On this site you will find
wonderful Writing/Under Fire Journal Ideas.
Many of these I am currently using or have used
in my classroom over the years.
If you are a student, you may consider using one or more of these ideas to kick off your own writing. Some are also super conversation starters. Enjoy them, apply them to your own life and experiences, and keep writing!
If you are a teacher viewing this page, you may want to use some of these quotes, comments, or literary "golden nuggets" to introduce a subject, begin a discussion, or create a writing lab. I have found all of these, when used as writing journal ideas by students, to make particularly interesting reading. My students always give me feedback in a reflection paper at the end of the term about their favorite writing journal entry. I love to read their comments; they are so thoughtful and insightful.
I also require my students to date their entries. The students can then see the differences in their writing and their thought patterns over a three to nine month period (depends on whether your school has trimester, block or full year scheduling).
The entries are in no particular order. If you find a mistake, please e-mail me, so I may correct it. Thank you ahead of time.
Before Writing:
1. Open a Google Doc and title it. Include your own full name at the top of the page please.
2. Title date sections. Ex: September's Journal Entries
3. Label and date each entry.
4. Readability influences your grade, so always proof your work and pay attention when Google underlines something. That means something is usually wrong. Fix it before turning in your work. Capitalize properly.
5. Your seriousness of purpose will be evident and also influences your grade.
Respond to every quotation in detail. You can use the following format for developing your response.
** A thought provoking quotation is only the beginning. As you consider the quotation, you need to think about what it means.
** Define unfamiliar words and ask for help in understanding abstract ideas.
** Think about how true the statement is or in what ways it is true. Give examples.
** Then, to really develop your response, you need to think about how your own experience relates to the ideas. HINT: Choose a quotation that reflects something in your own life or that strikes a chord with you.
** These responses will almost always be written in first person. However, do not use phrases like "I think," "in my opinion," or others like them. This is your work. It is obvious that the ideas are your own. (NOTE: This is good advice for that proverbial college essay also.)
** Try not to use another familiar quotation to support your thoughts about this one. That just makes your work too confusing.
** Do not begin your response by writing, "This quote is about". . . (or any variation of that).
** When you refer to the person who said this quotation, use his or her first and last name to begin with, and after that, use only his or her last name. This is a standard way to write. You would never refer to Albert Einstein as Albert. You just don't know him that well.
** A good way to begin is to put the idea presented in your own words. Some ideas for beginnings are:
1. When Ernest Hemingway said "quotation goes here," he means that . . . .
2. Confucius was correct when he said . . . .
Example of an entry:
September 5, 2018
"When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it." ~Margaret Chase Smith
When I was about ten years old, I found the novel To Kill a Mockingbird on our bookshelves, and I told my mother that I would like to read it. She told me that she didn't think I would understand it, that the book was "too grown up" for me. Well, of course, I read it anyway. Maybe I didn't understand it the way I do now, but I remember enjoying it back then all the same. I have never been the kind of person who likes being told I can't do something. I am stubborn that way. If someone tells me a task will be too hard or that I probably won't succeed, in my head a little voice says, "Oh yeah, well, you just wait." I think, however, that I am not alone in this. I always hear stories of successful people who seemed to be against great odds. In analyzing the situation later, one might say that they didn't know they couldn't succeed; they didn't know they shouldn't have been able to do the thing they did. Or maybe someone told them they couldn't do it and that spurred them on with a ferocity that made failure impossible.
UNDER FIRE JOURNAL ENTRIES
1."The true measure of a man is not his wealth, but his character." - The beliefs of Karol Wojtyla, the father of Pope John Paul II
2."Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration." -Thomas Edison
3."What distinguishes the people who really succeed is their unending curiosity." - Robert S. Cauthorn (electronic journalist)
4."...there will always be a demand for people who can digest facts and write about them." - Gilbert Bailon
5."If it's a news story, the reporter should ask how to tell a coherent story. If it's a feature, the reporter should ask, "How do I hook the reader with the first paragraph and then tell the story in an interesting and compelling way?" - Fernando Dovalina
6."Getting the story, means getting it right, complete, and fair." - Ben Bagdikian
7."Each time a man stands up for an ideal or act to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and these ripples build up a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance" -6/6/66 Senator Robert Kennedy
8."The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream" - Harry Kemp
9.What does "just the facts" mean?
