wiki 5 - 0/20 no post for 11/6

wiki 4 - 0/20 - No posting for 10/30

wiki 3 - 20/20 -  Good posting, Cam. You're right, it does help a lot when the speaker understands the group and the things they're into!

10/23/09

Public Speaking

     For the football devotion Leon Jameson (i think thats right) came and talked to us. He did a great job on connecting with all the players on a football level because at one time he was a coach for lutheran high. He asked us questions related to football which kept everyone paying attention and he also mixed in a little humor here and there to keep the devotion fun and not so monotone. He picked a topic that everyone could relate to and it made you think about what he was talking about and it just made the devotion a "success". I think that if the listeners cant relate to the topic or main point of a speech or and public speaking you might as well not even be up talking because no one is going to pay attention or care about what your talking about. Mr. Jameson also used good hand gestures and great eye contact with everyone. Overall he did a great job delevering his devtion and connecting with the football team on many levels.

wiki 2 - 20/20 - good choice for a post. Interesting setting! :-) Have him come again.. you posted a win! (congrats on that!)

10/16/09

Public Speaking

     The speaker I watched for this wiki post was a pastor from Zion Lutheran Church. He came to LHS to do the football devotion. He talked about character and related the devotion to our own lives which I noticed kept everyone involved and attent during the devotion. He also used good eye contact when needed, it felt like he was talking to me personally at moments when he looked at me. During his devtion he read a verse from the bible, i thought, " Great a twenty minute bible story i've already heard before." But he used really good emphasise and good hand gestures to make the verse new, almost like i had never heard it before. He also used good posture and was not rocking back and forth or side to side, but had both feet firmly planted on the ground. He walked around the locker room a little bit which i liked because it usually keeps everyone focused on him and wondering what he is going to do next. He also at one point projected his voice very loudly and i thought it was a good thing because he was kind of in a boring part of his devotion and it focused the attention back on him. Overall i think the pastor did an excellent job giving us his devotion. He used good aspects of public speaking to keep everyone interested and did not do anything that would take away from him speaking.

PUBLIC SPEAKING 10.9.09 - wiki 1  - 0/20 - NO POST!

Cam Morton

Mrs. Staude

English Symposium

09/21/09

A Bad Night

"Jack Reeds the name." he said as the reporter walked over to him. The reporter shook his hand and introduced himself as well. "So, Mr. Reed do you think you can recall the recent events that have taken place over the past night for me?" "Well, I recon I can."

It was just another day in Montgomery, on the my grain farm. "Well, at least I thought it was." When a car pulled down the drive. I walked over and asked the feller what his business was and he told me he was just passin through and needed a place for the night. Me, being a church going man, thought of this as an opportunity to do something nice for this young man invited him inside the house and told him he was welcome as long as he liked. The young man's name was John but I cant recall him ever telling me his last name. The bag he carried was big and the contents clanked together like two pieces of metal would. My gut feeling about John wasn't so sure but I just ignored it and kept telling myself what a nice man I was being allowing him to stay.

That night while I was listening to the radio I heard a police report about a bank robber who was hiding out somewhere in Oklahoma, but I thought nothing of it. During the early morning hours I was waken up by the creaking floors, I went into the hallway to investigate. To my surprise it was Jack snooping around the house. I was enraged at him because of the disrespect he was showing me. Hitting him in the face with my drawn back fist he began to retaliate by running for his room. I tried to stop him but he escaped my clenched fists and locked the door behind him. Through all the rustling I heard him unzip his bag. I did not know what to do. I heard the bedroom window open so I sprinted downstairs and out the front door, to my surprise saw John on the roof making his way over to the other side of the house screaming something that sounded like, "You stupid farmer I’ll take everything you own, including the lives of your family!". Now I was scared. I did the only thing I could think of, I ran down into the cellar and grabbed my pump twelve gauge. As I was sprinting up the two flights of stairs, yelling every curse word I could possibly think of, I heard a gun shot. I busted through my bedroom door breaking the hinges and ran over to the bed were my wife had been sleeping and there, I saw my worst nightmare. My wife, dead, in a pool of blood. I lost it. I was screaming at the top of my lungs for John to show himself but he was no where to be seen. Thud! I heard it from the nursery. Sprinting across the hallway I blow my way through the door with my shotgun. I see my baby boy in the arms of a killer. I shoot. John hits the floor with his foot halfway missing. I run over, scoop my boy up, run downstairs and fly out the front door. I thought to myself that the barn would be the safest place so that's where we went. In the barn I hid my boy in the hay loft and went after John. I returned to the house and called the sheriff. John had taken everything, that was worth anything. But he wasn't done yet. He wanted revenge.

I searched the whole house and couldn't find him anywhere until, BOOM! The whole house was in flames. John had filled the house with gas from the oven and threw a match. I narrowly escaped the flames by diving out a window and that’s when I saw him, hobbling towards the barn, towards my son. I jumped to my feet and headed after him. Once I entered the barn it was quiet, to quiet. I knew he was watching me from somewhere. I ran to the hay loft, found my son, and took him out into the wheat field and set him down. Now that I knew my son would be safe it was time to blow the head of this guy. As I went back into the barn I could just feel he was still watching me. But little did he know that I built this barn with my bare hands and know it front and back. I knew exactly were he was, the ceiling rafters. Like an owl he was watching my every move. I new I wouldn’t be able to shoot him with my shotgun so I had to get creative. I went over to my International Harvester and popped the gas tank. I took my bandana out of my back pocket and stuck it in the gas tank. Then I took my lighter out of my back pocket looked up smiled, and said "burn in hell!" As soon as I lit the bandana shots started raining down on me, but it was to late. I was out the barn and running out into the wheat field. The only thing I could smell was burnt flesh and diesel fuel.

