Assignment 25 Mark O'Brien

      Mr. Logsdon I am certain that your teachings have made me a better writer.   Writing is not my strong suit.  You recognized this, and were willing to help anytime that I needed to meet with you after school which I am grateful for.  However,  I know that there were students at a similar writing level that never met with you after school.  I feel like it would be hard for those students to improve drastically.  Yes, the feedback from all of your peers is nice, but a lot of it isn't applicable to other essays.  I think that it would be beneficial to the less skilled writers in the academy if you went out of your way to make it known that they could meet with you practically whenever they needed before or after school.  I do understand the idea that they are academy students and they should have the motivation to approach you and ask to meet, but if they forget that they can do that then it will be harder for them to improve their writing.  Besides that just keep doin' whatcha doin' because it works for the majority of your students.

Assignment 24 Mark O'Brien

          Junior year has been a huge learning experience for me.  The best thing that im going to take out of junior year is the time management skills.  This was the hardest year of high school for me, but I got the best grades of all three years.  I think this is because I didn't have time to waste, so I kept myself on task constantly.  Looking to the future kinda scares me though.  I have no clue where im gonna go or if I will like it.  I dont know wether I want to play golf or not also.  There are just so many big decisions to make that all go toward the college that I choose.  Writing the essays and applying will be a lot of work, and i need to set myself up well so that I have the option to go to the school I truly want to go to.  Junior year has helped me realize that it takes work to achieve your goals.  Especially goals related to school.  I have also learned a lot about myself socially.  I have found that not caring what other people think is a much better way to go through life.

Assignment 25 Help! Jacob Ferguson

Just to let you know to start off I really enjoyed your class throughout the year. There are a couple critiques I do have though for our reparation for the AP test. We did review lots of things throughout the year, such as MLA formatting, which was on the AP test, but we didn't go back to them later, so when I took the test they were not as fresh as they could have been. In this same vein, we could have also gone back to st least the first essay type (rhetorical analysis) before the test. So basically what I'm saying is a more comprehensive review before the test. Additionally, we did the Socratic seminars only for about one or two months. I don't mind these assignments, but they were so close together that it became overwhelming to do one each week. If they were more spread out through the year it would be more effective I think.

Assignment 24 Jacob Ferguson

During Junior year I have had to put in a lot of work, and it has paid off. I took more AP tests than I ever have, but I also felt the most prepared for them I ever have. This past year I also had to work on finding the balance betwen school and other activities. I was very busy and often I had to make decisions between spending more time on an assignment or hanging out with friends. I discovered a way to be successful while still having fun. I still need to work on time management, but I am always improving. This year I was also more organized than I have ever been; I didn't forget about many assignments and used my planner more. Over the summer I will be attending GSP for five weeks and it looks like it will be a great experience for me intellectually. I'm going to be on the Murray State campus and doing film studies, so I hope that those environments are conducive to me learning and exploring new things. Who knows the program might make me even more interested than I already am in film. I'm excited about the opportunities that summer and my senior year will bring.

Help! - Charlie Blondell

I'd like to first say thank you, Mr. Logsdon. Your class has been the one of the only hours of the day that I have not dreaded walking to. Although every session was not completely relaxed, I always felt comfortable learning in your environment and was always encouraged to speak and be involved in the discussion. Even if we were doing a writing assignment or reading some essays or taking a practice test, it felt not like a break, rather a more enjoyable way to learn. For that, I thank you, once again. As said at the beginning of the year, most academy kids would pass the AP English Language test with a solid 3 at the start of Junior Year without much grief. However, being academy kids, we don't want a solid 3; we want that 5. You gave us the tools and practices to achieve that said goal, through the countless vocab quizzes, practice essays, and Socratic seminars. The only thing I was not well-prepared for was the details in the footnotes of some of the articles. For example, I had no clue what et. al. meant (I think that's what it was). I later found the meaning, and I think it was congruent to my response, but I had to guess. Also, I believe that (at least one time) we should have practiced doing multiple essays in one sitting, because this was a lot harder than I had expected. All in all, I felt very comfortable about the test. I could not have asked for a more qualified individual in preparing me.

Stress - Charlie Blondell

Stress can break people. It can turn a hardworking, determined student into one that can barely stand looking at their assignments. It can make students want to sleep all of it away or just forget about their responsibilities completely. It can even promote something much worse: failure. So how does one escape the inevitable curse? It's not simple. You can't just run away from all of your problems. Well, running may not be such a bad idea. I exercise frequently, which takes away a lot of built up tension I have in my body. That's one way I can defeat the detrimental demon. I also try to take a step back and look at every individual piece of the pie, instead of taking it all in one bite. By sitting down and saying, "This is what I have to do first, and this is how I'm going to do it, and this is what I have to do next, etc..." is a lot more effective than saying "I have to do this, this, this, and this" (sometimes it's not smart to look at the big picture). If you take a minute to realize that everyone has problems. Even worse than that? Everyone has to deal with them (crazy, right?). You're not the only one with this stress. So go workout, come home and take a shower, sit down, pull out your binders, take a deep breath, and get started.

