The Perfect Playlist-Ben Grossman

Perfect Playlist for browsing Reddit
1. Spectrum by Zed
2. Clarity by Zed
3. Live for the Night by Krewella
4. Firestone by Kygo
5. Don't you worry child by Swedish House Mafia
There is nothing really special about these songs when looked at separately. They are just songs i really like listening to. When you look at them together they are a bunch of song that you can just sit and mindlessly listen and sing along to. The thing about Reddit is that it is just a website to waste time. The dank memes and kitten pictures are extremely prevalent. When you looking at these things you are not gonna want super complicated music. So this catchy music works perfectly. The order of the songs in the playlist does not really matter. You can shuffle and listen to the songs in any order.
Link to playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1250377756/playlist/7v9dQhDR8mNQ1w4rpzRair

Help! - Kate Sommer

I thought that over all your teaching style was interesting and effective. I liked the practice you gave us with the timed writings and practice multiple choice (even though it sucked when you made us do them on a Friday). While there isn't much you can do to teach us how to do the multiple choice of the AP test I feel like just practicing it every month or so was very helpful. The timed writings were helpful in of practicing skills but sometimes the way you explained things was confusing. The concepts were hard to understand and when you were telling us to do something it took us awhile to catch on a lot of the time. If maybe there is a more understandable way of explaining things it might help. For example when we were learning the chronological approach to analysis essays it took a lot of us awhile to comprehend what you were telling us to do. I also feel like when we graded essays in the smaller groups it 1) took a lot less time, and 2) we got a lot more direct and helpful feedback and it didn't feel as harsh as when we read them in the big group. Also I thinks people sometimes forget that the person is in the room because sometimes people would get very harsh with their comments. But overall it was a very good year!

Future - Kate Sommer

It feels like just yesterday we were freshmen entering high school and now we're nearly seniors. Over the past year I've watched my little sister enter high school, friend enter and exit my life, and my best friend get her first real boyfriend. So this year has been fairly eventful. One of the major things I learned this year was that if someone is always putting you down or making you feel unimportant then they're someone you don't want in your life. I lost a friend that I've known for years because I realized I don't want to be in a friendship where the other person thinks their problems are more important than anyone else's. Another major thing I learned was to not give up because something doesn't go your way. I tried out for GSA again this year, but sadly didn't make it again. Rather than moping around about what I could have been doing this summer and not doing anything I decided to take the opportunity to volunteer at the Living Arts and Science Center for a large portion of the summer. I've realized that with only one more year of high school I need to start living for me rather than for other people. To be perfectly honest I don't know what I'm going to do in the future but I know I need to do things that will make me happy and not things that would make other people happy.

Stress— Gabriel Molina

Though I’m kind of writing this after the fact and I’m pretty much done with finals, yes those two weeks were absolutely stressful. I haven’t always been the greatest at dealing with stress. Not my strong point. I accomplish much more when I can work freely without pressure. Sadly that’s not often the case. In times like I just experienced, with rushing to get grades up and taking tons of important tests, I do a few things that work for me:

First of all, I try to pray as much as I can. I’ve experienced God come through for me in rough circumstances countless times. I invite Him into my struggle, as well as other people.

Second, music. Even without a ton of down time, I find moments to put on my headphones and listen to whatever music I’m feeling like. Usually it’s something pretty relaxing, chill-out music if you know what I mean.

Third, I’ve learned that there’s a point where you've just got to get up and do what needs to be done. Even though it really sucks, you’ve really got to make things happen. In those two weeks I had to study and do so much to get my grades up that I barely got to pick up my guitar. And it was horrible. But I know it’ll be worth it and it will pay off. And hey, now that summer’s here I’m going to have time again.

So those are my ways for getting through stress.

Help— Gabriel Molina

I think I would honestly say this has been one of the most growing English classes for me. I appreciated the "teaching to the test" approach, actually. There's a reason the AP program tests us on what they do, and they most definitely are useful, practical and necessary skills. I thought the frequency of practice tests and timed writings was pretty good. Writing as much as we did and receiving feedback really improved my writing. I think it was an effective change when we began revising the essays in smaller groups. People were encouraged to speak more and participate.

I thought the Socratic seminars were not as effective as they could've been. The word limit for each question seemed to have us focused on just filling that limit rather than making thoughtful insights on the text. The last one, where you graded based on quality not just the word count, forced us to analyze deeper and I think it turned out a little better.
I'm not super confident in the effectiveness of this semester's final. There were a few reasons, which I think most people covered. For me personally, my topic which had worked for the speech didn't work at all for the PSA. Therefore I had to change it and didn't get as much in-depth research. I think it would be helpful to make it clear in the summer assignment what the research topic is going to be used for.

It's been a great year. I've learned a lot and definitely become a much better writer. Thanks for helping us out, Mr. Logsdon.

Help - Caleb Combs

Over the course of this school year, I feel that I have developed greatly in many aspects of my writing and reading comprehension.  After taking the AP test, I feel that I was relatively well prepared.  The numerous timed writings, while we may not enjoy them, were very effective in preparing us for the essay portion of the test.  My essays on the AP exam were top notch.  My multiple choice showed grounds for improvement, as my performance on them throughout the year fluctuated.  I think an effective strategy for teaching the multiple choice section would be to have 3-5 questions every day that we go over at the beginning of class, as a bell ringer of sorts. When we do an entire multiple choice test, many people lose focus, and fail to give maximum effort.  As a result, students don't get an accurate representation of where they are at.  Growth cannot be accurately measured, and students don't retain the strategies of doing multiple choice. A few questions at the beginning of class demand the attention of the students, and lead to growth.  I feel that these blog posts were a very effective method of just allowing us to write freely.  It develops skills as a writer in a way that is still engaging, as we can write about things that we are passionate about.  Overall, I think that the teaching methods you used in class were very effective.  Multiple choice bell ringers are an idea to consider, but I still think that your methods allowed me to grow as a reader and writer.

Help-Ben Grossman

I liked the way the class was taught to the test and thought it prepared us very well. One thing i would've liked to know more about is citations. When then few questions on citations came up during the test i found myself unsure of what the answer was since we didn't really cover them. I did like the Socratic seminars but didn't like how we had to write long responses to each question. I feel like we could've answered those questions using half of the words required. Another thing is that having the lights off was good and bad at the same time. It was good because it was right after lunch when everyone is tired and created a relaxed mood. On the other hand it was bad because a lot of times it was hard to pay attention and try to resist falling asleep. Overall i think the class did what it was required to do.