We started class discussions this week. The class was split into different groups and every group has to come up with a reading or video to have a class discussion about it. The reading or video had to deal with the topic of our last essay. The topic is education. Two groups went this week. I think this was a great idea because it gives different point of views on topic and some of the discussions we have it can also help with our paper. It can helps with thinking outside of the box. When someone says something you never thought about you can talk about it in your paper and it might make your paper sound that much better. I wish Sweeney would have done this with our first and second papers because I think it would have help us with different point of views instead of just what we thought about a certain topic.  I would love the class discussions over writing papers. The discussions were a great way to get the whole class to participate because the topics, readings, and videos that the groups that went already chose were something that everyone had an opinion on. I think Sweeney should keep the class discussions for his future class and do them before all the papers.

Bullying

I just read the reading we have to read for the class decision on Monday. The article was about a 12 year old Harlem boy who committed suicide after being bullied about the death of his father. The article talks about all the bullying he went through when he was at school. It was good that he told his mom and aunt what was going on at school. Not everyone that was bullied fell like they have someone  they can tell what someone is doing or saying to them. His mom tried to stop her son from getting bullied by switching schools for him but the bullying did not stop. The kids from his old school would show up at his home and throw sticks and pipes at him. What kind of people would do this? Kids need to be taught at a young age that bullying is not good. Now the kids who bullied Joel have to live with Joel's suicide knowing that their action caused him to do it.

Class this week is just like every other week in class. Sweeney told us on Wednesday that we have to this group thing with our grammar schrammar group. We have to find a reading, poem or video etc. and then we have to lead a class decision about whatever we choose to do. I wish he would have given us this assignment at the beginning of the semester instead of the end. I do not like when teachers/professors just decide to give us project at the end. Some of my classmates were a little confused on what the need to do. We also did our class brainstorming for the last paper. The topic is education. We came up with a lot of subtopics on the education and I was able to choose what I wanted to write my paper on. I plan on doing my paper on bullying in school or the tuition cost for colleges. If I can not find anything to write about then I have to come up with something else to write about. I'm so glad that there is only a month left and then I can just relax!!

Last week in class we had peer reviews for my class second essay. The paper had to deal with crime and punishment. I did my paper on the death penalty and what crimes people commit should get it. This time with the peer reviews I think I got more help from my classmate then the first time we did it. On Monday we did not have class because Sweeney was sick. We were supposed to start our reviews that day but we started on Wednesday and finished on Friday. The paper was supposed to be due on that Friday but instead he made it due on the Monday of spring break.  Well spring break is almost over but I'm kind of glad to go back to school because I cannot wait to get this last month or so over with!!!  Spring break was much needed because I could relax and not worry that I forgot to do work or anything related to school.  It went by so fast but there is about a month left. That month is going to go by so fast like this first year did. This first of college as gone by so fast but I glad it is almost over so summer time can be here all ready.

In class this week we had guest speaker and his name was Mark Harris. He was from Australia and he came to talk about this organization named GESA. He was telling us things they do, what GESA meant and what everything that happens there. He talk about this internship opportunities and how to apply for it. he was talking about how the internship will give us an chance to go to Australia. He told us Australia and after listening to him talk about it and everything, it made want to go and live there. i do not remember what we did in class on Wednesday. On Friday we had  a group that did grammar schrammar. After that we had do this quiz, in which we had to correct sentences and write new ones. i do not know how it was a quiz when he said  the whole class worked together, but we could not ask him for questions. So that was the was my week in Sweeney's class but the having the guest speaker was the best thing this week.

This week in class is just like every other week. We started the week off by doing this Felt Sense thing.We had to listen to the the statements Sweeney was reading because it was telling us things we had to write about. I really did mot get the point of it. Maybe I felt that way because I was tired and i really feel like doing it at all. The next class we talked about the things we had to read that went along with the topic of what our next paper is about, which is crime and punishment. The stories were talking about torture. The class had a decision on what they think is and is not torture. For Friday class we had to watch a video about Not Legalizing Weed. The video was funny since is made by College Humor. Some of the video was dumb in some parts. After the video we had another class decision on whether they thought we should be legal or not. After these class decisions some people exactly found what they were going to write their paper about. so the class decision helps us make a decision that we are not sure about.

Week Of English

In English class this week we started the week off with some brainstorming for our next research paper. The next topic is crime and punishment. We named things that fall under the topic of crime and punishment. I think this was very helpful. It was a way for many student, who did know what they were going to write about, narrow down their choices to the ones they found easy to write about. For Wednesday's class we had to read this article called "Shooting". The author was talking about the shooting that happened at Virginia Tech and others around the world. He also stated his opinion on getting stricter gun laws,which I agree with, and how in other countries, after a major shooting happens, they quickly do something about it like set laws automatically and we don't do that here in America. We had to take a three question quiz about what we read. On Friday we had a grammar schrammer and we were going to look power points but we already saw them. Since Sweeney did not have anything else for use to do we got to leave class early. So that was my week in English class.

Papers

This past week in class was peer reviews. My class first topic was on pop culture. I think having people read your paper and tell you things you need to fix was very helpful. Sweeney gave the class a list of a way to help us through the peer reviews. This was helpful but no one really do the reading out loud part. It seems no one ever likes that part. In My opinion i think it was a waste of time adding that part in the list. After reading some of my classmate papers, a lot of them had go points to come across in their papers. Pop culture was  not a hard topic to talk about because there is always something go in the media or Hollywood that many people disagree/agree with. the part i think that most the people will have trouble is writing 1500+ words. There is so much you can talk about and not every topic that we choice can be talked about with 1500+ words. For me it was difficult to expand my ideas in 1500 words, so my paper was a few hundred words shorter. With the peer reviews, i was able to improve my paper and they are very helpful.

Library Day

So on Friday my class went to the library. We pretty much talked about how to use the resources in the library and how to use everything on the website. i heard this all last semester but it was pretty helpful because i forgot how to get to some of the resources that we can use for our research. I been to the library plenty of times but I never really knew where anything was, so I'm glad they gave us a tour of the library. I like how they have some many different online databases that would help me and more students find lots of information for papers or any other research. I think it great that Richard Bland does this because I'm sure that some other big named colleges/universities don't take the time to give their students a way to learn about all the resources their school libraries have for them to use. One thing that i like the most was that the library has eBooks available. I know sometimes I might have enough time to go to the library to find a book and I think it is an easy way to get books. Like I said before I went through this last semester but I still found this helpful for the second time.

After reading "The Question of Originality" by Jane Hirshfield, I think it's important to be your own person. It would be boring if everyone walked around and all they see are people who talks, dress and act the same exact way they do. I understand that some people might not know what type of person they are yet and they just act like others just to fit it. I have seen a lot of people who does the hair in crazy hairstyle and they dress in all sorts of stuff.i think is wrong how when a group of people see someone that doesn't look them that call them a kinds of name like "weirdo" etc. People start talking about why they do that or why are they wearing that, but a few weeks later they are the ones who start dressing just like the person they were just talking about. Being able to start a movement whether its from a clothing piece or hairstyle, in my opinion is a great way to show someone that they have originality. People should stop being afraid to show people the real them and just embrace their originality. If  more people was original then people won't be as boring as they are sometimes.