Faya's English Blogg

​ Prompt Response: Clustering is useful by creating different evidence to support ones stance on the prompt, and then write down commentary ideas that proves the evidence and strengthen your stance. It is useful as it helps you get a rough draft of what your essay is going to be made up of and helps you organize your thoughts.  Personally the most useful part of the clustering process would be connecting my ideas to my subtopics as I tend to either repeat the same ones over and over aging or mix them up. I do think that I would use this when planning an AP Lang essay in the future as it really helped organize our class ideas, which I think it would do for me too when working independently.  Summary: Today in class we learnt about clustering, took notes together as a class, and had a class discussion.  Reflection: I learned what clustering was and how helpful it could be for organizing one's thoughts. I also learned how to apply it when writing an essay. 

​ Prompt Response: Writing that essay was very stressful. Even though I had an easy time writing the introduction paragraph, and my evidence as it was based on my own experiences. I had a really hard time writing my commentary, as it has always been the part that I struggled with. Even though we practiced as a class, I know that I have to practice more independently. One thing that I would change next time I write an argumentative essay is to state my thesis properly, as I realized right after the time was up instead of stating whether the prompt was valid or not. I instead said that it was important, which I realized was incorrect right after the time ended.  Summary: Today In class we wrote a full argumentative essay independently.  Reflection: I learned that I do not perform well under pressure. I also learned that I need to work on writing commentary and using sophisticated vocabulary. 

​ Prompt Response: Although I have been fortunate enough to have experienced that I truly belonged multiple times. One specific time was when I was at my confirmation camp surrounded with other Christians my own age. That was my first time feeling that I truly belonged with people my own age, as before that I didn't feel like anyone had the same values or morals as me. That made me feel truly relaxed, like I could just be myself and they wouldn’t judge me for it. Summary: Today in class we had a substitute so we did not really learn anything, but we did do a common lit.  Reflection: I learned that humans in fact need a sense of belonging to feel well. And how truly important it is for humans to get that, and that it is the same in many animals. 

​ Prompt Response: Even though I aspire to use all the words from the vocabulary this week in the future. One word that really stood out to me was cosmopolitan, which can be used to describe a person who is diverse and comfortable with many different cultures and countries. I think this will be a word that would be the most useful to me as this is a word that I want to describe in the future. I aspire to be a cosmopolitan woman when I grow up and that is one of my biggest goals in life.  Summary: Today in class we learned about 15 new vocabulary collage board words and did activities related to them. Reflection: I learned a bunch of new words that I can use to expand my vocabulary. This will be useful to me both in my day to day life as I have new words to pull from to make sure I describe something accurately, but also when writing my essays during the AP exams. As one of the points needed to get a 6/6 on a college board exam is a sophisticated vocabulary. 

​ Prompt Response: One thing that I did not understand before that I do understand now about my commentary is the structure. I knew the outline of it, (Claim → Evidence → Commentary, explain the evidence and  “SO WHAT” ). But I did not understand how to actually apply it to my writing till now. This caused confusion for me when writing before, but after this lesson I finally understand how to apply it properly to my writing. I will use this knowledge when writing my AP Lang argumentative essay. I now feel confident in my ability to write a strong commentary and score well on my argumentative essay.  Summary: Today we practiced how to write commentary, and how to incorporate the “So What” into it.  Reflection: I learned how the structure of my commentary was supposed to look. I also learned what parts of the commentary that I struggled with and how to improve them.  I will use this when writing my essay on Wednesday. 

​ Prompt Response: During today's lesson I had multiple takeaways that I will apply to my own writing. But one of the most important ones for me is how to write my commentary, as that has been something that I have struggled with. To know that my commentary is supposed to follow a specific format (Claim → Evidence → Commentary, explain the evidence and  “SO WHAT” ) is really going to help me improve my writing. Another takeaway that I have is the use of sophisticated language, and how the use of the new college board vocabulary can elevate an essay and give you a point when grading. Overall, I am thankful that I learned a lot!  Summary: Today we went over what a good and bad essay looks like by reviewing  multiple essays and scoring them based on the rubric.   Reflection: I learned how the most important thing is to write your essay based on the rubric, not what you think is best. And that college  board wants to reward you for what you do well. I will ...

​ Prompt Response:  When I am completing an assignment usually I will skim over the rubric for key parts before I do it, but only if it is an important assignment. But if it is not an important assignment I will not look at the rubric. After reviewing the AP Lang Argument Essay rubric today I learned the importance of using the rubric when writing an essay, and how it gives you an outline of how the essay is supposed to look. I myself will use the rubric as a roadmap to improve my writing by incorporating every element that the rubric outlines in my writing instead of disregarding it. As I did before.  Summary: Today we went over the rubric that will be used when we are writing our essays, and started drafting ideas for answers to our prompt.  Reflection: I learned how teachers score essays. I also learned what the requirements for my essay were, and how the teacher is going to decide if I fulfilled them or not. I will use this when writing my essay next week. 

