.273

17.       Thompson      0.269

18.       Garcia        0.254

19.       Martinez      0.234

20.       Robinson      0.233

21.       Clark              0.231

22.       Rodriguez     0.229

23.       Lewis              0.226

24.       Lee           0.220

25.       Walker        0.219

26.       Hall          0.200

27.       Allen              0.199

28.       Young         0.193

29.       Hernandez     0.192

30.       King          0.190

31.       Wright        0.189

32.       Lopez         0.187

33.       Hill          0.187

34.       Scott              0.185

35.       Green         0.183

36.       Adams         0.174

37.       Baker              0.171

38.       Gonzalez      0.166

39.       Nelson        0.162

40.       Carter        0.162

41.       Mitchell      0.160

42.       Perez              0.155

43.       Roberts       0.153

44.       Turner        0.152

45.       Phillips      0.149

46.       Campbell      0.149

47.       Parker        0.146

48.       Evans              0.141

49.       Edwards       0.137

50.       Collins       0.134

Period 5

Filed under: Daily Scribe and tagged brain, Chappelle Show, couch, Hatly Wednesday, Malcolm X, Moccasin Monday, names, smells