A very cool app...

I recently found this new app, Steller . It's an awesome way to tell short stories with images!

Some great words to use in your writing...

Vonnegut on stories...

Recommendations for annotating your readings....

ANNOTATION ADVICE FROM:

How to Mark a Book

By Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.

There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do it:

• Underlining (or highlighting): of major points, of important or forceful statements.
• Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
• Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You may want to fold the bottom comer of each page on which you use such marks. It won't hurt the sturdy paper on which most modern books are printed, and you will be able take the book off the shelf at any time and, by opening it at the folded-corner page, refresh your recollection of the book.)
• Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.
• Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together.
• Circling or highlighting of key words or phrases.
• Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the books. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

Check this website out for help with writing your essays!


Pro Writing Aid

Where does my blog title come from?

This is one of my favorite poems of all time...

What is your favorite poem? Post your favorite poem in the comments section

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Some helpful sites for English class...

Here are a few resources that will help you in writing your responses!

• Check yourself before you wreck yourself! Visit this grammar website: http://www.grammarly.com/handbook/.

• Become an active reader: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/reading.html. 

• A great article on writing in high school: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/04/27/10-things-teenage-writers-should-know-about-writing/