Quarter 1

The American Dream was the focus for our Quarter one theme. We read multiple pieces that circled around this theme, The Declaration of Independence, The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, a Vanity Fair article, and many other pieces. Now you may ask "well what is the American dream?". The American Dream is freedom, liberty, and equality. Although the Vanity Fair article marks the American Dream as a person coming to America and becoming famous with tremendous wealth rather than freedom,liberty, and equality. I agree with this new American Dream, the world is at a point where people are not as concerned with freedom, and the same could be said for equality because some like myself just show no interest in things like this. Vanity Fair states, "What needs to change is our expectation of what the dream promises—and our understanding of what that vague and promiscuously used term, “the American Dream,” is really supposed to mean.". That right there is the thing, terms change or begin to have new meaning with changing times, that is why the American Dream is no longer freedom,liberty, or equality. The world is at a point where money and fame is popular and more of a common interest, that is why i agree with Vanity Fair when it says that the American Dream is now perceived as money and fame.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjl97rS99_QAhVG7SYKHXfVDpAQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fprezi.com%2Fh2suqtbefc6u%2Fthe-american-dream-and-the-meaning-to-the-american-society%2F&psig=AFQjCNEEDTBaNa_BQtobpNsnXeU1nc9RoA&ust=1481126312317744

The columnist that i chose for Quarter one was Peter Bergen, a national security columnist for CNN. I chose Bergen because he typically talked about terrorism in the US. I also enjoy reading articles on CNN so that made him seem like a perfect columnist for me. Bergen was very amusing at times and made jokes insulting people's common sense (Donald Trump) and by being entertaining he was able to grab a hold of the audience and keep them interested. Bergen was also very logical when he presented ideas, he did this by presenting information that helped his idea and he later related to the common people so that the audience would better understand his point.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fi2.cdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F150505110743-peter-bergen-profile-full-169.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Fprofiles%2Fpeter-bergen&docid=_vJ3ouc_83qcFM&tbnid=-9LbhaMeKMKqiM%3A&vet=1&w=1600&h=900&safe=strict&bih=655&biw=1366&ved=0ahUKEwifz8Wc_d_QAhUFTCYKHdYhCGIQMwglKAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

Personally i feel as though I did a fine job on the Quarter 1 essay comparing/contrasting Jefferson's and Stanton's Declaration pieces. For my next formal paper or any paper in general I want to be able to write a better conclusion for essays. My essay for me seem to always have a strong opening and plenty of details and support for my opening, but my conclusion lacks that same lust or power as the beginning.

Out of all the 40 minute timed writes my favorite was the synthesis essay on whether or not the USPS should be reconstructed to meet new needs of a changing soceity. I prefered this essay over the others because for one i was given a 7 when it came to the AP rubric which is scored out of 9 total. Second the synthesis essay was very easy because all of the informaton that I needed was blankly in the text, i didn't need to do a whole lot of digging for information. That is why I prefered this essay over the others.

Quarter 1 for me wasn't extremely difficult nor was it super easy. In all honesty i did a lot of assignments the night before or even late. The precis papers were extremely easy, the reading room post i didn't do because i didn't read the book. Frankly i was uninterested in the book and preferred to do other things. The theme for Quarter 1 was great because there was so many ideas/concepts in my mind that i wished i could have shared but didn't get a chance to sadly.

Quarter 2

My paper did answer the prompt very well in my opinion, although even I know that maybe if I gave an individual day for each paragraph or section of my paper it could have been longer and definitely answer the prompt beyond its need, still my paper got the job done. My paper was missing a text as well as a SIRs database source, one because I didn't feel as comfortable with the list of texts and I felt as though the online source could be used instead of the SIRs and vice versa. The process of researching isn't actually that hard, as long as you find text that suit your argument you are set and I feel as though my text are well suited. MLA citing is also very easy and if I was assigned another synthesis paper I would have my sources cited immediately. As for the writing for my paper my argument made sense and my counter was weak simply because I supported both sides. What made my paper really weak was that I didn't time myself well and was very rushed in the end, so even though I have a clear understanding on how my paper should be formatted I still need time to type slow and think about how my paper may sound. Even though it may make sense to me it may be confusing to someone else.

Honestly in AP Lang this quarter I learned that I may not have been prepared physically for the strain of this class. I always was tired and I blew assignments off till later because of my tiredness and large load of classwork. I did learn though that if there is a assignment that is due and there is a large interval of time between the due date and now, I should set marks or keep track of my progress by having personal due dates. In all honesty I am not sure on what the most meaningful assignment was mainly because this quarter went by very fast and seemed like a blur. Quarter 1 I enjoyed the precis papers but now I wish we skipped them or they were still due every week instead of all at once, I say this because I had held the assignment off until last minute and didn't get a chance to finish them intime.