Prompt Response: One time where I completed an assignment without looking over the rubric was when I did an assignment in Literature last year. The assignment had instructions and a detailed rubric, but I chose to just follow the instructions and not look at the rubric. This caused me not to know the “ins and outs” of the assignment causing my grade to drop because of the bad grade I got in the assignment. By looking over the rubric together in class I learned the ‘ins and outs” of this rubric and how to apply it to my upcoming essay. I also learned that earning a ⅚ is more then possible for me.  Summary: Today we learned about how an introduction paragraph is supposed to look like, and how to write a thesis statement.  Reflection: I learned that a thesis statement is supposed to have your position + you claim. I  will use this while writing my essay. I also learned where in an essay I should place my thesis statement.  ​

​ Prompt Response: Even though I was very young when Covid-19 happened I remember how quickly every day life changed and how uncertain and scary everything felt. As schools closed down all over the country, people started recurring social distancing, and everyone started staying home. I was scared something would happen to me and my family, but also scared of not knowing if everything would go back to normal. This helped me understand how Americans felt after 9/11. Even though these two major events are very different. I can relate to the fear of everyday life, just wondering what will come next, and the sudden changes made to everyday life.  Summary: Today in class we wrote our blog posts, got feedback on our group paragraphs, and revised our paragraphs based on the criticism.  Reflection: Today I learnt that not all criticism is good criticism, and that even though people think they are helping, do not trust them blindly. Not to say that this is always the case, because ...

​ Prompt Response: One time where I used informal language where it would have been more appropriate to use formal language was when I was talking to immigration on my way to America. We had just packed up our lives in Sweden, and flown across the Atlantic and landed at Atlanta International airport, 2 flights and 23 hours later. I was tired both mentally and physically, from the physical exaltation of it all and the emotional exhaustion of leaving everything behind. So when we sauntered up to immigration, knowing that that was the last real obstacle between me and a comfortable bed. The immigration worker started questioning everybody in my family, and asking about our intent to enter the country. When it came to my turn I said something around the lines of “ idk bro, I didn't choose to come here”, and then I caught myself as everyone in my family gave me horrified looks, but the worker started laughing. Even though it all worked out, and I got let into the country, it taught me ...

Prompt Response: One suggestion from a group member that improved our paragraph was Langston's suggestion to change the evidence. But it wasn't the suggestion itself that stuck out to me, even though that itself improved our paragraph. But the approach he took while suggesting it. He didn't put down any other ideas, he just gave constructive criticism to improve it. Which changed the way I thought about criticism in a group project, and how I thought about the argument.  Summary: Today in class we finished our group paragraph about an unpopular opinion.  Reflection: As we continued working in groups today I learned that it is important to communicate with your group members about the assignment. I also learnt the importance of voicing your opinion. Something that I will take with me from today's lesson is how helpful it is to have a group as you can bounce ideas off each other. 

Prompt response:  Something that I have always been curious about is how FaceTime works. I understand that people figured out the technology and that we now have the ability to FaceTime each other, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. In the exact moment that I am talking to someone, they could be across the world, and I can still see them, hear them, show them things, and have them show me things. It just doesn’t make sense to me how that is possible. I am really curious about how FaceTime works and the mechanics behind it. I don’t think I am smart enough to fully understand it, but it is definitely something that I have always been curious about. ​ Summary: Today in class, we worked together to create an argument and write a paragraph about a topic we were given. Reflection: I learned that people can have different perspectives on the same topic. I also learned that it is better to use more recent evidence instead of information that is more than ten years old.

Prompt response:  Today, we learned about creating a clear line of reasoning by connecting a claim, evidence, commentary, and conclusion. I struggled the most with creating a clear claim. For me, across all of my classes, creating a clear claim is something that I have always struggled with because I just can’t figure out how to do it. I feel like I forget to explain why I am making the claim, and I just write the claim that I think I agree with instead of explaining why I think that claim is true. I always forget the “because” part, which makes it harder for me to create a clear and strong claim. Summary: Today in class, we looked back at our argument paragraphs and went over some things we should and should not do when writing an argument. Reflection: I learned that a claim is made by combining your position and your reasoning. Since making a claim is something I struggle with. I think this will help me make my claims more clear in the future.

​ Prompt Response:  I'm scared of a bunch of things, like spiders, heights,  and a lot more. But one fear that I have overcome is my fear of vomiting. I googled it one time and found out that it is called emetophobia, and I am sure that I had it. It made my daily life very hard, as when I got  stressed, like when I hade a lot of schoolwork. My body reacted by making me nauseous , and because of my fear of vomiting, I got scared and anxious. Which made me want to vomit even more. But last year I I got over it. Summary:  Today we got time to work on our blog posts, and later on went to get our pictures taken. Reflection:  none