Michael's English Blog

  Prompt Response:  In the movie, Chris McCandless is presented in a very different way than the book. In the movie, he is more outgoing, reckless, and acts like a bit of a dope. This compares to the book where he is described as more reserved, charismatic, and thoughtful. Seeing the movie and connecting it the book reminded me of when I read some of Dune and saw the movies portrayal of it and how it in many ways clarified someone the world building. Summary: We watched the movie in class and answered questions off it. Reflection:  The questions we answered made me think more deeply about the movie in contrast to the book.

  Prompt Response:  Someone in my life that I always feel like I'm truly understood with is my mom. She is someone I can always go to for my concerns and is always helpful in return. It compares to the relationship of Chris and Carine because no matter what is happening around them they can always talk to each other about what they think/feel, being each others safe space. Summary: We read a new chapter of Into the Wild and answered questions off it. Reflection:  The chapter we read was very interesting and reading about his sister's reaction was very impactful. 

  Prompt Response:  2. A recent test I took I went into it feeling very confident on my knowledge regarding the unit. I went on to breeze through the test not feeling to concerned about any part. My confidence in my knowledge allowed me to easily get through the test and quickly deduce the right answer. Summary: We answered questions as a class  Reflection:  The connection questions made me reflect on how the book relates to me.

Prompt Response:  I think the movie makes him seem more reckless than in the book. As the movie it has to be dramatic and interesting, some parts kind of make him out to be more of a doofus and childish than described in the book. I think, due to the nature of an entertaining film, it is more reliable to shape one's perspective on the book, as most of the book is direct recollections of Chris's friends/family.  Summary: We watched the movie and answered questions about it. Reflection:  The movie was enjoyable but I shared some issue with the depiction of Chris as I think it was a little ridiculous in ways.

  Prompt Response: As your a child, you usually have absolute trust belief in your parents and their security, but as you grow up, you understand that they are human as you are. You understand some of their flaws and how they work personally. It gives you more connection and understanding. Chris's realization about his parents was a shock that showed him that his Parents had very complicated lives that he didn't know about. Summary: We did a vocab lesson and then did chapter 11 work Reflection:  The vocab section today gave many useful words.

Prompt Response:  Chapter 8 of the book is probably the one that has stuck with me the most. The story of the scholar, who had only desired knowledge, going and living as a stone age human for years, and his ultimate conclusion, was extremely interesting to me. This person had a very different story and motives from the other people up to this point, and his takeaway that humanity can't live without modern amenities is truly interesting. Summary:  We did a test on chapters 1-10. Reflection:  To me, the test was fairly easy, but it did require me to callback details that I hadn't thought about in a while, and connect them to more recent sections of the book.  

  Prompt Response:  Maybe this will change for me but where I am right now, success to me is generally just personal fulfillment in life. While that is broad, that means to me just having a living I am happy with and a job that I am happy with. To many people success means immense wealth and while I can understand the idea of such, I don't relate to the supposed desire of such wealth. I believe that my own desires reflect my personal values as in society and around the world, the idea of success is pretty clearly defined in an economical kind of way. Summary: We answered our classmates questions and started on two new assignments based on chapters 9-10 Reflection: Answering my classmate's questions was enjoyable because as they were critical thinking kind of questions, it forces you to look at the chapters and stories told within in different ways.

  Prompt Response: While of course not nearly as dramatic as Chris's independence, there have been many assignments where I could work with someone or multiple people, but I choose to work by myself. Usually this is a choice I would make again as being able to go solo and focus on the assignment in my own way and figure it out for myself is not only simpler to complete, but helps me gain the knowledge from said assignment better.   Summary: We made critical thinking questions based on the chapter that we read Reflection:  Making questions for a chapter makes you think about the big picture of said chapter more, reflecting more deeply than before.

  Prompt Response:  Out of all the words from Lesson 10, the one that resonates the most with me is perambulate. The definition of going on a walk or going on a stroll connects with me as going out of the house and walking around is a strategy for myself when I am struggling with something. It perfectly describes for me the action of going out, letting go of my concerns for a little bit, and getting sometime to myself to think. Summary: We did vocab lesson 10 and wrote sentences for each word Reflection:  The vocab learned were things that will be useful in the future to describe more specifically certain things.

  Prompt Response:  I would've loved to take the SAT yesterday, but for reasons never made clear to myself or my homeroom, we didn't. Nevertheless I still intend to take it at some point this school year and I would very much like a score of 1400 and upwards. I can't say I really have 3 colleges in mind but I would like to go to UGA, and if that doesn't work out I will go to Kennesaw State. My only major preference is staying somewhere in state. Summary: We did a worksheet where we wrote various reflections and sketches of events within the chapter. Reflection:  Reading the book is much less of a chore than I thought it would be, as it is much more interesting than anticipated.

