Throughout the school year we have read poems and stories, along with essays and quizzes. Poetry, though hated by most students, opens the world to the variety of writing styles and lets the imagination run wild. This is important as the students can learn what they do or do not like from writing and lets them do whatever it is they feel like writing at the time, with no worries of if it holds to this rule or that rule. The stories help to make the past come more alive, like through the Crucible, where the Salem Witch trials are connected with the present day and given new light. The quizzes make students think beyond what is the normal capacity, leading to deeper and higher level thought in everyday life instead of skipping across the surface with “I don’t know” or, “the mirror is just a mirror” in Mirror. The essays build upon that and make it into longer, more elaborate thoughts, also helping to build vocabulary and vary word choice.
English can be used throughout life, and is an essential. Without being literate, or being able to make your words flow smoothly so people wish to listen, life becomes harder. Very few jobs want someone who can not think beyond the normal ideastream, and the jobs that do are more of the patty flipping ones. English will be used throughout my life for the duration of it. The patterns of this literature are simple. We read a book or story, usually have discussions during the book or afterwards, and then will write about the book or take an exam in some form. A different pattern I have noticed over the years is my reading comprehension has stalled. Growing since 6th grade and now hovering around a 12th grade level, the test no longer gives me new questions when I take it.
Over the course of the year thus far, I think I am at the liberty to say it has gone rather well. Not only have I made attempts to participate but have succeed in doing so. The short story on the fountain of youth comes to mind where I was the only student in my class to come up with a completely original idea on a symbol from that story. I find that humorous, but a job well done. Though I have believed that I was never great at English, being a slow reader and never truly writing. Nonetheless, I would enjoy writing in a creative story way.
We write so much because it grows our skills in reading and writing. Research papers help us to take information we are given and be able to write papers on it. The variety of reading is to expose us to the vast majority of different writing styles. Essays are the same as the research papers, being that you take a story and break it down to explain a point.

What I did in Honors Chemistry is bonds, atomics, and now molecules. From bonds we did the different covalent bonds versus the ionic bond and how they are different. This is important as it has to do with how materials react with one another and form bigger molecules. Through atomics I did labs with mols with helps scientist learn how bigger each atom is. Molecules are now taking bonds and actually learning what goes into them like how Sodium Chloride is different from Diphosphorous trioxide, the importance goes back to knowing how different materials behave in different ways.

This knowledge can be applied to the dwindling ozone layer, or water recycling, and car emissions. Renewable energy could start to use different bonds and atoms for new power sources. One pattern is that we read through the book and then would do in class activities to strength our grasp on the new knowledge.

Chemistry is ranked near the top of my best classes, partially because of my love for science. The labs can be difficult but I do well enough on them. A thing that I could improve is on the test, being that I seem to fail at the vocabulary. I plan on physics being next as elements make up the physical world and from there physics can use such knowledge and use it.

The reason we do everything else outside of the book is to strengthen and reinforce the knowledge given to us. Just getting information dumped on us does nothing but applying the knowledge builds it up and shows its relevance to everything else.

The first answer was well spoken.
I was not understandable and struggled greatly trying to find the words.
I did not feel confident when answering the questions, but did not misunderstand key words.
Practice a lot more and learn how to speak, not just read and write.
One goal is be able to read french more fluently, achieved by reading more french in general from ads to papers. Another goal is speak basic sentences better, by practicing more with how the words are formed and thinking of each word.

Problem 1:
Some of the pro’s to this method of grading is if the student does not know the answer they are not penalized as much for not guessing. The con’s are that kids might not try to answer all the questions thinking it does not matter as much. I feel like this would work best with English and History test where the student thinks of sometime from literature differently than the teacher does or if they forgotten the information for History. Math and Science usually only have one right answer so the student should be able to find it eventually. I think that 7 points for a correct answer is a bit high, as the -1 for not trying is a bit low. My scale would be 5 points correct, -3 incorrect, but keep the -1 blank.

Problem 3:
Each quadratic has two solutions. The first one is the only one where all three methods would work as the other two would have fractions that do not add up to the “b” value. I prefer the complete the square method as I find it easiest. The quadratic formula will always work while factoring only works when the numbers play nice with each other. Complete the square works best only when the “a” value equals 1.

Problem 6:
y=3x+1 and y=-2x-8 is a good system to graph.
x=5y+1 and 2y+2x=10 is a good system for substitution.
4x+3y=14 and -4x+5y=8 is a good system for elimination.
If the system is in y=mx+b form then graphing is simple. When a variable is already, or easily, alone on one side of the equation then substitution is great. Finally if the same variable from the two equations are opposite each other than they cancel out and you’re left with one variable thats simple to solve.

Problem 7:
Absolute Value graphs act like linear graphs until there lowest or highest point. The slope of an absolute value graph and linear graph would look the same until the absolute value reaches its maximum , then it become the opposite slope.

Problem 9:
The y-intercept is where the line crosses the y axis. This is called the b term, and as the b term changes, where the line crosses the y axis changes to the number the b term is equivalent to. The slope is the m term, and as the m term increases from 1 the line gets steeper going up. If the slope is less than 1 then the line gets steeper going down. If the m term equals 0 then the line is flat and parallel to the x axis.

Describe the aims and strategies that led to the completion of this essay.
I found three topics that seem to over lap within the documents and bent them to fit what i was trying to explain.

What went according to plan and what surprises did you encounter?
The political problems, and the peoples out cries were, for the most part, according to plan. The surprise was that all the documents talking of secession were talking of the impossibility of it. That made it hard to make it a reason for the war.

What challenges did you face in completing the assignment? How did you address/troubleshoot them?
I had 10 minutes to write an entire conclusion so I wrote faster, a little more sloppy, and did not put as much detail or pretty word choice in as I wanted to.

How might you improve on DBQ’s in the future?
One way to improve the DBQ may be to have them be a little easier in finding a common statement from them, and maybe more images, being that the image can be used repeatedly throughout the essay.

What did you learn by completing this DBQ? Be specific.
I learned that many people from the South and North believed that the South would never secede. Two different documents stating that it could never happen.

What skills did you use/master in this assignment? How are they reflected in this DBQ? Be specific.
Having a document bend to what you are trying to say is a skill I used. Having the Election Document bent to fit all three main points one way I used the skill.

How does what you learned through completing this DBQ connect to the learning outcomes of this course?
This DBQ connected to the Civil War, which, as some historians state, is the single most important time in the United State’s history. Connecting the before times that led up to the war only enforces the idea behind such a statement.