It's Not Goodbye; It's See you Later!

Well, for our last blog of the year (long, shaky sigh), you will have two choices.
One, you may go back over any of the questions and read some posts, either yours or someone else's, and comment on one of them. You can either expand or clarify or comepletely change one of your own, or you can remark on another person's. WARNING: If you choose to comment on someone else's post, remember the Golden Rule of 204...RESPECT YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM. It is fine to use your voice to disagree or question someone's thoughts or opinions or ideas; it is most definitely NOT OK to disrespect that person's thoughts or opinions or ideas.
Your second choice is to use that beautiful voice and leave your mark. Talk about your sophomore (or junior) year, the memories you made, the triumphs you experienced, the friends you discovered, the knowledge you gained and your hopes and dreams for junior (or senior) year. This is the last blog, pumpkins! Have fun with it.

PS--Have I told you that you're running out of time for occasional papers??!!

Empowerment through Voice

I was so happy to read that in some of your blog postings last week you talked a lot about having a voice in room 204. You all have a voice; how and when you choose to use it will always be up to you. It is true, louder voices tend to drown out some of the softer ones, that is the nature of human existence; however, those who choose to speak, no matter how loud the volume, can always be heard through the power of words. So, in thinking about voice and power and the power of words, talk a bit about your own. How many voices do you have? Do you constantly capture yourself in one single voice, tone, way of being? Or do you have different voices for different purposes and circumstances? Does using a different voice make you a different person?Don't limit yourself by taking the notion of your "voice" literally. (250-300 words/50 pts)

Almost the End :-(

As painful as this is to say, the fact is, our time together is all too soon drawing to a close. (Yeeesh, that was even harder to write than it is to say out loud!) Throughout these past nine months, you have all taught me so many things, whether they have been through class discussions, OP's, blog posts or even one-on-one conversations. In fact, I daresay each of you have taught me way more than I was able to teach you. I can only hope you got a little something out of it too! :) In any case, this week I would like you to think back on our class and the books we've read and the topics we've talked about and the activities we've done. Think about it all and talk about what you will be taking out of your time in Room 204--what will stick with you? What did you love? What will you miss? What will you always remember? And most of all--what did you learn? Think specifically about that, no matter what it was, whether it was how to use hyperbole or a hypehenated modifier, or what love means or how you spell preposterous or whatever. This doesn't have anything to do with me--you could have learned things in the same way I did--through classmates, friends, OP's (have I told you that you are running out of time to do an occasional paper?) or discussions you had after class. Tell me about it. (300 words/50pts)