Blog Prompt #2: War Stories

Spring 2015 Semester

DUE: Friday, 2/27/15, 11:59 p.m.

Vocabulary

Find three unfamiliar vocabulary words in your day-to-day reading. (Do NOT use our vocabulary lists or a dictionary site as a source) Use context clues to determine the meaning and post that process.

NEW THIS WEEK: Write an original sentence for each word. Please do not copy and paste a sentence from somewhere else. I WILL KNOW. If you are having trouble writing a sentence using the three new words, you may try the following instead:

• Go to Wordsinasentence.com and look up the word. (If that site doesn't have it, you can look up "use {insert word} in a sentence" in any search engine.
• Find an example sentence.
• "What impressed me most about the song was its juxtaposition of country and classic soul."
• Rewrite the sentence by replacing words with new words to create your own sentence.
• "What impressed the students most about the film was its juxtaposition of humor and violence."
• Write BOTH the example sentence and the new sentence in your blog post.

ALSO

Create a hyperlink, using the "Link" function in Blogger for each word to an online dictionary entry for that word.

Reflection Post

Author Tim O'Brien, known for his writings about the Vietnam War, states:

• Reflect on a story that made an impact on your life and tell why

• Think of an event in your life and how you would share that story with somebody--not in a way that shared all the facts, but in a way that would speak to the human heart.

War stories, like any good story, are finally about the human heart.  About the choices we make, or fail to make.  The forfeitures in our lives.  Stories are to console and to inspire and to help us heal... And a good war story, in my opinion, is a story that strikes you as important, not for war content, but for its heart content.

Remember that your post should be a minimum of 250 words.

Blog Prompt #5: Are you motivated?

Read 96 Blog: Entry #5

v  Reflection Post:

o   We are in the middle of our semester.  This is often the time when students lose their momentum.  I thought this would be a good time to reflect on a few things.   This week, I want you to reflect on how strong your motivation is right now.  How strong is your motivation for school right now?  Do you need to bolster it?  If so, how will you do that?  If not, what is keeping your motivation strong right now?

§  Entry should be 250 words minimum.

o   Use three vocabulary words from the class list in your reflection post.  You will get points for putting the word in bold and using the word correctly.  You may change the word form.

o   Label:  Reflection

v  Calendar/To Do List:

o   Add this week’s schedule into your Google calendar and embed into a blog post.

o   Add a “To Do” list.

o   Label: Weekly Calendar

v  Comments: 

o   Go to the class blog:  msboganreads.blogspot.com and find your blog listed in my sidebar.  Click on the blog directly underneath yours, read their reflection post, and write a 3-5 sentence comment.  Copy and paste the comment to a MS Word document and type the URL underneath.  When finished, go back to the class blog, then choose the blog 2 down from yours, click on it, read their reflection post, and write a 3-5 sentence comment.  Copy and paste the comment to a MS Word document and type the URL underneath.  Submit the MS Word document to me.

NOTE:

To "turn in" your comments, copy and paste both of them into a Word document. Include the names of the blogs you commented on. Turn in on the due date given to you by your instructor.

Blog Prompt #3: Looking Backward and Forward

Read 96 Blog: Entry #3

v  Reflection Post:

o   This week’s post will ask you to look back at the past week, as well as forward to the next. What plans did you make?  Did you follow those plans?  What reading strategies and study skills did you plan to use?  Were you successful?  Now look forward to the coming week.  What adjustments do you need to make from last week to this week?

§  Entry post should be 250 words minimum.

o   Label:  Reflection

v  Vocabulary:

o   Post entries for three vocabulary words following the vocabulary picture instructions below.

o   Label: Vocab or Vocabulary

v  Calendar/To Do List:

o   Update your Google calendar for this week listing your class times by topic, your work time, your study time and any other obligations this week.  Use general labels without specific details as to location(s).  After you embed the calendar, start a new post, label it:  To Do List.  Create a To Do List for one day this week, in which you list your top three priorities for the day you are posting.

o   Label: Weekly Calendar

v  Comments: 

o   Choose two blogs from our class list and write 3-5 sentences of comments, then post to their blog.  Type the comments in a Word document and cut and paste the URL of the student’s blog underneath the comment.  Print this page and submit to the instructor in class.

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Blog #3  Vocabulary

DIRECTIONS:

1. Choose a word and find a picture that represents the meaning of the word.

2. List the word and create a hyperlink to the dictionary for that word.

3. Explain how you think the picture illustrates the word’s meaning.

4. Write an original sentence using the word.

You can also look at instructions here.

EXAMPLE:

Poise

The image shows the equilibrium or balance of the dollar signs between the slats of wood.

Gabby Douglas showed great poise on the balance beam during the Olympics.

Vocab LC 2

consensus

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consensus

Vocabulary Post Week Two Blog Project

This week's vocabulary words all come from Truck, A Love Story by Michael Perry.

Decorticate

"They set out own the alley, the dog lunging, the man leaning backward, a decorticate stutter-stepping water-skier."

Context clues/word analysis - This one is hard. 'De' means away or from. Cort might have something to do with the 'cortex'. The sentence describes a man who is being pulled by his dog, so he isn't in control. Maybe he has no ability to choose, no will.

According to dictionary.com, decorticate means to debark something, like a tree or to remove the surface layer of an organ, like the brain. One option is also that it can mean you don't have a cortex. So cortex is along the right track. I'm still having a hard time understanding it in this sentence, though. Is the man stripped bare metaphorically? Or is he just not wearing warm clothes? The story takes place in the winter in Wisconsin.

Original Sentence: The neighborhood was deserted and bare of all signs of human life, like a decorticated tree; its shape still allowing it to be known for what it once was.

Depredate

"But what gets me going in June is they depredate my garden."

Context clues/word analysis - This sentence is about squirrels which bother a man in his backyard every year. He loves his garden and the squirrels try to destroy it. I would guess this words means to tear apart in some way, or dig up.

According to dictionary.com, depredate means to ravage, pillage, plunder. So, my guess was pretty accurate.

Original Sentence: The scene after the opening of the Christmas presents was reminiscent of the aftermath of an invading's forces depredating of the conquered countryside.

Desideratum

"The scene would neither conclude nor progress, leaving me instead to hover timelessly in a stasis of poignant bliss, chastely cradling my anonymous desideratum."

Context clues/word analysis - This scene is describing a man's daydream of a beautiful canoe guide. He's imagining an idyllic afternoon with her. Desideratum could mean something that is not real.

According to dictionary.com, desdiratum is something seen as necessary or wanted. I think I was heading in the right direction in knowing that it was something the man did not have. I just thought it was the name of something like a mythical creature. Instead, it is just the desires, which is where the word comes from, the same root at desire.

Original Sentence: While many needs are universal, such as food, water, and sleep, each's individual has their own desdiratum which might have nothing in common with those around them.