My first day of English I was so ready for the same old teacher with the same old syllabus and boring lesson plan, but luckily I was wrong. The first day we were able to pick our own lesson plan and try something new for a change, something that would change the way we thought. This course mostly relied on technology and though I love paper and pencil I felt that class taught this way would bring me out of that and into the 21st century. When I learned that we would be reading books I was excited because my life is books. The Fact that I have read both books before was interesting because I thought I would be able to answer the usual questions about them. Our questions made you think critically and deeply not just about what was written but how it was written and why the author used certain types of literary devices. When I first read Fahrenheit 451 I hated it, this book brought some of my fears to life. This was a society that banned books, one of the most important things in my life, and relied on crap Tv. It scares me cause the society today has the possibility to lead to this, a life without fantasy worlds and characters that cause you to cry or yell. When we discussed these books in Socratic seminars I loved it so much, these were some of the best parts of class. When we were giving our opinions and backing them with evidence and arguing on things whether or not Nick Carroway was gay. Then there was discussions that weren't on books, but things like Self-Reliance which I never really agreed with current events like the presidential election. We got on some crazy topics which led to some dark places and for those of those of you who remember the incident with Lily and the book burning, thats what I'm talking about. These books we will remember often because our constant discussion of them. Especially the quote at the end of The Great Gatsby, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". I literally hated this quote.
What I loved about this course was that we focused on things outside the curriculum and the world around us. We were allowed the pursue our passions and our curiousities and explain to class instead of some other boring project. A main topic in our class was questioning the condition of our world. A presentation on the outcome of the world in the future was further elaborated with Jordan's presentation on how adults expect the next generation to change world when they are teaching us the things that allowed the earth to become so bad. Then there was Alexis's questioning our education sytem an how we can better this was similar to Kaylee's comparision of our schools to other worldly schools. Us, as almost adults are concerned about the world we are going into and feel that others need to know whats going on too. My presentation brings attention the increase in racism, its problems, and effects. Racism has always been a problem for me, being an African American myself, I feel that others should be informed how much of a problem this today. The course allows us to bring our concerns to light and I value that because any other class would not let us voice our opinions. This class has opened and expanded our minds and caused us to think about everything differently and I love that.
