Last time I discussed the overarching issues in the United State’s K-12 foreign language programs but what’s also equally important to consider are the larger effects caused by the way American schools teach language. It’s not as simple as American schools failing to teach students foreign language. Instead, there’s a variety of issues that arise for all Americans when the United States cannot communicate outside of English. One of the…
I’ll be discussing Normal People, a novel by Irish author Sally Rooney, this week! Normal People is Rooney’s most popular novel, and I also think it’s the best one to read first. Normal People is what got me into Rooney, and I’ve read her other two books (which I definitely recommend if you like Normal People) because of this book. Normal People also has a popular Hulu series (I’m halfway…
Foreign language learning in the United States’ K-12 schools is a complicated issue, but the reality of the situation is that American students are falling behind due to the way language is taught. While speaking a foreign language is not a requirement for many people’s everyday lives, there are countless benefits. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, people who can speak a foreign language are more creative,…
It’s been a while since I’ve written a review, but I have a lot of new books I’m excited to talk about this semester! While I haven’t had the most time for reading recently, I have been slowly making my way through the Shades of Magic series. This is an adult fantasy trilogy by V.E. Schwab (one of my favorite writers). Schwab writes amazing fantasy books, and I have so…
Disney World’s supposed to be a magical place where families go to escape and have fun. While it can be overwhelming, expensive, and even exhausting, like any other kid I always wanted to go. When I was twelve, my family finally made the trip. My dad meticulously planned everything, meaning my siblings and I just got to enjoy each ride and attraction. What also eased our stress was my brother,…
For my passion blog, I’m going to continue with my blog from last semester, book reviews. I still have a lot of favorite books to write about, and I genuinely enjoyed making the posts. For my civic engagement blog I’m going to focus on foreign language in the public school system.
For my blog I have two new ideas, but I’m also not totally opposed to continuing with my old topic. I really enjoyed writing the reviews and trying to make them interesting and engaging. However, I also thought a cool idea would be a book review blog but only on one book. Each entry would be about a section of the book and my reading experience. My second new idea…
I thought that this was an interesting event, and it opened my eyes to a lot of new concepts I had never heard of before. One of these is open primaries. Open primaries are where voters don’t have to necessarily be registered with a specific party to vote for candidates. I’m not super well-versed in the political systems right now, but to me, this makes sense. If you don’t closely…
For this TED Talk, I was happy with my performance. What I noticed from last time was that instead of looking in the camera, I looked at myself on the computer screen while recording. This kind of made it look like I was just reading from notes the whole time, so I tried to look into the webcam when recording the TED Talk. Let me just say that staring into…
For my last passion blog, I thought that I would write about two of the books I didn’t get a chance to get to. The first is a book that I would genuinely recommend you read, and the second is a book that I wouldn’t want to subject anyone to reading. (Try and guess which is which from the slideshow. Trust me, it’s not hard.) The Poppy War by R.F.…
