Hey everyone!
So I thought that it would be nice if I just added a couple more things to my belief of a flawed lexile measure. First off, after doing a little bit of research, I now believe that I MUST turn all of these facts into my english teacher. I just hope I can channel my inner lawyer. Well, here's the facts. Those of you who have heard of the author John Steinback or any of his books such as "The Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden" should be thoroughly disappointed because Lexile.com believes that those books (which by popular belief are pretty much college books) have a lexile of 700. Yup, lexile believes that they are 7th grade books. Also another story which I could not stop laughing at was when I was doing research off of google about lexile and I found this article on Wikipedia.com. It stated that a 32 paged children's picture book has a lexile of 830. I went straight back to lexile and.....it was completely true! The only difference was at the beginning it showed an NC and then 830. What the NC stands for is non-conforming meaning they make the score higher than usual to that high ability readers are able to read it. So apparently a children's book has a higher reading level than a college book. Also have you guys ever heard of Black Beauty, no not the movie but the actual book. Well, even if you haven't it's apparently a 10th grade book. It's this small 210 paged book with really big lettering and a picture taking up every other page. Take out all the pictures and you probably have only 100 pages or less. The book that I wish to read for my English project is "Jurassic Park" and, before you say anything, yes it was a book before it was a movie. I just thought that it would be interesting to see how the author's life ties to dinosaurs haha. Except I can't use the book because of this Lexile problem. Lexile believes that this very very small lettering 399 page book with tons of vocab in every single page is a 7th grade book. So if I don't turn all this information into my English teacher, I'll be stuck writing about a horse. Wouldn't that just be a wonderful essay to read about? Answer: Absolutely not! I'm prepared to fight for lexile to disappear off the face of the Lake Central databases. It needs to because there's no way anyone in the 7th grade can read a college book that takes years to comprehend.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Lexile Measures flawed?
Hey everyone!
So there has been a lot of things on my mind lately. First of all, you all remember that I was put onto the Open guard yes? Well we had our very first competition yesterday! I think it went really well for our first show and home show. Problem was that because it was our home show we couldn't actually compete with the other Open guards but we still got judged. I have no idea what the judges thought of us but we certainly made a lot of people cry which was our whole plan anyways so it was a good thing! I also currently have a project that I am doing in my Honors English class. It's where we research an author and then read one of their books and then see how the author's lives tie to the book. The twist is that we have to have a lexile range of 960 or higher. Which brings me to my main subject: Lexile measures. I strongly believe that lexile measures are incredibly flawed in almost every single way. Because of these measures we had to go from book to book trying to find one high enough. The problem is the way that these people determine the lexile measure of a book. Here's a little bit from the lexile website Lexile.com:
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So there has been a lot of things on my mind lately. First of all, you all remember that I was put onto the Open guard yes? Well we had our very first competition yesterday! I think it went really well for our first show and home show. Problem was that because it was our home show we couldn't actually compete with the other Open guards but we still got judged. I have no idea what the judges thought of us but we certainly made a lot of people cry which was our whole plan anyways so it was a good thing! I also currently have a project that I am doing in my Honors English class. It's where we research an author and then read one of their books and then see how the author's lives tie to the book. The twist is that we have to have a lexile range of 960 or higher. Which brings me to my main subject: Lexile measures. I strongly believe that lexile measures are incredibly flawed in almost every single way. Because of these measures we had to go from book to book trying to find one high enough. The problem is the way that these people determine the lexile measure of a book. Here's a little bit from the lexile website Lexile.com:
"A book, article or piece of text gets a Lexile text measure when it's analyzed by MetaMetrics. For example, the first "Harry Potter" book measures 880L, so it's called an 880 Lexile book. A Lexile text measure is based on two strong predictors of how difficult a text is to comprehend: word frequency and sentence length. Many other factors affect the relationship between a reader and a book, including its content, the age and interests of the reader, and the design of the actual book. The Lexile text measure is a good starting point in the book-selection process, with these other factors then being considered."This quote makes me very concerned about lexile measures. Its the fact that the age and interests of a reader determines the measure that scares me the most. If it were really determined by that then why on earth is a a 32 page children's picture book have a lexile of 830 but Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton has a lexile of 710? It's very flawed. Lexile measure irks me.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Seriously about half of this is about grape juice
Hey everyone!
