Welcome to Third Tri!

Hello, students!  Welcome to your Honors English IB class and your second trimester of blogging.  We have a few changes this trimester in regards to blogging, which can be found on the sheet provided in class.  As an overview, you are required to write one solid, detailed blog post per week and comment on two other students' blogs (again, detailed, thoughtful comments).  We are also going to provide you with  multiple blog post topics, so you should never say, "I don't have anything to blog about."

Since today is the first blogging day of the new tri, you have a couple of tasks with your blog:

 1)  On my blog page, you need to click on "Enter your blog information here" located on the right-hand side near the top.

2) Enter your blog information.  (To do this you need to log in to Google, go to Blogger, and click VIEW BLOG).  Your URL is what you see in the top window.  It should NOT look like this:
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8841072407200182#editor/target=post;postID=9509676772139
If your URL has the word "blogger" in it, you are in edit mode.  Your URL should look something like this:
http://brossclassroomz323.blogspot.com/
Enter the information and your class period.

3)  Log in to Goodreads.  Enter what book you are currently reading and update the page number.  Also, update your reading goal if needed.  (You may still be working on your reading goal from last trimester, and that is okay.  But if you exceeded it, please set a new one).

4) Friend Mrs. Bross in Goodreads.  To do this, click on the drop-down arrow to the right of your name.  Select "Friends."  Then,  on the right-hand side go to "find by name or email."  Type in "Mandi Bross."  I am the only person with that name on Goodreads, so it should be fairly easy to find me.  Friend a few other people in the class as well.  I can't WAIT to see your updates.

5) Your final task: write a new post!  Your topic idea can come from the handout provided to you today in class.  Or, you can tell me what your favorite book was from last trimester and why you liked it so much (you could even make it like a book review for your peers).  Aim for a solid two paragraphs and show me that you can do at least one of the following: insert a hyperlink to a webpage, article, etc.; insert a video; or insert a picture.

Once you have accomplished all of the following, I would like you to spend the rest of the class time exploring Goodreads, especially checking out your recommendations and adding books to your "Want to read" list.  If you don't have recommendations yet, spend some time going back and rating books you've read in the past so you can get recommendations.

A Different Sort of Read...

I finished reading The Rosie Project several weeks ago, and I was just kind of neutral about it.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it wasn't one of my worst reading experiences.  Have I convinced you to read it?! :)  Don't worry, I'm not trying to!  The plot line was just so predictable, and I'm one who likes some twists and turns in my stories.  This was very much your typical romantic / comedic structure (boy meets girl, they seem like an unlikely match, they start to fall for each other, conflict happens and they stop talking, they reconcile...you know the drill).  My philosophy is that any time spent reading at all is time well spent, so I guess I should just chalk it up to being a step closer to my 2014 reading goal. 

The book I'm currently reading is called My Notorious Life by Kate Manning.  I hadn't heard of this book or author, but it was a Kindle Daily Deal a few weeks ago and it got lots of high ratings, so I thought I'd try it out.  I don't usually pick up historical fiction, but that's the genre of this book.  It's set in the Civil War-era New York City.  The main character, Axie Muldoon (is that a great name or what?!), is the child of impoverished Irish immigrants.  The Goodreads summary says that "she grows up to become one of the wealthiest and most controversial women of her day," while advocating for women's reproductive rights (a very controversial topic during that time).  In fact, the book is "inspired by the true history of an infamous female physician who was once called the 'wickedest woman in New York.'" I've honestly never read a book like this before.  Axie is a little spitfire of a girl, which I like because she is so feisty and independent, and since the story is told in first-person point of view, I feel like I am really getting to know Axie.  I'm about 50 percent of the way through the book, and while it started slowly, I'm now fully engaged and can't wait to find out what happens to make her such a hated figure in New York. 

One of the reasons it took me a while to "get used to" this book, I guess you could say, is the way the dialogue is formatted.  It's not in quotation marks, like dialogue is supposed to be written.  Here is an excerpt from the book that shows you both the dialect and the formatting of the dialogue:

     -For faith they've their home here.  It's not no castle, sure, but it's ours.
     -The best of all asylums for the child of unhappy fortune is the farmer's home.
     -I lived in a farmer's home all me life and it's just why we emigrated.
     -Madam, it is your duty to get these children away to kind Christian families in the country, where they will be better off. 

It took me a long time to get used to this formatting, but now, it doesn't really bother me.  I hope to finish the book within the next week...but with grading creative non-fiction projects, this may not be a realistic goal!  We shall see! 

Have you ever read a book that used some kind of strange formatting that made it difficult for you to read at first?  What was it? 

Happy reading!