September 20th - 24th

We started off this week by playing a "musical chairs" story game and a descriptive words game which helped us wake up from the weekend. Although our week at school was short (late start on Tuesday and early dismissal on Thursday), we still fit in some in-class reading from our lovely textbook and had some time in the computer lab on Friday to finish the final draft of our college essays that are due on Monday.

Picture for Week of 9-13/9-17

This week in English we shared rough drafts of our college essays. We got in groups of 3 or 4 and peer edited them. This was a good way to have another set of eyes on our essays.

September 13 - 17

This week in class we focused on our college essays. We went to the lab twice to work on our drafts. The peer editing/questions were really helpful and I think we should use this exercise with our future papers. The weekly journal was added to our class. The journal will help us as writers but I think it wasn't welcomed into the class.

One of my favorite moments of this week in English was having a Skype session with Ms. Nickow's friend who was an admissions reader at Vanderbilt. By talking to her our class gained some valuable knowledge about admissions, and we got to ask questions that we had about admissions as well.

Week of September 7- September 10

College, college, and more college. This week we continued to focus on our college applications and understand the concepts of writing a good essay. We started off the week by trying to write an intro paragraph of a college essay for someone else; although bragging about someone else is easier than bragging about yourself, many people found it hard to start their paragraphs. On Wednesday we skyped with Ms. Nickows friend who used to help with the admissions at Vanderbilt University, and learned how to make you essay stand out from the hundreds of other applications that the school has received. On top of that, we continued the college talk with our counselors on Thursday, but ended the week on a fun note by playing a game at the end of class on Friday.

Picture for week of August 30 - September 3

This is the tassle from my undergraduate college graduation! This week, we began discussing our college application essays. Although it is a bit overwhelming, it is even more exciting!

Week of August 30 - September 3

Everything we need to know in life we learned from English 405 class.  This week, we wrote papers and spent time sharing some important lessons we have each taken away from some event, person, or other influence in our lives.  Some of these lessons came from families, friends, Spongebob, fortune cookies, Ben Franklin, sports, and even Target.  We also spent time discussing and writing papers about our summer reading books.  As the week ended, we started thinking about our college essay applications.  It's hard to believe it is already time to apply to college, but we are grateful to have class time to devote to our prompts and personal statements.