So it's been way to long since I last wrote in this. Thus, I need to update immediately! I had a really great Christmas this year and so far a great 2012! How about you guys? I got a lot of stuff for Christmas but I don't wish to brag. However, I had one new years resolution this year and I have so far kept it all this year. My resolution was to give up soda. It's been fairly easy so far. Rumors say that it takes 21 days to break a habit and its been 8. So I've got a little ways to go. I've been drinking this amazing grape juice called Welch's light. At first I was a little skeptic because I've had normal Welch stuff before and it wasn't the best in the world. So I decided to try a glass. It took a couple sips to get use to but after a while I was hooked. I've already gotten 3 bottles of the stuff! And I keep wanting more! I've had almost 2 glasses a day of this stuff. Which really isn't good because I bought all these other drinks to substitute soda and I have yet to try them haha. Well, I made some pink lemonade tonight though. So I guess that's one out of three that I haven't tried yet. We also got these smoothie things that aren't real smoothies because there's no ice in them. They're more of a juice than anything else. The only problem I'm having with all these things so far is the obvious, I can't seem to get enough water a day. I mean, aren't you supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day? If so I haven't done that in my entire life! Which is a very sad 14 years. Anyways I can't seem to find a way to make the water in my town taste good. At my old house the water in that town tasted great! Now I'm still trying to get used to the new flavor. Which yes, different towns have different flavored water. Some are tap some are well. I'm pretty sure my home town had well water. You'd think that after 3 years that you'd get used to a different taste right? That's exactly it! I haven't had enough water lately that I haven't been able to get use to it!...........................Alright I know that this is COMPLETE nonsense and 7 out of 10 readers will not care what I'm rambling on about but hey. I have to get it out of my system somehow? Anyways tomorrow is the start of finals week. Which is completely stressing me out in almost every single subject. What makes finals week silly is the fact that I have a final test in Colorguard, Yes, Colorguard! It is technically a class you know. Except we go outside or we sit around and do nothing sometimes. Anyways our coach had us write down what was going to be on the guard final. It's absolutely ridiculous. One of the questions is "what is the name of the fall show?" Yeah! As if hearing it a million times by announcers and seeing it everywhere didn't get it stuck in our heads! Oh and the "extra credit" is how to spell his last name. Which is okay credit considering we don't go by his full last name. We call him Mr. B but it's really Buzalski. Alright I HAVE to stop rambling now. I have an Algebra final tomorrow and I might need to look over a few things.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So it's been way to long since I last wrote in this. Thus, I need to update immediately! I had a really great Christmas this year and so far a great 2012! How about you guys? I got a lot of stuff for Christmas but I don't wish to brag. However, I had one new years resolution this year and I have so far kept it all this year. My resolution was to give up soda. It's been fairly easy so far. Rumors say that it takes 21 days to break a habit and its been 8. So I've got a little ways to go. I've been drinking this amazing grape juice called Welch's light. At first I was a little skeptic because I've had normal Welch stuff before and it wasn't the best in the world. So I decided to try a glass. It took a couple sips to get use to but after a while I was hooked. I've already gotten 3 bottles of the stuff! And I keep wanting more! I've had almost 2 glasses a day of this stuff. Which really isn't good because I bought all these other drinks to substitute soda and I have yet to try them haha. Well, I made some pink lemonade tonight though. So I guess that's one out of three that I haven't tried yet. We also got these smoothie things that aren't real smoothies because there's no ice in them. They're more of a juice than anything else. The only problem I'm having with all these things so far is the obvious, I can't seem to get enough water a day. I mean, aren't you supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day? If so I haven't done that in