To Act or Not to Act

The biggest difference between Hamlet's speech and Steve's speech is their opposing views of "failure". Hamlet looked at it as a chance to give up when things got a little bit harder, where Steve took those opportunities and used them to better himself with ultimately resulted in huge success for him. Hamlet was not one to stay positive when the times got tough and did not use those tough times as motivation to achieve something greater for himself like Steve always made sure to do. Their outlooks on life in general are extremely different and is displayed very obviously in both of their speeches.

Dear Steve

Some may think that you believe in order to be successful and love what you do, college isn't necessary. I don't believe that's what you're trying to get across though. What i got from your speech is that the most important thing in life is to find something that you love to do and make that your career, whether college is what's going to get you there is completely your choice. Steve made himself a huge success by actually dropping out of college, then becoming one of the wealthiest men alive and he managed to do this while doing what he loved to do the most. It also took him a few times of "failure" to achieve is greatest success. When thinking about your future, instead of thinking of what you HAVE to do to be happy, maybe think of what you WANT to do instead.

THE VALUE OF CHOICE

When reading about the expository composition course in the section assigned to my group, Life After Highschool, there was one idea that really stuck with me as helpful. I believe that it's crucial to focus on the actual point and importance of the writing task at hand rather than the format, such as how many paragraphs or pages are required. When given a require length, focus is taken off of what is important and the assignment suddenly becomes a chore to the student instead of a learning opportunity to better themselves and their reading/writing skills. You get so much more out of an assignment when all of your focus is strictly on the idea or concept. I hope by the end of this course I will have no problem sitting down and writing about an idea or topic without worrying how long I'm going to make it or how much time I have.

Vocabulary; Fall #6

 adroit: expert in the use of hands or body

   She was clearly an adroit when it came to painting.

 amicable: showing good will

   My mom has always been so amicable towards strangers, so helpful and kind.
 averse: strong feeling of opposition

   I was averse in going to the St. Joe's football game but my parents made me.
 belligerent: warlike

   My dad becomes belligerent when the Steelers play the Bears.
 benevolent: expressing good will or kindly behavior

   Her benevolent manner made her such an easy person to talk to.

 cursory: going over something rapidly without noticing detail

   The teacher always went over the reading material with such cursory that no one ever really understood.

ERWC Presentation: Life After Highschool

The Purpose of this writing course is to elaborate on ideas the students have about the next steps in their lives and to prepare them with the reading and writing that will be practiced.

Critical Thinking

• It's important to think critically to move beyond the initial reaction of a text
• Keeping your own opinion while reading supports critical thinking which helps students understand where the author is coming from
• Using the ideas of others to support or extend a discussion about what students want to say is very important to individual learning

Idea Chunks

• Short pieces of writing to help students understand ideas and shape their own thinking while being able to put them down on paper
• captures specific ideas, support for those ideas, and the importance of those ideas
• 1-3 paragraphs long, NOT AN ESSAY
• makes a connection between information and personal experience 

• Students benefit more from open-ended composing decisions to provide opportunity for continued development of focus instead of imposing forms and formats on the writing that must be followed
• features such as how many paragraphs or pages being required should not be which just ends up being unproductive and taking the focus off of the actual writing assignment

Setting

• Students  are able to work more flexibly allowing invention and discovery rather than just surrounding them with notes 

Tips

• Have students sit down after reading and looking over their notes and have them set those aside and write a letter  that they haven't prepared for and see where the student's mind goes
• When they feel like they've written enough about an idea have them move on to the next point, even if it doesn't follow the first point neatly
• Have them write for 20 minutes, the key is write fast, focus on ideas, and produce as many thoughts as possible
• Students should use websites as tools and use the same strategies used on regular texts when working on websites to help with decisions about what is coming next

