Kocher English Blog

Overall, I'm glad I had English all year because even though it was first block, it wasn't hard to get a good grade if you just showed up to class. This class was a fun time to be in because we could joke around, but still learn just as much in the process. Out of all of the units we went through this year, the Survival unit was my favorite. It was easy to comprehend and I enjoyed the books we read. During the Speak Truth to Power project, what I found interesting was everyone's picks in who their STTP Defender was. Those picks showed what issues are most important or seem most interesting to each group. My least favorite activity of the whole year was the How to project. Even though it  wasn' t  very difficult to complete, it just  seemed pointless or like just another project. My favorite book of the whole year, was  Tuesdays with Morrie.  I loved how it was a true story and each chapter had a new life lesson with real meaning behind it. Honestly, that was the...

For the survival unit, we started off with the book,  The Old Man and The Sea.  This was about a man who wanted to catch his prize fish, the marlin, just to avoid poverty. Just him, his boat, and his supplies, the old man heads out to sea facing the  ocean and the different hardships it throw at him. Then we  watched  three  Survivorman   episodes, where Les Stroud had to use his own techniques and survival skills to help him along in his  week-long   journeys . The first episode we watched was titled "Alaska" where Mr. Stroud   takes on the harsh yet beautiful wilderness of Alaska. Throughout his seven day time span, Les uses a variety of survival skills to help him along with many resources the Alaskan terrain has to offer.   In the  episode of Survivor Man, "Lost at Sea", Les Stroud endures the harsh environment of the bottomless ocean. Some of his biggest fears; drifting so far that his safety boat can't find him, starvatio...

For the Speak Truth to Power project, I was partnered with Cookie  Al tieri  and our Human Rights Defender was Jamie  Nabozny . For this project, we were assigned a human rights defender and  had to identify how our person tried to fix the issue they were defending and how it was connected to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also, we had to teach the rest of our class about the  status  of the human rights issue our person is  defending as  well as  what, in this case Jaime's, life can teach us. Jamie  Nabozny  grew up in the small town of Ashland, Wisconsin. Growing up, he ran into some bullying issues as soon as he reached middle school. The physical violence got worse as his schooling went on, so he went to the school for help. When he told the school authority, he was told to expect the abuse because of his sexuality and stop "acting so gay". After this, Jamie  conti nued  to be bullied, but when he became ol...