my entire life! Which is a very sad 14 years. Anyways I can't seem to find a way to make the water in my town taste good. At my old house the water in that town tasted great! Now I'm still trying to get used to the new flavor. Which yes, different towns have different flavored water. Some are tap some are well. I'm pretty sure my home town had well water. You'd think that after 3 years that you'd get used to a different taste right? That's exactly it! I haven't had enough water lately that I haven't been able to get use to it!...........................Alright I know that this is COMPLETE nonsense and 7 out of 10 readers will not care what I'm rambling on about but hey. I have to get it out of my system somehow? Anyways tomorrow is the start of finals week. Which is completely stressing me out in almost every single subject. What makes finals week silly is the fact that I have a final test in Colorguard, Yes, Colorguard! It is technically a class you know. Except we go outside or we sit around and do nothing sometimes. Anyways our coach had us write down what was going to be on the guard final. It's absolutely ridiculous. One of the questions is "what is the name of the fall show?" Yeah! As if hearing it a million times by announcers and seeing it everywhere didn't get it stuck in our heads! Oh and the "extra credit" is how to spell his last name. Which is okay credit considering we don't go by his full last name. We call him Mr. B but it's really Buzalski. Alright I HAVE to stop rambling now. I have an Algebra final tomorrow and I might need to look over a few things.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Friday, December 16, 2011
Possibly THE longest post yet
Hey everyone!
So today I gave all my teachers cookies. Yes, I might possibly be a goody-goody at times but hey, when you have a giant box of cookies and have no clue what half of them are what would you do? Eat them and find out? Because some of them didn't look tasty in my opinion. Mainly because I don't like the big frosted sugar cookies. Anyways in journalism we presented our court cases. Ours was Morse vs. Frederick. It went well in my opinion except our teacher didn't let us finish the presentation because we put a little quiz on the power point and she didn't want people to have answers for the test for later. While everyone else was presenting though my friend and I ate marshmallows....with chopsticks. A little silly but we planned it earlier in the week to have an "Asian" Christmas. We exchanged gifts too. I got 10 years of good luck through these tiny little origami stars and a origami flower while I wrote a poem about a panda named Tao and a panda peewee pillow pet. You should have seen my friend's reaction to the panda. It was amazing. She kept talking in that high pitched baby voice and was petting it and hugging it all class. That's what I love about Christmas. Giving all those cool gifts and seeing the people's reactions to them. It's the most amazing feeling but so hard to describe. I just hope that on Christmas day I'm on the other end. But of course I gave my mom a really good present. But I can't tell you because she reads my blog xD. So anyways back to the Asian Christmas. My friend and I are planning on watching some movies over the break in Chinese and eat Chinese food with chopsticks. So I thought I should practice a little. However, it's a whole lot easier to eat marshmallows than things like rice or noodles with chopsticks. I just hope that later I'll get the hang of it. There's one thing I'm really excited about though.......ITS FINALLY CHRISTMAS BREAK!! I've been counting down the days since the beginning of November! I've been waiting so long for this because I think its my favorite break with the beautiful snow outside and to relax inside with cozy slippers and pajamas and possibly hot chocolate. Something about it just seems nice you know? Like you just feel....cheerier. I absolutely hate the feeling you get around Halloween though. I just don't really like all those scary things popping up out of nowhere. Of course I say this while being home alone... I wonder what I'm going to do this Christmas Break. Maybe I should go ice skating. I did that a couple years back and it was fun. I've always wanted to learn all those crazy jumps and flips that ice skaters do, but I'm just not coordinated enough yet. Sorry if this is a little ramble ramble but I got to get all this out of my mind. Okay, so what should I get my dogs for Christmas? Last year I got them these little red and green bones that they ate over