Freedom of Choice

There are both many pros and cons of being responsible for your own decision making. Most adolescents can not wait to turn 18 to legally be on their own because they're tired of living under their parents' roof always expected to listen to their rules and follow their advice when it comes to making decisions but when you get to that point you realize how helpful they were and how it's a little scarier than you thought being on your own. Making your own decisions is great in the way that it is entirely up to you what happens, your choice is your choice and hopefully you can make the right one. The pros are alot heavier for those who are confident in themselves and naturally independent. I am the most indecisive person and I always need to get a second opinion on something to reassure what I really want. Being responsible for making your own decisions can you teach you many lessons and be a real test of maturity. It gives you the chance to really take the initiative to do what you want in life and not have to listen to anyone else telling you what they think is right for you which ultimately will either work out for you, but if it doesn't it just makes you a wiser person. It definitely would make things a little harder because you would have to worry about everything on your own, but not answering to an adult would be a new experience making life easier in a different aspect. Sometimes the easiest thing is being told what to do by someone else because that eliminates the possibility of you making a wrong decision but will that decision really be whats best for you? No one can ever answer that except yourself.

Vocabulary: Fall #5

Adroit: Clever or skillful in using hands or the mind

• He was an adroit when it came to playing chess, no one could ever catch up.

Amicable: Having a spirit of friendliness

• Her constant amicable attitude was admired by all.

Averse: Having a strong dislike or opposition for something

• She was averse when asked if she wanted to go to Magic Mountain, making it clear that she'd rather go to Universal Studios.

Belligerent: hostile and aggressive

• Please dont be belligerent with me, it wasn't my fault that you got into trouble.

Benevolent: well meaning and kindly

• My mom is the most benevolent person I know, always thinking of others.

Cursory: hasty, not thorough or detailed

• She rushed through her project with such cursory that I'll be surprised if she earns a passing grade.

Duplicity: deceitfulness

• Her Duplicity was not appreciated when she was caught in lie after lie.

Extol: praise enthusiastically

• The way my sister was extolled after her recital made her so excited to continue with dance lessons.

Feasible: possible to do easily, convenient

• With the help from many teachers and the school counselor, college is sounding to be alot more feasible than i was expecting.

Grimace: an ugly, twisted expression on a person's face, typically expressing disgust or pain

• Seeing the grimace on my mom's face when she tried my cookies confirmed the fact that I should not bake.

Holocaust: Destruction or slaughter of a mass scale

• I pray that there will never be a repeat of the Holocaust

Impervious: not allowing fluid to pass through

• My new water proof phone case proved to be impervious when I attempted taking under water pictures.

Impetus: the force or energy with which a body moves

• The intense impetus of the athlete won him first place in the race.

Jeopardy: Danger of loss, harm or failure

• Please remember that if you ever lie to me you are putting our friendship in jeopardy.

Meticulous: showing great attention to detail; careful and precise

• She had been a meticulous student her whole life, always turning in the best work.

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typical for a period or place with happy personal associations

• I'm not looking forward to experiencing the nostalgia once I graduate from highschool.

Quintessence: The most perfect or typical example of a quality or class

• She radiated her quintessence while on the stage.

Retrogress: go back to an earlier state, typically a worse one

• I was so disappointed to watch my grandma retrogress with her chemo process.

Scrutinize: examine or inspect thoroughly

• I feel like some teachers scrutinize every assignment I turn in.

Tepid: lukewarm (showing little emotion)

• My sister's reaction was extremely tepid when I told her that i had been asked to homecoming.

Literary Analysis

Topics and Events

1.) a) Go Ask Alice was not just a book read for an assignment but almost more of a life-changing experience. It's the story of a young girl's decent into the world of drugs and addiction told through her own personal diary that she kept. Alice, one day, was an average teenage girl who kept to herself and struggled with confidence problems and then the next day a young girl who was slowly getting deeper and deeper sucked in to addiction. Through the diary you can really sense the change in Alice since its written from her very own words, and you become to feel like you know her on a very personal level. She's constantly going back and forth between being sober and influenced until a drug overdose eventually causes her death.
b) Go Ask Alice is the diary of a teenage girl explaining her decent into drugs and how it's a lifetime of struggle from then on.

