B.R.A.W.L

Instead of taking a boring test my English teacher came up with one of the most creative ideas, that could replace a test, that I have ever experienced. It was called the B.R.A.W.L. Now for the brawl there would be two teams that would “brawl” head to head to try and debate over a controversial question about the book that we were reading. 

For example, the students would receive one out of the ten questions they were preparing for chosen at random to debate against another group and whoever had the best argument and best ideas to support it wins.

I personally like the B.R.A.W.L better than a test for two reasons. First, because I get stressed out during tests and with the B.R.A.W.L I was able to work in a group environment where if I needed help all I had to do was ask. I also liked this better than a test because we were able to relate these ordinary questions from a book to everyday life. We were able to hear both sides of an argument so as the audience we could learn things that we didn’t know before.

For more photos or info on the B.R.A.W.L go check out #ideaFM on Twitter or Instagram. I wish more teachers could come up with ideas as creative as this one so that students wouldn’t have to deal with the pressure of tests and teachers could see their students relating the content to everyday life.

To help out my group, I helped answer questions and find pictures to correspond with our answers. I also helped by being a B.R.AW.L leader and lead our team to victory during the first round of the B.R.A.W.L.

Dear Future Me

Dear future me,

I’m about to finish my sophomore year in high school and there are so many things to say. First of all, go back and thank your old friends because they were the ones that got you through every day without falling asleep in class or without letting you go one day with out a laugh. Next, go and thank your teachers for helping you when you needed it most and for never giving up on you. Finally, you should thank one teacher in specific. Do you remember your English teacher from sophomore year? Most importantly, do you remember what he did for you? He helped you build your own environment where you could talk to the world about almost anything. Where you could ask questions. Where you could let out your feelings. Mr. Theriault was the one who helped us start out blog. Even though I’ve only had my blog for this school year so far it has made a huge impact on my life. I’ve watched it grow from one follower to over 20 now. People from all around the work can view the content I have created. I don’t know if you know this but the blogging experiences one that has had a huge impact on my life. Now there were sometimes when I forgot to submit it one week but in the long run my blog will be a community that I will cherish forever and I hope when I’m older I’ll still be either using this blog or I’ll have this to look back on and see what I created. This blog has helped me become a better writer and I hope I kept those skills until the time that you are reading this. I think Mr. Therault’s system of doing thinks is kept pretty under control (he really knows what he’s doing). I really liked when we got to write about any topic because the possibilities are endless when it comes to what to write about. So future me please don’t forget to thank the people that mean or meant the most to you. One of those people should be Mr. Theriault because without him our little community would have never had the chance to blossom.

-Your past self

Thanks Mr. T

INNOVATION: NOT YOUR TYPICAL SCHOOL DAY

School can cause so much stress that nobody wants to deal with. From the stressful projects to the limitless amounts of tests we’re forced to take nobody feels at rest. To make matters worse, it was a week before finals week, one of the most dreaded time periods each semester. To try and defeat this upcoming disaster, We (Evan and Brian) thought up a great idea with a little help from Mr. T. We chose to help lessen the student’s worries and give everyone a little time to relax and view the better side of the school, the side that gives you a REASON to go to school. A reason OTHER THAN to get into a good college. We helped design an innovative goof course for students to enjoy. We set it up as a one day event and hosted our day of lessons for June 5th, 2015, a Friday. We had limited supplies due to both our busy schedules, but Brian was able to make three posters and buy a couple golf clubs that the “masters” could only use. I, on the other hand was responsible for bringing the sock balls and editing our documented presentation video. 

In preparation, we created a script of the video presentation and thought up dates on which each of us would go buy supplies, practice our sock golf skills, work on posters, advertise, and of course, hold our golf lessons.

Through much brainstorming and discussion, we figured lessons on a Friday would be best since students would be less stressed and have a whole weekend to look forward to. From there, the journey began. First we had to create a course, using maps of the school to see where the best locations were. Afterwards, it was time to film our advertisement which was actually a lot more work than expected. It took a little to long to film and edit, so we didn’t actually finish it until the day before the lessons. Due to that, the posters were doing most of the advertising.

