Abby concluded several reading and writing assignments and then continued in her advanced vocabulary study.

Today Abby worked on several required readings and associated journal entries.

The plan that Katya and I agreed to for your afternoon class was simple: At 1 p.m. today, Katya was to submit her two personal essays. We were scheduled to look at both papers, checking for wording, mechanical errors, the organization of each paper and the development of each paragraph. I called her several times beginning at 1 p.m. Each time, I got a "No Response." Thinking that Katya needed more time, I messaged her that I was moving the deadline to 5 P.M. I was looking for those two personal essays so I could add them to the one assignment Katya has completed since March 13. The 5 p.m. deadline has come and gone. I have received no communication from Katya, and no Googe documents from Katya have been forwarded to me. I was hoping to add two completed assignment to the one five-page research paper Katya handed in, but we are back to only one completed assignmnent: her five-page research paper. I need to be honest: I am disappointed in Katya performance and her commitment.

Alexa and I talked about writing a reflection regarding her high school years. We discussed in depth her academic and acting career. We also talked about different ways to write about her final thoughts about high school. After much discussion, Alexa wrote a very nice paragraph which she titled "The Goodbye Paragraph."

Katya was given two assignments to submit today. The first one: Go online to TEDTalks, TED-Ed, The Moth, or NPR Ted Radio Hour. Pick any session you want. After listening to it, write an essay about your experience. You might want to discuss what you learned, what surprised you, etc. The second assignment followed the discussion of Raymond Carver's poem "Happiness" we had yesterday. I provided Katya with a template for that essay: Raymond Carver a story about...to make the point that...... My own experience with... yields a point that is similar/different/similar and different. What I take away from my experience with ... is.........As a result, I conclude.... Today's lesson was to be spent fine-tuning the drafts that Katya wrote. To help Katya with this assignment, I gave Katya a sample opening paragraph. Complications: Just as we got started Katya informed me that she had just deleted her Happiness essay, so she had nothing to show me. When we turned to the TEDTalks essay, Katya pulled up a Google Doc to show me she had "started" an outline. At 11:15, I told Katya to get the two essays into final form, ready for me to evaluate at 1:00 p.m.

Alexa and I read and discussed three of Shakespeare's most popular sonnets. Sonnets 18, 30, 33 all deal with love and loss which fits nicely with the themes in the last two novels that Alexa has read. We discussed composing a Shakespearean sonnet. We looked at examples. We also discussed the writing of a senior reflection which Alexa has decided to write instead. She will compose a narrative of her early, middle and high school years as a senior reflection as she prepares to graduate.

Emailed Katya two handouts: "Poetry" my guidelines for discussing any poem, and a poem by Raymond Carver entitled "Happiness." Carefully went through the "Poetry" handout to make sure Katya grasped the concepts and terms. Katya read the poem outloud. Katya suggested the poem should really be renamed "Morning" because the poem is about a morning. That comment led to a discussion of how important it is to see the significance of the ending of something. E.g., the final tone of a conversation or the final mood of a play. That led to a full discussion of the last six lines of the poem and the philosophical and psychological statement the narrator is making about happiness: it comes on unexpectedly and it goes beyond words. Gave Katya a writing assignment, asking her to use the poem to jump into a discussion of happiness from her own perspective. Google Doc to be written out as a draft to be discussed tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Walked Katya through Purdue OWL website, pointing out all information the site has on college-level writing, researching, citing; the MLA and the APA style guides; the sample subject-specific reports and papers; as well as guides for writing resumes and job search letters. Went on to discuss the fact we do not yet know how many hours are left for Katya to complete. Went on to discuss using TEDTalks, TED-Ed, The Moth, and Ted Radio Hours to find a talk on a subject of interest to Katya. Her assignment: Listen to the talk/see the video, take notes, and write a five-paragraph essay about her experience; what she learned; what surprised her; what was exciting or disappointing. The essay to be written as a Google Doc, submitted tomorrow, Friday, May28.

I presented two short stories to Alexa. I presented an introduction to both: "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber. Alexa chose Thurber's story to read. We talked about the time period of the story and some necessary background information. We began reading the story, and Alexa will finish reading it for homework.

Went over final proofreading results: page 2 "seem" not "seems"; page 3 improved wording: Xenia P. Montenegro Ph.D. who studied the responses";page 4 add "importantly"; page 5 use "study" instead of "article"; page 5 clarify by saying "Too often popular articles directed to the general public"; rewording so concluding sentence reads: To go back to the title of this paper, the answer to "Who Pulled the Plug? is the spouse who verbally, physically, or emotionaly abuses his or her partner." Also, corrected spacing on Works Cited page. Next, focued on the list of projects I gave Katya so Katya could choose a project from the list or come up with one of her own. My list: (1) Write a paper on a controversial person (e.g. Donald Trump); (2) Write a comparison/contrast paper; (3) going back to original project which got lost: Katya to look at 10 painting on the subject of the subway, choose 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and write up what the 1st and 2nd place winners' strengths were; (4) discuss 10 poems, followed by a written analysis of each poem; (5) write a fictional or non-fictional autography; (6) write impromptu essays based on prompts; (7) explain a process; (8) describe a problem and the solutions people have come up with, identifying proposals that did not work and those that were only semi-successful, saving the best solution for last and defending it as the best solution.