2.)  Since the book is the actual diary of "Alice" they claim its written by anonymous. So technically, the author chose to write this diary to keep a record of her day to day feelings and to record her life through her own personal diary. In her first diary entry, Alice had no experiences in nearly anything, she simply would talk about what she did that day or what happened at school. As time went on, the more and more drugs we began to try and use on a regular basis, the more extreme and shocking her stories would get.

3.) I have seen the way addiction has affected and ruined lives of not only the addict but also everyone around them from a very personal perspective so books about struggling with addiction are always very easy for me to relate to. Stories of addiction always catch my interest, and this book has always been one of my mom's favorite book so as soon as she told me about it, I was interested in reading it.

4.) I found the book extremely realistic considering its a real life journal of a real life teenage girl. Her conflicts within herself as far as her looks and social status are almost impossible not to relate to being a teenage girl in highschool myself. She was never happy with herself even though she always had people around her who loved and supported her, which is very common in young girls. Although I am completely against drugs and have never  tried any, her addiction was also easy for me to relate to because I've seen addiction ruin the lives of people close to me and how it can completely consume someone's life. A huge part of the story that I cannot stop thinking about was the part when Alice decided to stay with her grandparents for the summer in her home town. This is where she was introduced to her first trip of acid which struck her curiousity and tempted her to try more and more drugs. The small decision to go stay with her grandparents for a few months completely changed her life and her morals, which ultimately lead to her death. It's crazy to me to think that making such a decision can result in changing your fate.

People

1.)  Alice would describe the people she wrote about and what she thought of them through their actions. In every relationship she made throughout her short life, she was disappointed in how people turned out to be. Her expectations were always so high and she always chose to see people as good that she was constantly being let down. She would describe these people as great friends and people when really, through the reader's perspective, the things they were influencing her to do were destructive and selfish. When someone ended up hurting or betraying her she would blame herself  instead of them. Her tone was CONSTANTLY changing, one day she would be extremely happy and the next she would be questioning her very existence.

2.) Because the book is actually a published diary, there weren't very many detailed descriptions on the way  anyone looked. She did describe Sheila, who she met when she ran away to San Francisco with Chris, both physically and how she acted. When Chris and Alice ran away they immediately started looking for jobs, Chris soon found one at a boutique owned by a woman named Sheila who was in her mid 30's. The girls admired Sheila, they thought she was absolutely glamorous having her own store and apartment in the city. She was very tall and had long black hair with pale skin. She lived a luxurious life but turned out to be nothing but scum after introducing the girls with heroin and allowing her boyfriend to abuse them. Alice talked about Sheila in such a way of admiration, it was disappointing to find out she would betray the young girls. Another character that Alice talked about a lot was Chris. She met Chris while shopping at the store that Chris worked in, they instantly became close friends and although Alice absolutely adored her, she proved to be a horrible influence on Alice. Chris introduced Alice to her boyfriend's friend who got both the girls into drug dealing. Chris was a good friend to Alice and cared alot about her but just got them both into a lot of trouble. Chris had a lot of issues at home with her parents which lead to a lot of bad decisions on her part, but she was always coming from a good place and never meant to hurt Alice in any way. A character that Alice would talk about throughout her whole diary was Roger, who first love. He was a very good kid and Alice absolutely adored him. He eventually went off to bootcamp and whenever Alice did something wrong she would think back to Roger and what he would think about the decisions she had been making. She was always so worried about letting him down, and in the back of her mind she just wanted to be the girl that he would want. He was a good kid, who also really cared about Alice, but it just never worked out because of bad timing.

3.) Those three people stood out to me because of the huge effect they had on Alice as a person and as the person she became. Roger kept that innocent side of Alice that was present in the very beginning there at all times, everytime she made a bad decision she would think back to Roger and wonder why she did what she was doing. On the other side of things, in the beginning Alice never felt like she was never good enough for Roger which really effected the way she thought of herself and what she deserved. Chris played a huge role on Alice because they did everything together and faced a lot of traumatic experiences together. Chris introduced Alice to some bad things that resulted in some awful decisions made by Alice but at the same time was also the closest friend Alice ever had. Sheila was important because she taught Alice not to trust anyone, and that looks can be deceiving. You can't trust someone just because they're beautiful and rich.