10."We'll be able to make the news far more attractive than it's ever been." Bill Gates talking about the beginning of MSNBC in 1995.
11."Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." -Lou Holts
12."No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" -Eleanor Roosevelt
13."Love bears all things
Believes all things
Hopes all things
Love never ends"
- 1 Co13:7 Revised Standard Version Bible
14."Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace
From day to day
- Macbeth V. v. 19
15."One cannot control the length of his life, but he can have something to say about the worth and depth." - Anonymous
16."When things go wrong, don't go with them."
17."There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." - General Colin L. Powell
18.List the top things you want out of life. Then number them in order of importance, 1 being the most important. Explain the number order on your list.
19.Take the bitter with the sweet.
20."There's a certain sense of humor that goes along with sports. You really learn...to take your lumps." - Melissa Ludtke, Sports Illustrated writer (once barred from NY Yankees locker room)
21.To the world you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world.
22.Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.
23.Happiness isn't having what you want, but wanting what you have.
24.A man who buys what he does not need will often need what he cannot buy.
25.Take time; make time. There might not be another time.
26.Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.
27."The weather we gets is the weather we got, so we're gonna have weather, whether or not." -Anonymous
28.Buy a little piece of land and hold on to it. There'll never be any more land made.
29."The more we love
and the more we give...
The richer we are."
-Reba McIntyre
30."I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
-In Memorium:27 by Alfred Lord Tennyson
31."Life is about freedom of the mind, a spirit, express it as you will."
32.People don't plan to fail; they fail to plan. or “Plan your work and work your plan.” ~ Vince Lombardi
33."Good speakers make others see with their ears."
~ Arabian proverb
34."Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
~ John F. Kennedy - the 35th American President
35.All of us will succeed!
36.Each of us is unique and important.
37.I think, therfore, I am.
38.Practice makes perfect.
39."Human dignity involves a moral obligation to speak the truth..." ~ Pope John Paul II
40."What does love mean to you?" List at least three types of love.
41.Put in the correct punctuation in this sentence: "A woman without her man is nothing"
42."We, ourselves have the courage to seek the peace of the brave." ~ Leah Rabin, wife of assassinated Prime Minister of Israel
43."The only limitations we have are the ones we put on ourselves." ~ Confucius
44."We don’t leave Americans behind." ~ American Brig. Gen. John Rosa, Jr.
45."I am a journalist myself and shall appeal to fellow journalists to realize their responsibility and to carry on their work with no idea other than that of upholding the truth." ~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
46."For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for the security of the future I would do everything." ~ James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) 20th US President
47.The shortest scary poem, which won an award was "He awoke frightened and he reached for the matches./The matches were put into his hand."
This was written by Michelle Austin. Do you agree it should have won an award? Why or why not?
48."Stories are gifts. It's up to us to take them and receive them." ~ Native American Lance Simpson
49."The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read." ~ Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) British writer and wit
50.The United States Flag Code was established by the 77th Congress in 1942. It formalized how the US flag should be displayed. The code (36 US Code 10) paragraph 177 also explains conduct while hoisting, lowering, or passing the flag. It says that each person except those in uniform, should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over their heart. Those in uniform should salute. If not in uniform and wearing a cap/hat, it should be removed with the right hand and held at the left shoulder, the hand still over the heart. When you see the flag waving what does it mean to you? How do you feel when you see it being burnt or torn in anger?
51.Roll the classroom "Journal Cubes." Write about the topic. Ex: One dice reads what to do (share...describe, etc.) and the other dice gives an idea (a travel experience...a childhood memory, etc.). you should think about the topic before beginning to write. Try listing five things you would include in your writing before you begin. You may do this up to three times a semester. Number them 51a, 51b and 51c.
52. What does the phrase “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” mean to you? Research where it originated.
Check out the following: Egypt:”"Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do.”
Asia:”If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself."
India:”By self-control and by making dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself."
Greece:"What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either."
Rome:"Treat your inferior as you would wish your superior to treat you."
Persia:”That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself."