Prompt Response:  The time change doesn't directly impact my routine much, outside of making me feel a little groggy due to waking up earlier, but some of the indirect things do affect me. The result of a brighter night does affect me though as it interferes with much of my sense of time and gives me the feeling of being able to do more later as it remains brighter later. Summary: We wrote some reflections of the chapter on notebook paper Reflection:  Chris's impact on so many different people is personally inspiring to me on how such a short presence can matter so much.

Prompt Response:  As someone who tries to read and listen to lots of music I often hear things that make me think differently about myself and my life. My favorite rock band of all time, Slint, is someone that listening to makes me often think pretty deeply about things. Not necessarily due to the content of the music but more of the broad theme of living your life in your way that I gather from it. Beyond that listening to music is thought provoking inherently. Summary: We read chapter 5 and did a worksheet on it. Reflection:  Reading more and more about Chris's life and the people around him makes me think about all the small stories that go in everyone's life and how complex and unique everyone's existence is.

  Prompt Response:  If I had to let most things go and only keep my essentials, it would be very hard to choose what to keep. One thing I would keep would probably be some childhood item that brings back fond memories and reminds me of a different time. One thing that would be hard to leave behind, would be many of my modern amenities and comforts that I am so used to. Summary: We did a different assignment about later chapters of the book Reflection:  Going over segments and quotes from the book helps me think more and understand more about the book.  

Prompt Response:  Sometimes being in school and thinking about academic things and my educational future gives me great stress. But getting a chance to sit down and calmly think about it, it is much easier to feel prepared and ready for. Being on your own and away from the source of discomfort gives you more clarity and thought about how to confront it and move on.     Summary: We went over many quotes and analyzed them Reflection:  Doing these questions on the quotes makes you think about them in the context of the book but in the context of them on their own. This just broadly makes you think more about the original context and quotes.

Prompt Response:  I don't think that Chris fully understood what he was getting himself into. I believe that he probably felt that he did, and I am sure he did research and knew some things, but ultimately there is too much that he wasn't prepared for. He seemingly not only suffered due to hunger but also due to poisonous things, showing a lack of awareness. Summary: We read the first chapter of the book and did a worksheet on it. Reflection:  The book seems very interesting, I found the first chapter to be very engaging.

Prompt Response:  This assignment was very insightful on the words we did. The easiest words were the ones that were verbs, as finding a picture was very simple. On the other hand, the adjectives/nouns were more difficult for me, like bumpkin. As it was more of an idea instead of a literal action. It helped me learn these words as thinking harder about them, by looking up stuff and figuring out antonyms/synonyms. Summary: We did the adobe express vocab slideshow. Reflection:  The slideshow helped me gain more understanding of the terms.

Prompt Response:  Seeing my classmates projects gave me a lot of new ideas and perspectives that I didn't have before. The different creative ideas that were shown  made me rethink the way I did my poster and likely will help me in the future. Primarily in design, as many classmates had unique designs and ways they used their images which I would hope I can use for myself on future work. Summary: We watched a couple videos and answered questions, we also looked at our classmates projects and commented on them Reflection:  Seeing all of my classmates posters showed me many other ways I could've gone about the project and many other ways to think of certain individual prompts.  

  Prompt Response:  The topic that challenged me the most was the one regarding "negative labels" others put upon you. This wasn't an experience I had really a lot of knowledge or relation to personally and I had to think a lot to find a good way to describe any experience I had with it. It in reality wasn't too difficult but it just required more thinking than other topics and I just had to scour my brain more for ideas on what to do surrounding it. Summary: We did our posters in class based off the worksheets we had completed the previous day Reflection: Designing the poster and finding suitable images was difficult as I wanted the images to accurately reflect what I was trying to get across with the figurative language

Prompt Response: The first step for me was looking at the topic and trying to go through my head and find experiences that align with it. Once I had done that, I would try to think of simple comparisons in culture or in nature that reflect that memory's events. Then I would build my metaphor/simile based off that. The project made me reflect on my experiences more deeply in order to better connect them to a metaphor/simile. Summary:  We started/finished our metaphors and similes in class and prepared for the poster Reflection: The activity was difficult for me as making up my own unique expressions wasn't something that I had really done up to that point

Prompt Response:  My break was spent entirely in Georgia, spending many moments with my friends and going out to place. It was a very relaxed break and I didn't do anything that was a particularly new but more so things that were comfortable to me. It was a much needed break for me as I was very exhausted of school by the time it came and the break helped me chill out some before getting back into it, getting my motivation back Summary: We started working on our posters and figuring out metaphors and similes to use. Reflection:  Thinking of similes and metaphors relating to my experiences regarding the topic forced me to be very thoughtful.