Ariela Ojalvo American Literature Blog

  People sometimes feel the need to step away from their normal routines or environments in order to better understand themselves. Describe a time when you needed distance from a situation, place, or group of people in order to think more clearly or gain perspective. What did that experience teach you about yourself? One time when I needed to distance from a person was in sophomore year when I had a friend who I was having a world of issues with. During this time I found myself more miserable then ever in my life and I kind of stepped back and realized that that was not the real me. I felt trapped in a situation that left me feeling like a different person. I eventually fully removed myself from the situation and I found people that left me feeling like I was really myself and this taught me that I am not miserable and I am worth something. It made me realize that some things were never meant to last and if something doesn't feel right it probably isn't.  Summary: Today in cla...

  After reading Chapter 1 of  Into the Wild , consider your first impression of Christopher McCandless. Based solely on the events and details presented in this opening chapter, do you believe McCandless truly understood the risks he was taking when he entered the Alaskan wilderness? Why or why not? My first impression of McCandless is that he is extremely confident, stubborn, and determined. One detail that showed me his confidence is his persona throughout the ride with Gidion conveying his relaxed, excited, and single sided mindset going into this showing how he is confident in his abilities to survive and thrive. One detail that showed me his stubbornness was his refusal to listen to much needed advice, allow Gidion to buy him better gear, and understand what the driver was trying to tell him because of his confidence of success. Finally the detail that showed me his determination was his inability to allow himself to turn back and back down this also spawned from his conf...

  Today you worked on creating your Vocabulary Digital Cards in Adobe Express. In one well-developed paragraph, reflect on the assignment by explaining which vocabulary word was easiest for you to understand, which word was most challenging, and how creating your own sentence and selecting an image helped strengthen your understanding of the vocabulary. Use specific examples from your work. Creating my vocabulary digital cards in Adobe Express helped me understand the words better. The easiest word for me was benign because it means kind or favorable and it says Ben in the beginning which is my really kind and favorable cousin's name. I wrote a sentence about a benign teacher who is always nice to students, and the picture of a friendly teacher helped me remember the meaning. The hardest word for me was recrimination because it was harder to understand that it means blaming each other and I could not think of a correlating phrase or idea to help me remember it. I wrote a ...

  If you had to describe how you show love using only three objects (for example: a playlist, a hoodie, a late-night snack, a long text message, etc.), what would you choose and why? Explain what each object represents and how it connects to your personality. If I had to describe how I show love using only 3 objects I would choose a  weighted blanket, a curated playlist, and a customized notebook. I would choose a weighted blanket because love to me is a safe harbor and is about creating a secure, calming space where the other person feels protected and grounded, especially after a chaotic day. This connects to my personality because I show affection by reducing stress and providing a calm presence rather than loud declarations. I would choose a playlist because I am good at   understanding a person's inner world, moods, and tastes and this gift shows the efforts and ability I have to do so. Finally, I would choose a notebook because it symbolizes communica...

After viewing your classmates’ digital posters and reading the feedback comments left on your work, what new ideas or perspectives did you gain about your poster? Reflect on how the feedback influenced the way you think about your creative choices and describe what you learned about the creative process while designing and presenting your poster. After viewing my classmates'digital posters and reading the feedback comments on my work some new ideas and perspectives that I gained about my poster is that it is very creative and well organized. I think that this feedback improved my confidence on my creative choices given they were all kind and supportive. I learned that creative posters among the class are very diverse and all have their own style of creativity. I realized how creative my class is and how we all have our own ideas and minds which create such a different poster and display of creativity.  Summary:  Today in class we wrote feedback on everyone's posters.  Ref...

Reflect on the simile and metaphor worksheet. Which topic challenged you the most when creating your figurative language, and why? In your response, explain what made that topic difficult and how you worked through the challenge (or what you might do differently next time). Reflecting on my simile and metaphor worksheet the topic that challenged me the most when creating figurative language was making a statement about changing and growing as a human. This is because I have never had a very large issue with change and when I did I was very young. I never had an issue coming to a new school or changing my ways the only time I can really remember where change was a substantially large challenge for me was when my grandpa died and I was very young when this happened. I was forced to bring myself back to these distant memories and create a comparison that accurately displayed my emotions and feelings during this time. These steps took me longer then the rest of the topics and I found mysel...