In order to create the advertisement, we borrowed and filmed clips of us playing sock golf and even used an aerial view of the school, courtesy of BBN. As for posters, Brian, was in charge of that. He didn’t have much time so he wrote in big letters to attract attention to our posters. We had quite a few people show up to our golf lessons and it was a really fun experience. We had the majority of our lesson takers come during our after school session rather than our short lunch sessions.

During the lessons, everyone was able to hit, focusing on stance, positioning, and following through. I was in charge of correct mechanics and such while Brian was in charge of showing the fellow golfers how to look cool while hitting, and some useful techniques for celebrating. Overall, we had an extremely successful innovative day, and it was great to see all the smiling faces that left us that day. Everyone was happy, including us, and the majority of our students told us they’d love to see another sock golf event again, maybe next time in other forms such as competitions and tournaments.

Through our month of preparation and our one day of carrying out our project, we learned a lot. We experienced the joy of giving to others, not with our hands but with our hearts. We started the project with a good intent of attempting to show others school can be a place to have fun as well and the fulfilling excitement we got from doing so was amazing. We learned making others smile was the best way to make yourself smile but endured some bumps in the road as well. If we were to do this again, we would definitely try to give us an extra too weeks to a month to start this project since the video advertisement took much longer than we thought. In addition, it was actually surprisingly really hard to find a toy golf club in toy stores and department stores. Overall, everything, including life, is a learning experience, and through sock golf, we were able to learn so much, the most important thing of all, being that the best happiness actually comes from bringing joy to others. ( follow us on twitter https://twitter.com/sockgolfchamps )

Written by: Brian and Evan, Your Fellow Sock Golf Masters

Check out our Recap video: https://youtu.be/Qld6CgSMZRs

Update on my reading life!!!

In the past week I finished Star Wars attack of the Clones and it was a very slow paced book in my opinion. So, because of that I put down the Star Wars books for a little while. In my English class however we started reading the book Night about the Holocaust and one mans journey for survival. Anyways, in my school finals are coming up so I don’t really have a lot of time to read on my own time. for now I’m just reading Night for English and studying for finals and that’s my first priority right now so I think I’m going to focus on that for the rest of the semester.

Senioritis

Since the end of the school year is only about two weeks away I have been focusing so much on summer that I haven’t been paying as much attention to school as I should be. Now, I know I’m not the only one because I’m sure most people know about a little disease called senioritis. It occurs mainly in seniors towards the end of the year but sometimes pops up in juniors and underclassmen also. Senioritis is a very contagious disease that takes over its subject’s’ mind and causes its victim to slack off for the last two or three weeks of school. Senioritis can also cause grade drops, rejections from college, and lack of sleep. If you have or know someone who has Senioritis do everything you can to make it through those last tough weeks of school.

Senioritis has taken over my mind even though I’m not a senior. I have been noticing my grades in some classes slowly decreasing and I’m glad I could catch it early on so that I can fight it and do my work. Because I have caught it in its early stages, I can now easily put all of my summer thoughts on hold until the time comes. To help prevent Senioritis from coming back I have not been staying up late (besides to post this blog), doing my homework on time, and staying on a well balanced diet. These three reasons to me are very important contributors to the prevention of Senioritis because all three help keep one’s mind in shape, enough to override the thought of summer.    

I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the importance of Senioritis and let all of you out there struggling with Senioritis or a condition like it that the school year is almost over so you need to make it count. Just because summer is around the corner it doesn’t mean that you should start slacking off now. You worked very hard so don’t let it be for nothing. You will overcome Senioritis just like I did. The moral to this is “Please think about what you do before you do it. Don’t let all of your hard work go to waste”.

My Reading Life!!