53. "He who opens a school door, closes a prison." ~ Victor Hugo - French (1802-1885)
54. "No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow." ~ Alice Walker - African American author (1944-)
55. "With freedom of the press goes the freedom to read or to close the book, and it will linger so long as we retain the power to say no." ~ W. Curtis Bok 1897-1962 American jurist
56. "A free press independent of government control and expressing a variety of viewpoints is crucial to both democracy and individual liberty." ~ Jimmy Carter (President of the U.S. 1977-1981)
57. "The most beautiful thing in the world is freedom of speech." ~ Diogenes, 4th century B.C. Greek philosopher
58. "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter." ~ Thomas Jefferson (President of the U. S. 1801-1809)
59. "Every person born in the world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. It is a most difficult challenge for each of us to discover our uniqueness, and claim it, and accept responsibility for our decisions. We owe it to ourselves and others to develop the best it is in us to be, to develop our potential to create, to contribute, to impact ourselves on the world, so that the world becomes better for our having been in it." ~ Martin Buber (Jewish philosopher, theologian, Bible translator, and editor of Hasic tradition)
60. "Wit ought to be a glorious treat, like caviar. Never spread it about like marmalade." ~ Noel Coward (Playright)
61. "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and our actions run as causes and return as results." -Herman Melville (1819-1891) American author of Moby Dick.
62. "Success and its hand-in-glove partner, failure, are equally difficult to handle, and everyone has to deal with both in different quantities in their lifetimes." ~ George Martin (Beatles producer at Berklee graduation: 1989)
63. "We are more alike than different from one another. We -- your parents, your grandparents, and I -- are simply at different stages along the same journey as you. Study us well. And if you look very closely, you will also find yourselves twenty or thirty or forty years from now. But take pride in the fact that, for all the universality, each of you carries within him or her a spark of uniqueness." ~ Ted Koppel (Professional broadcaster speaking at the 1982 Syracuse University graduation)
64. "Let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." - John F. Kennedy (1963)
65. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
~ Robert Frost (1874-1963)
66. "Improve your understanding for acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, an Honor to your Country, and a Blessing to Your parents." - Abigail Qunicy Adams (1744-1818) Written to her ten year old son, John Quincy Adams, when he was in Europe with his father John.
67. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." - Unknown
68. "When power corrupts, poetry cleanses." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
69. "You cannot discover new oceans until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." -Anonymous
70. "Courage is knowing what to fear." -Plato
71. "To be truly human,one must serve others. Everybody can be great because everybody can serve." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
72. "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find a way." -Abraham Lincoln
73. "Children have more need of models than critics." -Joseph Joubert
74. "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it." -Anonymous
75. "There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship." -Ralph Nader
76. "Fairness demands not identical treatment but equal consideration of relevant conditions and circumstances." -Steven S. Tigner
77. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
78. "It is easy to be kind; the difficulty is to be just." -Victor Hugo
79. "Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both." -Eleanor Roosevelt
80. "Justice is better when it prevents rather than punishes with severity." -Legal maxim
81. Father to son: "Laws define rights."
Son to father: "I agree, sir, but do they always define justice?"
Father to son: "Justice, my young man, is only relative to who is in charge."
Son to father: "Quite true, sir, but perhaps how long they stay in charge is relative to how well they dispense that justice.
-Film: The Power of One
82. "Here (in Pakistan and Afghanistan), we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die." -Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan
83. "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead
84. "What we see depends mainly on what we look for." - John Lubbock
85. "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." -Henry Van Dyke
86. "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." -Buddha
87. "To be great is to be misunderstood." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
88. Earth Life is a gift.
We receive the gift.
While we are the gift.
- Morning Earth
89. "We will not protect what we do not love." - Stephen Jay Gould
90. "The beginning of it is bitter to taste; the end is sweeter than honey." Middle Eastern saying about "Knowledge."
91. "Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all." - Stanley Horowitz
92. "If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not
Speak then to me."