Style

1.) The author used a journalistic style, since it was written as a diary. Each entry would start with a date and consist of a paragraph or two about her recent thoughts or what had happened that day, following with an entry from a following day. Because this a true story and real diary of a young girl, there are no tools from fiction writing used such as foreshadowing or symbolism.

2.) Brief descriptions of places and people are used along with focusing on action. Since it's being written about the past in a diary, not much dialogue is represented but instead just summaries on what occurred.  The descriptions of the places and people gives a good idea to the reader about who and where these occurrences took place. These really make it personal and relatable because its as if someone is describing their days to you as they would in a normal conversation, where instead you're just reading it in a published journal.

3.) Tone and mood are constantly changing from day to day. Each diary entry consists of a different tone AND mood. Alice would have a great day and would have the most positive outlook on life, focusing on bettering herself and her life and then the next day she would just be totally depressed thinking about one thing and one thing only, using drugs. The tone and mood is expressed through Alice's opinions on the story she shares, which is always obvious through her words.

4.) This book is such a personal journey because you are reading the exact words and thoughts of a girl who never even imagine that people she didn't know would be reading. She simply wrote them down as a way to keep track of time and a way  to express and confide her feelings without having to open up to an actual living person. The reason you get such a close look at her life and her thoughts is because of the fact that she never meant to share this with an audience of any kind.

5.) The book itself is a resource because it was not written intentionally to become a book. It is a diary that got published into a book to let readers enter Alice's world and prove how dark the struggle of addiction can be.

Enduring Memory

The biggest idea that I've taken away from this book is how one small decision can lead to one small mistake that can truly effect the outcome of your life, possibly in a very negative manner. Alice's decision to visit her grandparents for the summer led her to meeting an old friend from school who invited her over to hangout with friends. The decision Alice made to go led her to trying her first drug, unfortunately Alice had a positive experience with LSD expanding her once, non-existant curiousity for drugs. After this, Alice led herself down a quick spiral of drugs resulting in a death from overdosing. Imagine if she would have said no to hanging out that one night, or if she hadn't gone to the grocery store that day where she saw her old friend, she could still be alive. Alice was responsible for the decisions she made when it came to drugs but would she still have made those decisions if she had never been introduced? It's scary to think that such a small thing as saying "yes" or "no" can completely turn your whole life around. 

Another huge idea, the purpose of publishing this diary actually, is how dangerous drugs are and how they do ruin lives. They don't only ruin the lives of the addict but of EVERYONE close to the addict who are constantly worried and fearful. When a person gets too deep in an addiction or habit of using, the drug becomes the most important thing and will ultimately take over their lives. It completely takes away the person they once were and leaves this empty person living for one thing only, which is heartbreaking for the loved ones to see. Alice never admitted she had a problem, even after terrible things happened only because of the drug usage. She never blamed the drugs or herself for doing the drugs when that was the main reason these awful things were happening to her. Up until her very last diary entry she thought she had her usage totally under control but three weeks later she was found dead due to an overdose. It just takes one time of too much to be the last time. Drugs aren't worth it so its important to never get involved. Never take that first hit or trip or shot because one time is all it takes. This message is so important and should constantly be forced upon our youth, and I don't think there's any better way than publishing the thoughts and words of an actual teenage addict to show how serious the consequences can be. 

vocabulary: fall #4

 accede: assent or agree to a demand

• My sister was smart enough to ACCEDE to my parents after arguing with them for an hour.

 brandish: wave or flourish something as a threat or in anger/ excitement

• She brandishly ignored the rude remarks coming from her sister.

 comprise: made up of, consist of

• The comprised of noodles, chicken, and broth.

 deft: neatly skillful and quick in one's movement

• Everyone was amazed when seeing how deft the new student was on the basketball court.