the course of the day but I want to do something special. Mainly because I feel like giving a lot more this year that usual. I always walk down the Target aisles and see those gigantic bones in the shape of a candy cane. Oh boy that would take them days to finish. Maybe even weeks! That's what I should get them. That way they don't complain about treats so much. It's like every time they do something good they want a treat. So I'll just tell them to go get their candy cane bone. I'm just worried about how much it will cost. Because if you saw them you'd know...they are HUGE. Not just little candy cane bones..no they are gigantic things that come in one big clear bag. I guess I'll have to go to Target soon to find out. I should probably stop writing now xD.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So today I gave all my teachers cookies. Yes, I might possibly be a goody-goody at times but hey, when you have a giant box of cookies and have no clue what half of them are what would you do? Eat them and find out? Because some of them didn't look tasty in my opinion. Mainly because I don't like the big frosted sugar cookies. Anyways in journalism we presented our court cases. Ours was Morse vs. Frederick. It went well in my opinion except our teacher didn't let us finish the presentation because we put a little quiz on the power point and she didn't want people to have answers for the test for later. While everyone else was presenting though my friend and I ate marshmallows....with chopsticks. A little silly but we planned it earlier in the week to have an "Asian" Christmas. We exchanged gifts too. I got 10 years of good luck through these tiny little origami stars and a origami flower while I wrote a poem about a panda named Tao and a panda peewee pillow pet. You should have seen my friend's reaction to the panda. It was amazing. She kept talking in that high pitched baby voice and was petting it and hugging it all class. That's what I love about Christmas. Giving all those cool gifts and seeing the people's reactions to them. It's the most amazing feeling but so hard to describe. I just hope that on Christmas day I'm on the other end. But of course I gave my mom a really good present. But I can't tell you because she reads my blog xD. So anyways back to the Asian Christmas. My friend and I are planning on watching some movies over the break in Chinese and eat Chinese food with chopsticks. So I thought I should practice a little. However, it's a whole lot easier to eat marshmallows than things like rice or noodles with chopsticks. I just hope that later I'll get the hang of it. There's one thing I'm really excited about though.......ITS FINALLY CHRISTMAS BREAK!! I've been counting down the days since the beginning of November! I've been waiting so long for this because I think its my favorite break with the beautiful snow outside and to relax inside with cozy slippers and pajamas and possibly hot chocolate. Something about it just seems nice you know? Like you just feel....cheerier. I absolutely hate the feeling you get around Halloween though. I just don't really like all those scary things popping up out of nowhere. Of course I say this while being home alone... I wonder what I'm going to do this Christmas Break. Maybe I should go ice skating. I did that a couple years back and it was fun. I've always wanted to learn all those crazy jumps and flips that ice skaters do, but I'm just not coordinated enough yet. Sorry if this is a little ramble ramble but I got to get all this out of my mind. Okay, so what should I get my dogs for Christmas? Last year I got them these little red and green bones that they ate over the course of the day but I want to do something special. Mainly because I feel like giving a lot more this year that usual. I always walk down the Target aisles and see those gigantic bones in the shape of a candy cane. Oh boy that would take them days to finish. Maybe even weeks! That's what I should get them. That way they don't complain about treats so much. It's like every time they do something good they want a treat. So I'll just tell them to go get their candy cane bone. I'm just worried about how much it will cost. Because if you saw them you'd know...they are HUGE. Not just little candy cane bones..no they are gigantic things that come in one big clear bag. I guess I'll have to go to Target soon to find out. I should probably stop writing now xD.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Thursday, December 15, 2011
December 15...where's the snow?
Hey everyone!
