Miranda's English Blog

Prompt Response:   Clustering helped me facilitate the process of generating ideas and examples for the prompt. By practicing the skill of clustering, I was able to easily generate ideas and get a better understanding of how those ideas relate to one another. I think that the most useful part of the clustering process to me was the part that involved generating five main ideas or topics. I think that I would use this strategy when I am planning an AP Lang essay, as I found that it made it easier for me to generate ideas that I could relate to the prompt. Because of that, I think that this strategy would be very helpful for me to use when I write my next argumentative essay for AP Lang. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 25th, we learned about a new strategy that we could use to facilitate the overall brainstorming process for writing an argumentative essay. This strategy is referred to as clustering, which involves the generation of five main ideas, along with three...

  Prompt Response: I would say that writing out the pieces of evidence within my argument was the easiest part for me. After I brainstormed how exactly I was going to answer the prompt, I was able to figure out relatively easily what I could use for my evidence, which facilitated the overall writing process. I would say that the most challenging part was constructing the commentary, because I find it difficult to write the commentary in a manner that doesn’t sound too similar to the actual evidence itself. One thing that I would do differently on my next argumentative essay is focus on keeping my sentences short and concise, because I feel like I spent too much time on creating very long sentences, and I think I could’ve used that time in a better way. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 23rd, we wrote our first ever argumentative essay. In this activity, we were able to put into practice everything we had been taught about constructing an argumentative essay. I found thi...

  Prompt Response: A time when I felt like I truly belonged was when I visited the campus of the University of Georgia. I really enjoyed walking around the campus and having the opportunity to becoming more familiar with the campus and the general area in which the campus is located within. I think that being on the campus and learning about student life at UGA is what made me feel like I truly belonged. As I toured the campus and learned more about, I began to picture myself as a college student who attended UGA. This was what really made me feel like I would truly belong at that campus, as I could easily picture what my life would be like if I attended college at UGA. Summary and Reflection: In class today, we read a CommonLit article that described the benefits of having a sense of belonging. We were asked to fully read the article and answer four multiple choice questions, along with a written response question. This was a very helpful activity, as it helped me practice the ski...

  Prompt Response: The vocabulary word that I think will be most useful to me in the future is the word “relegate.” Essentially this word describes assigning a certain thing. I could potentially incorporate this word into my writing if I am given a prompt that requires me to describe a certain event or activity that occurred. For example, I could explain how certain roles or positions for an event were relegated to specific people. Overall I think this term is most useful to me as I find it easy to remember what exactly the word means, which will allow me to more easily use the word in a realistic situation. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 21st, we analyzed several new vocabulary words. To ensure that we efficiently learned the complex terms, we wrote down the terms along with their definitions in our notebooks, and we completed several activities that allowed us to differentiate between the vocabulary words. I found this activity to be very helpful, as I was able to ...

  Prompt Response: One thing that I did not previously understand about commentary that I now currently understand is that commentary does not necessarily mean that you are restating the evidence, but rather explaining it and connecting it back to your overall claim. I found it challenging to construct proper commentary before as I was not sure exactly how I should be writing it. However, now that I have had some practice with identifying and creating commentary, I have a better understanding on how exactly the commentary in an essay should be structured. I also have a better understanding on the phrases that can be utilized in commentary, as I found it difficult to come up with professional statements that could be used for my commentary. I can apply what I have learned about commentary to my next AP Lang argument by asking myself the questions that should be answered through commentary, such as the “so what?” question.  Summary and Reflection: In class on Friday, we were pre...

  Prompt Response: One important takeaway that I can apply to my own writing is to focus heavily on earning points for evidence and commentary. I understand that the likely easiest point to earn is the one that is earned by creating a proper thesis. As the evidence and commentary makes up a total of 4 points out of the 6 points that can possibly be earned, I understand that it is extremely important to try and earn all four of those points. Another takeaway that I can apply to my own writing is to ensure that all of the evidence that I incorporate is thoroughly explained. I understand that this is essential as a limited amount of points can be earned if only some pieces of evidence are explained rather than all of the evidence.  Summary and Reflection: In class on September 16th, we split up into groups of three to four people and practiced looking over and grading argumentative essays from past AP Language exams. The essays consisted of a few low scoring essays, while some ea...

  Prompt Response: I usually review the rubrics that I receive for assignments in advance before I actually begin working on the assignment. In this way, I’m able to get a better idea of what I need to do in order to do well on the assignment. I also try to check the rubric once I believe that I have completed the assignment, just to make sure that I didn’t forget to complete anything that was required on the rubric. After reviewing the AP Lang Argument Essay rubric, I could use the rubric as a roadmap by looking over each row and determining which one I will likely struggle with the most. By doing this, I will be able to target my weaknesses when constructing my essay to ensure that I can earn more points. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 15th, we continued to read and analyze the AP Lang Argument Essay rubric. After reading over all three rows of the rubric, we looked over an essay prompt from 2019 and we practiced coming up with claims that we could support with evi...