The Future - Charlie Blondell

Well, the year is coming to a close. Never thought those words would be coming out of my mouth (or typed on a blog post) regarding a year that seemed endless. What I mean is that this year felt extraordinarily long and tedious, filled with more academic stresses than I have ever been confronted with. No surprise there. Junior year is the most important year in dealing with future education plans (getting in to college). Including the 4 ACT's, the 4 AP Tests, and the overall weight and pressure maintain acceptable grades, this year has been a bear in the classroom. Not to mention my job as a busser at the Merrick Inn, involving night shifts from 5-12 (not just weekends). I think I succeeded in most of these areas. I achieved a score of 32 on my ACT (finally), I think I passed all of my AP tests (maybe received 5's on half), and greatly advanced my GPA from first to second semester (thank God). Socially, however, I've done pretty well. I have found my place, my role in high school. My friend and "get-together" group is pretty set-in-stone, and compared to the crowd I could be hanging around, I'd say I am pretty well off in that category. I am also in my first long term relationship that could not be better (thank you, Rena Childers). My interactions with my family have gotten better. Last year, it seemed as if I was always grounded, for a variety of reasons. The connection with my parents especially has improved my 11th grade year. This was very important to me because as I approach adulthood, I want my last memories of my childhood to be desirable ones. It's weird to know I won't be living with my parents in just 18 months. They know it, too. I can see it on their faces every time I leave the house (which is quite often). It's not a face of regret, disappointment, or even worry. It's a face of true, real longing, like they will miss me very, very much (even if I'm just going to get some gas). I guess you could say my junior year was the beginning of the end. As I prepare for my next chapter, I begin to say good bye to a long list of memories, and I make room for the experience of new ones.

Assignment 25: Help! - Samantha McGehee

I loved this English class. By far my favorite of high school. While we did learn to the test, I was grateful because I never felt like we were doing pointless activities. I enjoyed being able to break free from 5 paragraph structure and to use my own voice in writing. I think one of the most useful things we did this year was when you allowed us to go off on tangents with class discussions. It taught me to develop my own ideas and to argue. Many of the discussions we had seemed to pop up on the AP test ironically. Overall, I really appreciated the low key atmosphere of 3rd hour English, it always was a relief to know I could just go and sit and relax and still be able to learn. If I had one criticism it would be to teach us more stuff about this editing software for our PSA finals because I am STRUGGLING.  But that could just be me and my inability to work with technology. Thanks for a great year Logsdon!

Assignment 24: The Future -Samantha McGehee

Well as there are only 4 days left in junior year, I breathe a sigh of relief. Junior year has had a lot of ups and downs, some of the most crucial and defining ups an downs of my young adult life. Like most everyone, those failures and successes can be found both in my social and academic life. But I feel like I am still too close to junior year to be able to effectively reflect of what all those failures and successes have meant to me. The feelings are too raw for me to be able to express them in a blog post to you dear people. So I am looking forward! I am not a person with a naturally positive outlook on life, so it is something I try to work on on a daily basis. So I am trying to have a positive outlook for the future more than ever before. This summer I will hopefully be going to the beach for the first time in nine years which is very exciting. I will also be attending GSP for five weeks. And in the times that I home this summer I will be working and getting started on my mentoring project that I am super excited for. I think it'll be a very memorable summer. My big motto recently is just to have faith. Have faith in my God, in myself and in the future. That is my mindset for the summer and for senior year. So long junior year!

assignment 25: help- Alex Cooper

I felt I was very prepared for the AP test. There are however, a couple thing that could have made it easier. I think if we had done all the types of essays a little closer to the time of the test just to bring back a little more of what we did earlier in the year would have been helpful. The only other thing I didn’t like is when we took the practice multiple choice tests people would talk, and I have trouble concentrating and analyzing a reading when there is noise so sometimes I would just give up and mark random answers. Otherwise I thought you teaching to the test was fine, and I liked the amount of graded papers we got back. I felt it really improved my writing. I also the relaxed feeling your class brought. The fact that you assigned little homework was very helpful to keep the stress down. In the beginning of the year I was a little worried that with no homework we wouldn’t be ready for the test, but it turned out we didn’t really need it. Thanks for being cool.

assignment 25: stress- Alex Cooper

The main way I relieve stress is reading. Currently my favorite genre is dystopian. This relieves stress for me by letting me live in someone else’s story for just a short time and escape my reality. I also play softball. Getting to hit the ball as hard as you can or throwing the perfect strikeout pitch is very effective in relieving stress. The buildup of adrenaline during the game then coming off it after a win is calming, it creates a sense of euphoria. Also during the game you are not thinking about what I have to study for when I get home but instead the next pitch, the next hit, the next play, you are living in the moment. In general I have to stop thinking about what is causing the stress in order to relieve it. Also just getting the work done is a very effective stress reliever.

Assignment 24: the future- Alex Cooper

Junior year has brought my best grades I have had in high school. I knew it was going to be hard so I worked harder to reach my goal. I got closer to friends and teachers and really had a good time. Where I believe I have improved most though is on the softball field. I have pitched in almost every game, pushed my endurance to its breaking point and persevered past an injury. My batting average used to be something to hide but now it is something I am proud of, I haven’t looked recent but it is close to .400. I recently made the district all-tournament team and hope to do the same in the region. I am extremely excited for summer though. I will be working on my mentoring and trying to earn money to get my car, while hopefully being in a pool almost every day. I will also work to improve my game and stay focused on my team’s goal for next year and every year, a region championship. Senior year I hope to keep my grades up and have a good time with friends.