So today was the last day of English, algebra, and geography for the rest of the year! Of course, tomorrow I'll be having the last biology, French, and journalism class. I'm so excited because its 10 days till Christmas and I'm getting a loft and a shark. Plus a few other things that I have absolutely no clue about. Anyways today I've been on and off sick. Coughing and runny rose especially. It's always when winter comes around that I get sick more and more. Except for the fact that there's been so snow except for about an inch and it already melted away! It's been 50 degrees and raining on the 15 of December. You have to love Indiana right? Well, I just wish that there will be a white Christmas because what's Christmas without a little snow? Of course there's also the southern states that rarely get snow but hey, they can have fake snow! I sure hope that this sickness goes away fast because tonight I'm going to a Christmas concert that my brother is playing in. That is, if the runny nose and coughing goes away. The only reason I wouldn't want to go with the coughing and sneezing is if there's a dead silence moment and my body suddenly decides to sneeze/cough. Talk about awkward.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So today was the last day of English, algebra, and geography for the rest of the year! Of course, tomorrow I'll be having the last biology, French, and journalism class. I'm so excited because its 10 days till Christmas and I'm getting a loft and a shark. Plus a few other things that I have absolutely no clue about. Anyways today I've been on and off sick. Coughing and runny rose especially. It's always when winter comes around that I get sick more and more. Except for the fact that there's been so snow except for about an inch and it already melted away! It's been 50 degrees and raining on the 15 of December. You have to love Indiana right? Well, I just wish that there will be a white Christmas because what's Christmas without a little snow? Of course there's also the southern states that rarely get snow but hey, they can have fake snow! I sure hope that this sickness goes away fast because tonight I'm going to a Christmas concert that my brother is playing in. That is, if the runny nose and coughing goes away. The only reason I wouldn't want to go with the coughing and sneezing is if there's a dead silence moment and my body suddenly decides to sneeze/cough. Talk about awkward.
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Hear the JAWS music yet?
Hey everyone!
So I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about right now. Well, at least there's no guard today. Remember how I was so incredibly excited for making the open guard? I somewhat (key word: SOMEWHAT) take that back. Mainly because it's going to take over my life until the middle of April. Yup, from now until April I'm booked. There's no time for anything except for on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes we even have practices on Sundays! It's a bit crazy considering people's plans for their Christmas vacations and spring breaks. Considering we have practice on both breaks. At least it's not every day though. There are paint days on the 21st and 22nd and then we start practicing again on the 28th. So I'll sorta have a Christmas this year! My Christmas wish this year is slowly but surely coming true! :D A while back I planned to build a loft bed with my grandpa and paint my walls red and tan/gold. We just got the wood and tools for the loft yesterday so now we can finally get started! The paint however, is a different story. You see, my mom isn't the greatest at painting and my aunt is an English teacher at a local middle school so she's busy all the time. Of course there's always my grandma and other aunts that can help but everyone has a crazy schedule lately. I just hope that it's all done by Christmas or at least New Years Eve. That would be my wish. Oh! I forgot to mention what's under my Christmas tree right now....go ahead and guess. You'll never get it. Okay, the thing that is under my Christmas tree right now is......a shark. Yup, I got a shark for Christmas. No it's not a real shark ( i wish) but it looks like one and swims like one. Except, it doesn't swim in water, it swims in air. I got one of those Air Swimmers Sharks for Christmas! I'm so excited to set it up and start flying it around my living room. Mainly because it'll freak out my brothers haha.
yup there he is! I can't wait till Christmas! 12 days left!
