Sunday, January 24, 2010

Switching up the Routine

So Friday. I had no idea what to expect after hearing that we should wear clothes that we wouldn’t mind getting floor dirt on. I mean there aren’t that many times in the past 11 years in language arts that I had been warned that we were gonna be on the floor, but I kept my mind open and looked forward to seeing what were we doing. So Friday rolled around and we were told to meet in the drama room. I really enjoyed the activities we did. I really did. I’m a hands- on person, and I’m quite a visual learner Sometimes interactive things and switching up the normal way of learning helps people learn even better. Sometimes just sitting there discussing something doesn’t get the point across as well as experiencing it yourself. Writing with our feet, crawling across the floor, writing letters all forced us all to engage in the activity and experience it instead of letting others talk and us just listen along. The movie clips also extremely helped because when people connect with something it’s so much easier for them to understand it. High school teenagers connect with movies and media, it helps us understand things better because we’re used to it, it’s something we do a lot. It keeps our attention because we like it, instead of sitting there reading something that puts us to sleep- in other words, we get more from a movie than a selection of reading because we like movies better. I even liked how the movies weren’t American because it makes these topics more real and show how it can relate to everyone all over the world.

These activities really made me think about how my life would be different if I didn’t have legs, or I didn’t have arms, or whatever-fill in the blank. As humans we rely some much on our arms and legs and take them for complete granted. It’s like that saying “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” and it’s true-you really don’t. you can read books on people who don’t have arms or legs and read about what they go through, but then you try not using your legs for 30 seconds while you scoot to the other side of the room and you realize “Well crap, this is really hard, what would I do if my whole life were like this?” It really makes you think when you experience it.

We should have more days like this in AP Lang because I think everyone really enjoyed it. I know I did. It’s good for the brain to take a break from the routine every now and then. It was a nice switch up from the usual. Except no acting, I don’t do acting. I don’t like acting-sorry Mr. Glenn. Those activities we did were fun, but at the same time educational and meaningful, but if this turns into a weekly ordeal we might need to do a good deep clean on the drama room floor.

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