Annotation by Kamryn Foster

Alright, y'all. I did it again. I didn't keep my word. I'm so sorry that I didn't write on Friday. So here I am, trying to make it up to y'all. I suppose I didn't know what to write about, until today, when Mr. Johnson said something in class that struck me.
He said something along the lines of it being a good habit to highlight quotes in books that you like. Now, I've been doing this since summertime, but I thought of it as an interesting thought, since it came from an adult. Did he only mean to annotate books that you were studying or doing an assignment for? If not, then why would you highlight a book that you'd be reading for enjoyment? Now, I'm asking these questions from the viewpoint of people who don't really care about reading or English in general, and an example would be my family. They don't truly appreciate anything about the subject, so they think it's weird when I do this with my books; they think of it as doing more than what you have to do, kind of like doing a chore. But that's not it at all!
Sometimes you find yourself reading a book and something strikes you - whether it be a 'life-lesson' quote, a word you don't know, or perhaps just amazing description about something, and you feel the need to make that prominent. You can simply do that, and it'll be there for you when you go back to it when you either reread it, or when you go looking for that one quote that changed your perspective about something. It can be as little or as big as you want it to be. That's why I think books and just writing in general is art, since you can take it as deep as you want, and because you can get something new out of it every time you read it. I think that's absolutely fantastic.

We are What We Read By Ashley Lasko

While this phrase is heavily inspired by the phrase, “you are what you it eat”, I say it in the opposite context. Rather that the books shaping our image, our books are shaped by who we are as a society.

We have recently finished finished our second unit in English, and one focal point during the unit was how heroes in a culture’s story reflected the values of the culture. We focused on Beowulf, who was described to be strong, brave, honorable, and wise. These traits, naturally, reflected the values of the Geats; Beowulf being a Geat himself. We were tasked with an essay, in which we analyzed how a myth of our choice embodied its country of origin’s values.

As I began analyzing the values of my myth to the values of its country, I began to grow curious. I hypothesized that, just as myths had reflected the cultures of centuries ago, modern books, TV, shows, and movies likely represented our society today.

Popular stories these past years, such as The Hunger Games, Lord of The Rings, and Harry Potter reflect our society's emphasis on individuality and overachievement. Stories such as Pitch Perfect represent our society's views of the importance of having a good laugh, being unique, and never abandoning dreams. Novels and fantasies such as The Fault in Our Stars place significance on loyalty, mental endurance, and pure love.

This blog may not open your mind to a completely new concept, or teach you something you’ll apply everyday. However, it is intriguing to think of how the stories we wish to tell as a society reveal our values. Simply, it’s compelling to think, next time you pick up a book or sit down to watch a movie or TV show, that the story you are experiencing is the values of world today translated for enjoyment.

Are We Products of a Learning (R)evolution? (By Chris Hwang)

In the eyes of most students, every new school year is accompanied by a set of expectations, hopes, fears, and anxieties. This was no different for me and I have come to expect a fair amount of surprises. After all, I have already been a student for more than two thirds of my life. Without giving it much thought until recently, I now realize that each new school year has been accompanied by new methods of learning (and teaching). In sixth grade, my former middle school in CT adopted the common core. Imagine mass chaos and confusion among the students and teachers as the traditional was ditched for the new. Then just before 9th grade, my family relocated to NJ, which has given me even more perspective. And now, I start my 2nd year of high school. So for me, it has been one big transition after the next. I thought to myself, “can I stomach another big transition at school this year?” After reflecting on my first three weeks of attending Mrs. Kopp’s English 10H class, I can sense that this will be an exciting year for me and hopefully for my classmates. For starters, this English class doesn’t appear to be your typical lecture-style class where we sit back as passive learners trying to ingest all that the teacher has dictated. Nor have we been forced to read a ton of “mandatory” textbook material. Mrs. Kopp is encouraging us to become active learners where we have freedom to select what we want to read while developing our “own” voice to write about whatever is on our minds whether the topic is humorous, trivial, or even controversial. I have written personal journals in the past so freestyle writing isn’t exactly new to me. However, this is my first time blogging and blogging implies that I will have an audience. Thus, before starting this blog, I contemplated taking the “safe” road and writing about something mundane and neutral. However, I kept getting drawn to the fact that I have been given carte blanche to use my own creativity to say what I want to say in my own voice.

So I’ve decided to take a risk and relay my personal thoughts about a topic that is controversial and sometimes polarizing. That is, the topic of testing. The perpetual cycle of eat, sleep, test, repeat doesn’t seem to ever end. On any given week, it is a mathematical certainty that we will be forced to endure an abundance of tests. We will need to endure formative after formative and summative after summative exams. When did the tide turn? Did all the testing accompany common core or was it here all along? Is all the testing really necessary to prove that we are learning or that the teachers are teaching? And it’s not just the testing that makes many of us anxious and stressed. It’s also the amount of prep. work (studying) for the tests that induces anxiety, fear, and fatigue. I would rather be motivated by the desire to learn vs. the fear of performing poorly on a test. As a varsity athlete, I know the importance of balancing academics with athletics. But are we really balancing the “learning” or is it more about the “testing?” Last winter, I recall a two-week period in which I was tested 13 times. Yes, thirteen exams in a short two-week period. Mathematically, that equates to 9 hours of testing. While studying for those tests, I couldn’t help but wonder whether those 9 hours of testing could’ve been 9 hours of learning (teacher instruction) instead. After all, testing time is precious learning time. On top of that testing, I spent at least 15 or more hours preparing for those tests. This brings me to my next point. There are other ways to measure student understanding and growth. Perhaps that can be another topic for my next blog.

So are we products of a learning evolution or learning revolution? Evolution implies continuous enhancement and revolution implies sudden change (usually brought about by a catastrophe). The jury is still out. For now, I will enjoy the privilege granted to me by Mrs. Kopp and our new flex schedule to select my own books for independent reading and to blog about any topic that is near and dear to me. To put things in perspective, I write all the time because I need to. This time, I wrote (blogged) because I enjoyed it.