Sarai’s English Log

 One fear that I have (kind of) overcome is being super shy. Usually when I'm around people I don't know I just stay quiet and kind of isolated myself, but I haven't been doing that as much recently, and I have tried to be a bit more outgoing. Today in class we practiced identifying the 3 different types of claims in a text. Doing this assignment has helping me find out what key things in a claim can help me identify what type of claim it is.

 One issue/topic I think I'll have to debate most often among friends/family/etc. are problably issues relating to social justice. Many of the older people in my family are very christian and tend to be more right leaning, while although I am also christian, I'm very left leaning when it comes to a lot of issues, and it does cause some clashes between family members, especially when it comes to politics. Today in class we learned about the three different types of claims, Claims of Fact, Claims of Policy, and Claims of Value. Learning about these different types of claims will help me when I write argumentative essays on my own, and it can help me choose evidence that best supports my claim and the type that it is.

 One truth that I was afraid to except is that you can make everyone like you. I've been a really bad people pleaser for my entire life, and even now I still feel that way, and sometimes it's to the point where I feel physically sick if I know someone is a mad at me. I see now though that sometimes you just have to get over it, and sometimes people will get mad over the smallest things. Today we worked on a CommonLit. I haven't used CommonLit much before in my previous classes, so using it now has been an experience in learning something new.

 One time that I was judged unfairly was when I was in third grade. I was close friends with these two girls in my grade, but then one day they all of a sudden started being mean to me, and telling my other friends that I was a bad friend and a bunch of other stuff. I just remember one day telling the teacher about it, and they got in trouble, but nothing really came of it because in the middle of the year I moved back to Florida. (I'm not sure what we did, I was absent)

 I think the three words that I will use most in my speaking and writing this semester are aesthetic, animosity, and affinity. I already use these words pretty regularly when I speak, especially aesthetic, and when I write I use the words affinity and animosity because I feel like their a much stronger way of describing an emotion, rather than just saying someone really likes or really hates something. Today in class we learned about how to write an essay, and the steps we should follow. What we did in class today will help me not just in literature, but in other classes whenever I have to write an essay, and will help me be more organized and prepared when I write so I won't experience writers block.

 One presentation that caught my attention was Abby's poem, I think "Thoughts are a thing with Feathers"? I enjoyed the descriptive wording that they used in their poem, and from their poem I learned a lot more about birds than I knew before. I thought their poem was very unique and creative compared to some others. Today in class we presented our poem posters. The presentations helped me with my listening skills when I had to listen to my classmates poems and their explanations, and when I had to present it helped me with my public speaking skills.

 A time that I have felt out of place in the world has been every time that I've had to change schools before. I've moved around a lot and changed schools a lot before highschool, and so it seemed like as soon as I made good friends I had to start over again. It affected my emotions in that it made me feel kind of isolated, because I'm not a very social person in the first place, so it's hard for me to make a lot of friends. Today in class we worked on a common lit assignment. This assignment helped me work on my ability to look deeper into a story to find out what the author is really trying to get across, and not just have a surface level understanding.

 I personally enjoy doing worksheet work because in general I just like being able to work on my own and ask questions if needed. I'm not really a big fan of group work because no one really talks, and there is always someone who won't want to participate. I don't dislike hands on activities, but they're not my favorite.  Today in class we started working on making a poster for our poem. Working on this poem has helped me learn how to use Adobe Express more, which is good considering I'd never really used it before. 

 So far, I think that my favorite part of creating a poem is brainstorming the theme and the lines for my poem. It's not so different from writing a story, but the biggest different for me is that things can't be as straight forward in a poem as it is in a story, you have to use more figurative language and descriptive wording to get your point across. You have to make the reader have to dig a bit. Today in class we learned about the different types of literary devices and started working on writing our own poems.  Working on our own poems has made me had to think more about my writing, considering I've never written a poem before. It's a bit hard for me considering I've never really been a big fan of poems, but it's helping me learn as a writer.

 If I had to choose a song to describe my life right now, it would be "I Have Forgiven Jesus" by Morissey. I feel like I relate to a lot of sentiments in the song. Sometimes it feels like I have so many emotions but I don't really have an outlet for it, and it's especially hard living in a really Christian family where every time I do talk about my emotions they just tell me to "pray about it." (I was absent), But I believe we finished working on analyzing quotes from Emily Dickinsons poetry. Doing this has helped me better understand the components in a poem, and the types of language used, so that when I have to analyze it, even if I don't get the full meaning at first, I can get bits and pieces and build off of that.

 One thing that makes me different from other people is that I feel like my personality and the way I act can change extremely based on the people I'm around and the environment. When I'm around my friends I can be super loud and I don't really act very shy, and on the outside it would seem like I'm and extrovert. If I;m alone though, and around a lot of people I don't know, I just like to stay quiet and I usually won't talk to anyone unless they talk to me first, and my social anxiety is basically on 10.  Today in class we worked on analyzing quotes from Emily Dickinsons poetry. Doing this has helped me understand how certain metaphors in poetry are used to convey the theme, when it wasn't as clear to me before.

 The most absurd personal experience I have ever had was in elementary school, and it mainly seemed so absurd because it happened over something so little. Two of my friends and I were planning to perform in a school talent show together in 5th(?) grade, but eventually I had decided that I was just going to do it on my own, because in the song we were going to do, my friends had barely given me any lines, even when other people had said that I was really good when we sang for them. When I told them about it, my closest friend out of the two of them, Nina, got irrationally mad. She started telling my other friends that I was a bad person and spreading rumors about me, and threatened me to not pick the same song as them. It all seemed like too much to me, and in the end the talent show never happened because Covid started. Today in class we read the poem "Constantly Risking Absurdity" and annotated it.  Reading this poem made me reflect personally on my own pursuits in life, an...

 So far, I would say that American Literature has been going well. Even though we've done a few presentations this year, and I'm not really a big fan of presentations, they haven't been as bad as I thought they would be. I also have never really been great with poetry, but analyzing it in class has helped me understand them better. Today in class we analyzed 3 more of Emily Dickinsons poems, and started our soundtrack for 3 of her poems.  Going through these poems in class has helped me to better understand them and look deeper into the symbolism of them. Additionally, this soundtrack assignment will help me connect the poems more with media I consume, rather then just viewing it as some old piece of literature.

 I think the metapor I would use to describe my mind is to compare it to waves in the ocean. Sometimes I'm really happy and it feels like everything is going perfectly, but other times it seems the exact opposite, like every possible thing is going wrong, and I'm just in a state of sadness. But majority of the time I'm just sort of in the middle, where things are just average.  Today in class we read more of Dickinsons poetry, and then worked on our art project. Working with poetry in class has helped me better understand them and better analyze them, as well as be able to make my own personal connections to what the speaker is saying in the poem.