Teacher Review: Mr. Scalia

Here is a teacher review on Mr. Scalia, aka, my AICE English Language teacher. I have known him since the second semester that began after winter break. So, before he was my teacher, I heard that his class was going to be the death of one of my friends, that he was mean and yelled a lot, and that he was a great teacher that changed my other friends view on reading. So, when I walked into his class for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. The class, in the beginning was at a steady pace. This pace, I think, was the point in which Mr. Scalia was sizing everyone up to see their work ethic and learn about the students. This, I liked because I felt relaxed during this period. Then, after about a week, the pace picked up to speed and we started learning about Logos, Ethos, and Pathos.

Unfortunately, I was sick for part of the learning part, so when I came in that day to present my PowerPoint, I was really nervous. I may have seemed cool and collected (or not) but I felt like I was going to die; figuratively speaking. Anyway,as I confidentially walked in front of the class, I presented my PowerPoint with as much confidence that I could find.

After the presentations, Mr. Scalia went over logos, ethos, and pathos to make sure that everyone understood it before finding it in reading. This, he did well. Even though I didn't struggle with this, I did struggle with writing a rhetorical analysis.

I am not one to write about the language and style of a piece of literature. It doesn't click for me like it does for other people. I mean, I got it eventually (sort of). I did ask for help and Mr. Scalia helped me understand what I needed to do. Then, we had to do a blog post on it and after completing my blog, I felt like I actually got it. This is, until I read what friends were writing. They are amazing at rhetorical analyses  and then, there's me: . I thought that I had it when I wrote it. That was exactly the point - “when I wrote it.” Looking back at the blog post, I found out what I did wrong. The only thing is, I can sometimes be lazy and just finish the post without rereading it. If I didn't ask for help, I wouldn't have been able to pick out my mistakes.

Now, to the ripping. Actually, I don't have a lot to rip on, Mr. Scalia is a good teacher that makes sure that his students learn. The only things that I would like to change are the yelling, for when he does, I'm right in front of him and I don't like yelling. The other thing is probably elaborating a little bit more on writing in someone else's style and voice. I can kind of do it, but I still don't feel confident in writing something in someone else's voice without being that other person.

From the beginning of this semester, I have learned that only one of my friends were right about Mr. Scalia and that was the one that said that he changed the way she read books. Every time I read a book, I notice pathos, logos, and ethos a lot more along with the acronym SOAPS (subject, occasion, audience, purpose, and speaker). Especially pathos. Even when I'm walking and see a poster or when I see a movie, there's a little kid or a dog and that grabs people's attention. For example, here are two examples of a pathos puppy:  

And here are two examples of a pathos child:  

Sometimes, pathos slaps me in the face, but I can write about it. It was also the thing that I was the best at writing about form everything that we have learned. Appealing to people's emotions is something that I can do confidentially.

To further progress our knowledge, I think that we should focus more on practice writing (writing that is similar to the midterm) or doing a project to help further the knowledge on the topic that we learn about. 
I, personally, am a hands-on learner and considering that we did a project on logos, pathos, and ethos, I know a lot about them. That's just me though, I know that there isn't enough time to have a project on every topic that we learn about, but if we can add a little more hands on learning, that might help other as well.