 destitute: without the basic necessities of life; poor

• People living under destitute conditions deal with a lifetime of struggles.

 explicit: stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for doubt

• The lesson was delivered in an explicit manner, leaving no the class with no unanswered questions.

 extirpate: to root out and destroy completely 

• We extirpated the bug problem as soon as we moved in.

 inopportune: occurring at an inconvenient or inappropriate time

• My grandmother's visit could not have been any more inopportune.

 ironic: using or characterized by irony

• It's so ironic how my sister happened to be born on the same day as my mom and my grandma.

 musty: having a stale, moldy, or damp odor

• When I walked into the house, the first thing I noticed was the musty odor.

 officious: assertive of authority in an annoyingly domineering way, with regard to petty or trivial matters

• The police officer continued to behave officiously even when he was not on the job.

 ominous: threatening; giving the impression that something bad is going to happen

• The ominous atmosphere left everyone in a very frightened, worried state of being.

 pinnacle: a high, pointed piece of rock

• They were so proud when they reached the pinnacle of Mt. Everest. 

 premeditated: thought of or planned out beforehand

• The crime was proved to be extremely planned and premeditated.

 rampant: (something unwelcome or unpleasant) flourishing and spreading unchecked

• The flu became rampant as it spread fastly around the town.

 solace: comfort or consolation in a time of distress

• It's always nice knowing I can count on my mom for solace when I'm upset.

 stately: have a dignified, unhurried, and grand manner; majestic in manner or appearance

• She entered the room in the most stately way possible, everyone stared in awe.

 supple: flexible; bending and moving easily

• It's amazing to watch how supple the olympic gymnasts are.

 suppress: forcibly put an end to

• We need to suppress all of the bullying going on.

 venal: showing or motivated by susceptibility to bribery 

• She proved venal when only accepting the challenge when she heard of the prize.

vocabulary: fall #3

accomplice: a person who helps another in committing a crime       I can't believe that my accomplice ratted me out to the police. annihilate: destroy utterly       In spite, my brother annihilated my project that i worked on all night. arbitrary: subject to individual will or judgement without restriction       The decision of making school an open campus is bound to be an arbitrary subject. brazen: Shameless       The boy was completely brazen after pushing his friend.

catalyst: a person or thing that quickly causes change 

•       As soon as my cousin moved into town, she proved to be quite the catalyst when everything started to go bad.

exodus: a going out or departure 

•       My mom always makes sure that her exodus is very dramatic.

facilitate: to make easier or less difficult

•       Teachers make sure to facilitate lessons during class.

incorrigible: bad beyond correction or reform

•       Her grade was incorrigible by the end of the semester, meaning that she was not able to graduate on stage.

latent: present but not visible; hidden or concealed

•       The tension between my dad and my brother was latent but definitely there.

militant: vigourously active and aggressive

•       The spirit commanders on campus are militant when it comes to dressing up for spirit days.

morose: gloomily or sullenly ill-humored

• The morose joke the man made at the funeral was highly innapropriate. 

opaque: not transparent or translucent

• The window was so dirty, it became opaque.

paramount: above others in rank or authority, very important

• Because my coworker received employee of the month, she seeme
• d to think that she was paramount in the business now.

prattle: talk in a foolish or simple-minded way

• All of the prattle I've been hearing has gotten me confused.

rebut: claim or prove that evidence or an accusation is false

• I made sure to rebut the claims that I received when my teacher thought I had cheated.

reprimand: severe reproof or rebuke

• When my sister ate all of the chocolate cake that my mom had made, she was reprimanded for not saving any for others.

servitude: slavery or bondage of any kind

• Opinions on servitude vary but are constantly voiced through all different races. 

slapdash: hurriedly and carelessly 

• This morning was pure slapdash when i woke up ten minutes before school was to start.

stagnant: not flowing or running

• The stagnant water outside brought many mosquitos. 

succumb: to give way to superior force

• She would always succumb immediately when her and her parents would argue.