The Mom

The fresh faces of the 2016-2017 sophomore AP English class looked up at Mrs. Belles, some expectantly, some apprehensively. Among those faces is Francine Lamasko, a girl of 15 years of age, newly refreshed from summer and carrying her completed summer work. Decidedly, she thinks to herself, this will be a meaningful year of learning, of growth, and of fun. She is ready.

Today is the day, the day I would get the paper I worked so hard on back. It is a chilly fall morning as I walked to my AP Literature classroom. The classroom was full of vibrant colors that match my teacher’s fiery red hair, various pug pictures, and a shelf jam-packed with Mr. Potato heads. Mrs. Grimes, my teacher, is loud, impolite, and to say this nicely, she is an overweight older woman. I hate going to her class every day, nothing I ever do is good enough for her, she hates me all because I am quiet. So, I am very apprehensive about what grade I had received on this paper.

The five-minute warning bell goes off. I rush to my first class of my junior year, eager to see my classmates, who I was going to spend the rest of the 9 months with. I find myself stumbling into a classroom plastered with decorations of Denzel Washington with a Dr. Seuss book in his hand, a t and college flags galore. My AP English 11 class suddenly seemed so appealing to me. As a beautiful, curly haired short lady stood in front of me and said “Welcome to AP English 11,” I knew that I had found a treasure so much greater than just a pretty classroom. Little did I know, that short lady was going to inspire me throughout my challenge filled second-to-last year of high school.

Throughout the semester learning targets have been used to help us master the content in the course. Each learning target was used in a variety of different ways and applied at different parts of the semester. I believe that I deserve credit for this class because of how I’ve mastered connecting literature to current events and today’s society, my use of annotating and paraphrasing to help comprehend a text, as well as how I found, evaluated, and cited research to help support a central argument.

    I assisted with Ms. Martin’s first period English I class on September 23, 2017. The class began with a bell ringer related to the short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Ronald Dahl which had been read in class. The assignment projected on the smartboard requested that students explain the difference between verbal, situational, and dramatic irony and find examples of each in the story. After a class discussion of their answers, the students drew a plot diagram in their interactive notebook. Then students mapped the story (identifying exposition, incremental action, climax, falling action and resolution). Earlier, Ms. taped a piece of paper with one of the story elements under one of the desks in each group. Students were asked to draw an illustration demonstrating that story element in the story.

The main focuses  in Mr. Revel’s english class so far can be split up into five different categories;  pre-course reading, grammar, vocabulary, Foster, and active reading. Our pre-course reading included On Writing by Stephen King and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, both of these novels were very different and taught us

The second grade team shared with Amber that students are having a difficult time with understanding the author’s purpose. Amber suggested showing the students short video clips of shows or commercials that the students are familiar with (documentaries, commercials about donating money to charity, selling chips, etc.…) and asking the students why they think somebody decided to make each of them.

Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell, eds. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 6th ed. Thompson Wadsworth, 2007.

Through the jungle of steel legs, nervous legs tapped the concrete ground as the overly proud teacher paced the front of the class. Already two weeks in Advanced Placement Language Arts, the class was in the fastest gear possible. A few teenagers in the back stared hopelessly at the screen as the teacher of the year rattled off terms that they had to memorize in minutes. Whereas the teenagers in the front looked at each piece of information on the board like they were hungry raptures at it was their prey. Even so, the anxiety of the room seeped from every pore of all the well dressed students. Today was the picture day for all of the Juniors and Ms. Powell knew her Advanced Placement class needed to keep pace even if they had half the normal time they normally did.

Now let’s jump back to freshman year. There was half a minute till the bell rang, I rapidly scribbled illegible responses and turned in my quiz. I didn’t study for this quiz in advance because there was a gymnastics meet the night before. After I turned my quiz, I muttered to myself, “I completely failed that.” My classmate glared at me; the malice of her raspy voice made her exasperation apparent.

¶ 1 Topic Sentence: In examining Kurt Vonnengut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, we can illuminate the faults in Weisenburger’s theory of satire dichotomy, as well as illuminate the nature of the satirical qualities of Slaughterhouse-Five itself.

It was a bleak, foggy day in September. Alexa took a deep breath as she cautiously trudged into her new school. The chatter of kids, who had known each other for years, echoed through the wide hallways. Endless rows of striking red lockers occupied every possible space Hordes of students crowded the halls like an army of ants. She could feel an abundance of eyes looking her up and down, wondering who this new freak was, wondering who was invading their tiny, close-knit school. It was horrendous enough that she was a freshman. It was even worse that she was new. She was fresh meat in a

It been a week since Callie has had her first nightmare and Brandon has told his moms about Callie's old foster dad. Stef and Lena hearts broke thinking about what Callie has been through in her such short life. They just wanted to hold her and hope all the pain would go away, but they both knew that wasn't possible. So they talked to her, but she wouldn't say much and the nightmares have been daily since. the moms were at lost what to do.

Two weeks prior to summer vacation my 8th grade year, Amy and I were in one of my favorite places, a place that was supposed to be nearly silent, but was often much too loud. A fact that was overlooked by most, for we had all just come from lunch and were full and happy.At this point in time the vast room was in a state of orderly disorder, with books strewn everywhere.From the long battered hicory tables and matching chairs, to the typical boring and dusty blue/green carpet found in most schools,to the small, cramped office where the books were usualy sorted.The taste of the creamy tomato soup I had with lunch, was still fresh in my mouth, slightly tainted with the faint smell of paste and fresh lamanation. As always, you could hear the soft roar of papers rustling as the pages of the books held in the hands of engrossed readers turned rapidly. The stained maple book shelves felt more empty than normal and the long and difficult process of replacing the old books with the new had begun, shown by the library specialists rushing frantically around, trying to complete all of their tasks before the end of the school year was upon

Quickly, a bright fiery red bike sped across the burning sideways, all the way to an enormous containment facility, containing zombies and monsters to prance at any moment. You may ask yourself, “Why monsters and zombies?”, also “Who’s riding the bike?” Well what was I supposed to write. It’s 10:54 a.m. and i’m stuck in English, trying to figure out what to write. Should I just write about Superheroes saving helpless people, catching villains, and doing the same thing everyday on repeat? In my classroom of amazing talented people, looked as boring as usual. The only thing that wasn’t completely boring, was watch people completely freak out about how they were going to finish all their homework plus our essay. Our prompt had to be a multiple