So I’m just about to finish a book from a series that I have always wanted to read. STAR WARS THE PHANTOM MENACE. If I were to summarize this book in a sentence without spoiling it i would say ” This book is about how young Anakin Skywalker finds his path in life and decides what he wants to do later on in life. I am no starting STAR WARS ATTACK OF THE CLONES. I am also reading All Quiet on the Western Front for my English class and I don’t have much to say about it yet besides the fact that it starts out slow but I can see that it will get exiting later on from what I see now and from what my peers have told me.

Analysis on Two Versions of “See You Again”: Charlie Puth v. Wiz Khalifa

I really like this song and I love how you interpreted the lyrics. This is a very emotional song for some people because it is a tribute to the recently lost Paul Walker. Anyways I also liked how you analyzed both versions of the song and how they are alike and different.

Doors

If you think hard about how many questions you get asked a day would you be able to answer right away or would you have to take a minute and think back throughout the day? I’m pretty sure you would have to think back. But if we explore deeper into this question how many of those questions do you wish you could go back to and answer them differently than you did? 

Is It Really Worth It?

We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet, I hope. But if you don’t know or remember here’s a little crash course. There were two families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Lord Montague and Lord Capulet were not that good of friends. In fact, they hated each other! Anyways, they each had a child one Romeo Montague and the other Juliet Capulet. Romeo and Juliet never could have predicted what would come later on. They met at a party and although they were forbidden from interacting with each other in any way.

They started dancing and also sparked a little love for each other in the process. Romeo and Juliet needed to find a way that they could see each other without hiding all the time. Both lords eventually found out about this “illegal relationship” going on between the two, they were furious. But Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have it. Juliet was willing to kill herself to prove how much she loved Rome. So that’s exactly what she did, well sort of. She drank a poison to make it appear as if she was dead so that she didn’t have to marry a man that she didn’t love. Romeo found her “dead” therefore killing himself and falling flat on the floor. Juliet woke up expecting to see her beloved Romeo waiting to take her away, but instead he was dead on the floor. Seeing her true love dead on the floor gave her the idea to kill herself so that their parents would truly know how much they loved each other. So, that’s exactly what she did. What is the point of this whole story? Well, people get caught in Romeo and Juliet situations all the time. For example, when people go out to war or sign up for the military they know that they are putting their life on the line and they are willing to die to fight for what they believe in. This is what the story of Romeo and Juliet is trying to prove, that some things are worth dying for, and that’s a motto that always runs through my head. Think about it, what is worth making a big deal about and what isn’t?

Respect

 

When I was in 6th grade all I wanted was and iPod touch 4th generation with 32 gigabytes of storage. But my parents told me that I had to save up and pay for it with my own money. That’s where I was stuck. Wasn’t old enough to have a job and I didn’t  receive a weekly allowance so I had to wait until a time that I might have been fortunate enough to receive money for my birthday or a holiday. I also tried to sell some of my possessions such as my skateboard, baseball glove, etc. I wasn’t very successful. I received a few dollars from my parents from time to time when I would go on a field trip and they would give me money that I wouldn’t spend at all to try to save it and achieve my goal. After about half of a year I had a small sum of money saved up and what I did next haunts me till this day. I blew all of my money on a trip to a science museum, buying food and unnecessary souvenirs.

I decided to give up on saving money and asked all of my relatives if they could all pitch in a small amount to try and get me the iPod for my birthday. Now, in the end I got the ipod but a few weeks later my parents pulled me aside and explained that the reason they didn’t want me to ask family for the gift is because they were going to get me that and they wanted it to be a surprise. I remember the disappointment in every dreadful word they spoke. Every time I flash back to this event I realize how disrespectful I was to my parents by going behind their back to get what I wanted. My objective by telling this story is that treating your parents and people in general with respect is something that we should all do everyday. By treating people with respect you don’t only make their day better but your own too.

Respecting your parents to me doesn’t only mean listening to them or doing what they tell you all the time. It means going out of your way to help your parents whether it’s cancelling a plan so that you can do something that THEY need. It means not only listening to what they say but actually doing it without hesitation. To me treating people with respect is one of the most important actions a person can take anytime during the day.