"And that’s pretty much what happened last night reporter." The reporter stood pale faced for a second, nothing even written on his notepad. "Th-Th-Th-Thankyou Sir" he said. Then he ran as fast as he could, jumped into his car, and flew down the drive.

wiki 5 - Great job on your posts both this week and last. You have a lot of interesting ideas and I enjoy hearing them.

9/16/09

Would YOU want to live in a family that kept "secrets" from one another the way the Hawley family did?

Personally I would never want to live in a family that keeps secrets from one another.  A family in my opinion should work as a team and when someone is kept out of a situation because everyone else is telling secrets behind their backs it defeats the "team" purpose.  Secrets are never a good thing when it comes to a family.  It usually means someone did something horrible or something horrible happened to someone.  If I was in the mother's shoes I would have wanted to be told what was going to happen to me so that I could have spent my remaining time with the people who mean the most to me.  I do not agree with the way the Hawley family went about witht the situation.

Regarding From Mother... With Love by Zoa Sherburne

When you gave us the warning about this story that  it was a tearjerker you weren't messing around.  It was a very sad and depressing story most of the time until the very end when Minta acted like her mother and mad everything happy again.  It was a sad story because of the death of her mother when she had no idea it was going to happen but at the same time the father and Minta knew and kept it from her.  You wanted to fool yourself into believing that the mother was going to recover but everyone knew she was not going to.  At the end of the short story there is a moment of happiness when Minta starts to play the role of her mother which takes a good amount of sadness from the story.  I enjoyed the story but I probably would not read it again because of the overall sadness of it.

9/11/09

Regarding D.P. by Kurt Vonnegut

The story D.P. was a short story that left you wanting more.  It's a simple story, like any other little orphan boy story.  But the ending is really what makes it stand out to me. Instead of just ending it with him finding his father or being alone, it leaves you wondering if the lieutenant from the states is actually going to come back for him or if he was just saying that so Joe would release his death grip.  I wondered if the lieutenant actually cared about him or even if he could because he only met Joe for a short period of time. This story made many questions come to mind as i was reading which i enjoyed because it made me understand the story and not just read it because it was my assignment, and read it as fast as possible just to get thru it.   

Can a 14 yr old school dropout reasonably expect success much less the respect of those around him?

In todays society a 14 year old teenager will basically get no respect at all even if he is in school. But if you add the fact that he is a dropout then people will look down him even more. A 14 year old dropout cannot possibly expect success in his life because without an education you can not keep a steady job which means you probably will not be successful in the work field, and if you can not work you cant have a fixed income and wont be able to support yourself. But there is that slim chance that a 14 year old dropout could do something spectacular and be able to live a successful life, but most likely this is not going to happen.

09/04/09

Great job on wiki 3!

So WHY do those who love horror stories and films etc. LOVE them? What is it about those styles of tales that gives them their appeal? (Or if you are like me and can't watch scary movies... what is it about them that repels you?)

People are attracted to horror stories and films because they love being on the edge of there seat while watching a movie or reading horror story. They like the thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next and at the least expecting moment getting scared. The anticipation of knowing they are going to be scared at some part and time. Another reason people like horror stories is because they think that other stories are boring and feel like they are stuck in the doldrums the whole story. Horror stories keep them focused on the story because it keeps them anticipating and wanting that feeling of being scared.

Also, feel free to discuss how the author manages to make you "feel" sympathy for the house. 

    In "There will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury, he creates a sense of sympathy towards the house. He gave the house many human characteristics like being clean, on time, task orientated, and dying. When he gave the house human traits it created the feeling that the house was alive like a person. And at the end of the story when the house is burning and it says how the jungle on the nursery walls began to burn and the animals bounded off and it says how in the kitchen the house started to make breakfasts food at a psychopathic rate for no reason at all. All these things create a sympathetic mood for the reader towards the house. Because the house acts like a human the reader's mind is basically picturing a human getting burned alive and not a house. 

08/27/09 

Good work on wiki 2! Glad to hear you're enjoying class.

English Symposium has been alot dicferent then what i expected. I actually enjoy my english class this year unlike my previous 3 years. I like the class because we do more than just read all the time. We do different activites almost every class and it keeps the class not so boring. And a thumbs up to the teacher aswell. The storys have been easy to read compared to American Literature and we discuss them in more of a relazed classroom atmosphere instead of just taking quizes wich in my opionon do not do anything to help you understand the story at all.

Your thoughts? Is it right or wrong for Mike to do what he does to (for?) his grandma?

Mike did nothing wrong in my opinion. His grandma is finally at peace about something that had been bothering her for decades thanks to him. I think he did something that most people would not have done because they would think that it would be cruel to pose as someone else in front of their grandma who's arteriosclerosis is failing her memory. In my opinion he made the right judgement call in going on with the act for his grandma< Close, but not quite 100 words.>

08/21/09

Topics to consider:

Was Sammy a "winner" or a "loser" for making the choice he made in the story?

     I think that Sammy was a winner because of the choice he made.  He found goodness in himself because he realized that no matter where he would go in life he would always have to speak up when he felt something was wrong.  He also did what everyone wants to do, quit their job.  So he could also be considered a hero figure of some sort.

Good start but this isn't quite 100 words (-4)

Now the really fun question: Should Grannies go about giving little kids sticks and sending them out to "battle" other kids??? (personally, I am a granny... so I am very curious as to your advice on this!) :-)

     I believe grandparents should give there grandkids whatever they want or need. So if that means giving there grandchild a stick to go beat some kids up, or using it just to scare the bullies off. Either way grandkids look up to their grandparents because they spoil them rotten.

Well, this one is short too... try to follow directions on the assignment guide because not doing so will cost you points. 12/20