  Prompt Response: A time when I completed an assignment without fully understanding what the teacher was looking for was when I had an APUSH project. While my teacher had given us instructions on what to do in class, I still hadn’t fully understood the instructions for the project. As a result, I only did half of the project correctly, and I had to correct the other half of my project. I think that looking for the “ins and outs” of a rubric could change the way you approach an assignment by giving you a better understanding of what exactly the assignment is asking you to do. By analyzing the AP Lang Essay rubric, I was able to get a better understanding of what exactly I needed to do in order to earn all 6 possible points on my essay. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 14th, we discussed revising the paragraphs that we constructed in our groups. We also began to look over the AP Lang Argument Essay rubric. This was an important activity because it allowed me to review e...

  Prompt Response: I found it very interesting to see my classmates’ thought patterns and how they expressed their ideas when writing their argumentative paragraphs. Although all of the paragraphs followed the same format, I noticed that each paragraph was slightly flawed in some way. Some paragraphs contained evidence and commentary that were so similar to each other, which made it difficult for me and my group members to evaluate and interpret their writing. Other paragraphs were flawed as some did not contain enough evidence, or they essentially used the same evidence twice in the paragraph. I also noticed that many of my classmates’ paragraphs were repetitive. Overall, this signaled to me that all of the paragraphs were slightly flawed in different ways, meaning that we struggle to construct an argumentative paragraph for different reasons. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 11th, we rotated around the room and read our classmates’ argumentative paragraphs. As we did...

  Prompt Response: My brother once told me a story about how he had joked around with a teacher at a rather inappropriate moment. He explained that he had gotten to his class during transition time, and dropped his bag off in the classroom and left to go to the bathroom. By the time he returned to the classroom, the bell was actively ringing, signaling that he would have been considered late to class. The teacher commented on this, and simply said “Liam. The bell is ringing.” My brother responded to this comment in a sarcastic manner, saying something along the lines of “Yes, the bell is ringing. Good job.” From what I know, I don’t believe my brother got into serious trouble, however I don’t doubt that the teacher was very likely offended by my brother’s response. Instead of using informal language, my brother could have remained professional and respectful and he could have used formal language to explain the situation. This story taught me that it is very important to choose you...

  Prompt Response: One idea from a group member that improved our paragraph was to change the phrasing of certain sentences in order to make them more specific. As we were constructing our argumentative paragraph, we struggled with creating sentences that were not too repetitive. Additionally, it was difficult to structure the paragraph as we felt as thought it would be rude and not necessarily true to claim that people who waited for more than two hours at a restaurant are idiots. As a result, we had to change some sentences in our paragraph to ensure that they were not repeating our claim. We also ensured that our claim and conclusion did not come off as offensive, strengthening our overall argument. Summary and Reflection: In class on September 8th, we worked on learning new and complex vocabulary terms. We accomplished this by studying the definitions of each term and then completing two activities that involved differentiating between the terms. This was a very useful activity...

  Prompt Response: Something that I have always been curious about is the origin of the universe. I understand that there are eight planets in the solar system, however I’ve never actually learned about how they came to be created. I also know that there are billions of planets in outer space, however I know nothing about them. I don’t know how long they’ve been in outer space for, or even what they look like. This has made me very curious overall about how the universe and outer space were created, and if any life does actually exist on planets in outer space.  Summary and Reflection: Today in class we continued editing our argumentative paragraphs that we constructed in groups. We had already written the paragraph out on paper in class on September 2nd, so we began typing them up on writable and editing the paragraph as we did so. This was a very important and useful assignment as being able to edit a paragraph or any piece of writing to improve it is extremely important and...

  Prompt Response: I would say that the most challenging part of creating a clear line of reasoning for me is constructing a proper conclusion. In general, I have always found it difficult to conclude the statements that I make in my pieces of writing, such as in argumentative essays. As the conclusion to a paragraph should be no more than one sentence, I found it even more difficult to summarize my entire argument in a single sentence. While I found the construction of the conclusion to be very challenging, I also found it difficult to come up with solid evidence that would support my claim. As the evidence that is easiest to use for me in an argumentative piece of writing is observations and experiences, I found it difficult to think of any experiences that I had previously had that could be used as evidence in my paragraph.  Summary and Reflection: Today in class, we learned how to create a clear line of reasoning. Specifically, we learned the different parts that make up a...

Prompt Response: A fear that I have greatly overcome is public speaking. Throughout elementary school and middle school, I would dread completing assignments that involved a presentation. Even in my freshman year of high school I despised having to do presentations as I always felt quite nervous to speak in front of a large crowd. However, after taking AP Seminar my sophomore year of high school, I was able to get more practice with public speaking, as part of the AP exam involved presentations. After having that experience, I have become much more comfortable with public speaking, though I still get slightly nervous whenever I know that I am about to present in front of a crowd. Summary and Reflection: Today in class, we were unable to do any assignments as we had to take our yearbook pictures. However, we did look over the feedback we received on our quiz in AP classroom to observe the questions we got incorrect and how we could have improved our written responses. This was very hel...