April 26, 2007: An Amazing Day with Period 2

Hey, guys! Here's what went on today in Smith's magnificent Period 2 Honors English class, which, of course, is insanely awesome and continues to be better than Period 5...

Today was a slightly more relaxed one, and the day began as usual with Mrs. Smith’s greeting of “Hello, everybody!” and our enthusiastic response of "Hello!" Following this, we turned in our grammar packets and our wonderful 1984 essays. For those of you that may have been absent, the prompt was:

1984 is a warning that Orwell wrote in the 1940’s. What was he warning us about (2 specifics with explanations)? How has it come true in our society (2 specifics with explanation)? The essay must be typed, double-spaced, and in formal essay format.

After turning in our assignments, we proceeded to take our grammar test over the use of punctuation marks, which we completed while discussing the nicknames each member of the class should have. There was some debate as to whether or not Brian's nickname should be "Tank", and Mrs. Smith named Chelsea "Sparkle" and Endsley "Diva". Alex also suggested that Declan's nickname be "Duckie" instead of "Danger" or "Dandelion". After this entertaining conversation ended and all the tests were turned in, Mrs. Smith turned on music written about 1984 and we spent the rest of the period relaxing while listening to and discussing the music. We listened to "I Did It Just the Same", "Sex Crime", "For the Love of Big Brother", "Julia", and "Doubleplusgood". The lyrics to these songs as well as others that we did not have time to listen to in class are posted on Mrs. Smith's website under Documents. After listening to each song, Mrs. Smith had us react to it and share our thoughts. One aspect of the songs that we noticed was that their lyrics and their tone seemed to contradict one another. For instance, the song "Sex Crime" seemed as though it would be a low-key, remorseful song, but it was actually very upbeat. The class contributed well to the discussion, and the hour was over before we knew it.

The homework is as follows:

• Continue working on your semester projects
• If you want your own copy of Farewell to Manzanar, please have it by Tuesday
• Finish the class survey found on Mrs. Smith's webpage if you have not already done so

Thanks guys! Hope you have a nice night and a great Friday tomorrow!