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about right now. Well, at least there's no guard today. Remember how I was so incredibly excited for making the open guard? I somewhat (key word: SOMEWHAT) take that back. Mainly because it's going to take over my life until the middle of April. Yup, from now until April I'm booked. There's no time for anything except for on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes we even have practices on Sundays! It's a bit crazy considering people's plans for their Christmas vacations and spring breaks. Considering we have practice on both breaks. At least it's not every day though. There are paint days on the 21st and 22nd and then we start practicing again on the 28th. So I'll sorta have a Christmas this year! My Christmas wish this year is slowly but surely coming true! :D A while back I planned to build a loft bed with my grandpa and paint my walls red and tan/gold. We just got the wood and tools for the loft yesterday so now we can finally get started! The paint however, is a different story. You see, my mom isn't the greatest at painting and my aunt is an English teacher at a local middle school so she's busy all the time. Of course there's always my grandma and other aunts that can help but everyone has a crazy schedule lately. I just hope that it's all done by Christmas or at least New Years Eve. That would be my wish. Oh! I forgot to mention what's under my Christmas tree right now....go ahead and guess. You'll never get it. Okay, the thing that is under my Christmas tree right now is......a shark. Yup, I got a shark for Christmas. No it's not a real shark ( i wish) but it looks like one and swims like one. Except, it doesn't swim in water, it swims in air. I got one of those Air Swimmers Sharks for Christmas! I'm so excited to set it up and start flying it around my living room. Mainly because it'll freak out my brothers haha.
yup there he is! I can't wait till Christmas! 12 days left!Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
Friday, December 2, 2011
Ramble Ramble!
Hey everyone!
So I've be deprived of blogging for a week and I have sooo much to talk about so be ready for some rambling on and on about stuff.
Ok for starters we had our first guard practice and it was crazy. Our dance instructor taught us all these mad flips and now I'm incredibly sore and I have another practice tonight. My weekend is absoutely gone. I have practice tonight from 6 to 8:30 and tomorrow I have practice from 1 in the afternoon to 9 at night! that's 8 hours of guard! But wait there's more! In a couple weeks we will be doing 9 to 9 practices on saturdays! I'm freaking out because I'll never get any sleep on the weekends anymore which is what I usually do. Not only that my winter break is going to be full of guard stuff too! Three days after Christmas we start up again painting and practicing.
Next thing! It's 23 days till Christmas and 22 days till Christmas Eve! I'm so excited because I can't wait to see the smile on my mom's face when she see's what I got her. Of course I can't tell you what I got her because she sometimes reads this blog. Hint: She's going to LOVE it! I know she will, but I went to a special website that she has no clue about in order to confuse her. I'm being sneaky this year hehehe. Oh, and I have no idea if I'll be having a good Christmas for myself this year. Mainly because what I want can't be wrapped. I wish to redecorate my room and we've planned it for months and my grandpa and uncle are going to help me build a loft that has little stairs and my aunt is going to repaint my room red and gold!
Well, I thought I was going to be rambling on and on but I guess I'm not. Oh well, I'll think of other things to ramble about later!
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
So I've be deprived of blogging for a week and I have sooo much to talk about so be ready for some rambling on and on about stuff.
Ok for starters we had our first guard practice and it was crazy. Our dance instructor taught us all these mad flips and now I'm incredibly sore and I have another practice tonight. My weekend is absoutely gone. I have practice tonight from 6 to 8:30 and tomorrow I have practice from 1 in the afternoon to 9 at night! that's 8 hours of guard! But wait there's more! In a couple weeks we will be doing 9 to 9 practices on saturdays! I'm freaking out because I'll never get any sleep on the weekends anymore which is what I usually do. Not only that my winter break is going to be full of guard stuff too! Three days after Christmas we start up again painting and practicing.
Next thing! It's 23 days till Christmas and 22 days till Christmas Eve! I'm so excited because I can't wait to see the smile on my mom's face when she see's what I got her. Of course I can't tell you what I got her because she sometimes reads this blog. Hint: She's going to LOVE it! I know she will, but I went to a special website that she has no clue about in order to confuse her. I'm being sneaky this year hehehe. Oh, and I have no idea if I'll be having a good Christmas for myself this year. Mainly because what I want can't be wrapped. I wish to redecorate my room and we've planned it for months and my grandpa and uncle are going to help me build a loft that has little stairs and my aunt is going to repaint my room red and gold!
Well, I thought I was going to be rambling on and on but I guess I'm not. Oh well, I'll think of other things to ramble about later!
Sincerely,
Tinkerbell
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