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth
93. "Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him; a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure. -Wisdom of Sirach "Ecclesiasticus 9:10"
94. "Do not let the sun go down upon your anger." -Marmee in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
95. "The earth laughs in flowers." -e.e. cummings
96. YOUR CHOICE
97. "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." -B. F. Skinner
98. "Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding." -Ezra Pound
99. "The poet doesn't invent. He listens." -Jean Cocteau
100. "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood." -T. S. Eliot
101. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will." -Charlotte Bronte
102. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
-John Lennon
103. "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." -Albert Einstein
104. "Do what average people do; have what average people have. Who wants to be average? I don't, do you?" -Marine Captain Vernice Amour (first African American female pilot in Marine Corps history and first black female combat pilot in history of Department of Defense
105. "If you want something, but you fail to try, you've already failed." -Band of Sisters by Kirsten Holmstedt (172)
106. "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more." -Luke 12:48. President John F. Kennedy rephrased the same quote: "For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”
107. "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived." -General George Patton, Jr.
108. "The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there ... and still on your feet." -Stephen King
109. "You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants." -Stephen King
110. "We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." -Vince Lombardi
111. "It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not." - French author Andre Gide (1869-1951)
112. "Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein
113. "Before God we are all equally wise -- and equally foolish." - Albert Einstein
114. "Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people." - Lee Iacocca
115. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt
116. "Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you PLAY it is free will." - Jawaharal Nehru, Prime Minister of India 1947-1964 (longest serving to date)
117. "Only after disaster can we be resurrected." - From the book Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Tyler is speaking.
118. "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer
119. "Mountains can never reach each other, despite their bigness. But humans can." - Afghan Proverb
120. "The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all." - Aung San Suu Kyi The leader of the opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD), in Burma. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma in 1991.
121. "But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
122. "When your heart speaks, take good notes." - Susan Campbell
123. "Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters. - Ernest Hemingway
124. "Education is the long-term solution to fanaticism." - Colonel Christopher Kolenda, U.S. Army Dec. 26, 2008
125. "The Muslim community is a subtle world we don't fully -- and don't always -- attempt to understand. Only through a shared appreciation of the people's culture, needs, and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extreme narrative. We cannot capture hearts and minds. We must engage them; we must listen to them, one heart and one mind at a time." - Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 2009
126. “The enemy is ignorance, and it isn’t theirs alone. We have far more to learn from the people who live here than we could ever hope to teach them.” -Greg Mortenson author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, about Afghanistan
127. "Nothing good can be gained by deliberately hurting someone else." - Anonymous
128. "...and will you succeed? Yes, indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed." - Dr. Seuss
129. "The body says what words cannot." - Martha Graham, famous dancer, teacher, and choreographer (1894-1991)
130. "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
131. "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." - President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
132. "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity." - President Jimmy Carter (1924- _)
133. "The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others." -Solomon Ibn Gabriol, Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher (1021-1058)
134. "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
135. "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
136. "...But tautological repetition which has no justifying object, but merely exposes the fact that the writer's balance at the vocabulary bank has run short and that he is too lazy to replenish it from the thesaurus -- that is another matter..." - Mark Twain; Autobiography of Mark Twain, volume 1, pg 119 (1835-1910)
137. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost (1874-1963)
138. "Does fear blind you to the things you ought to know?" -Dr. Dan Ivins
139. "If you were given the choice of being a celebrity or someone who helps others/making a difference in the world, which would you choose and why?"
140. "Love is a pathway to peace; weakness is a pathway to power." Respond to how your heart feels about this statement.
141. "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." -Jack London, American author
142. "Each and every day is a canvas waiting to be painted." - The late sports commentator Craig Sager
143. Fortuna favet audaci - Fortune favors the bold." -Old Latin Proverb
144. "When the sun is climbing window sills,
And the silver lining rides the hills,
I will be saved for one whole day,
Until the sun makes the hills its grave.
-Twenty One Pilots Lyrics
145. "Discover why you're important, then refuse to settle for anyone who doesn't completely agree." - Contemporary author Fisher Amelie.
146. "Write garbage - as long as you edit brilliantly." - fiction writer C.J. Cherryh.
147. “I'd rather regret the risks that didn't work out than the chances I didn't take at all.” -Simone Biles (2016 Olympic gymnast)
148. "Its okay to be a glowstick; sometimes we have to break before we shine.” - Unknown
149. "For what is life without balance
and what is dark without light?
Though I may love being one with the darkness,
we could all use a little light."
- From "Abysmal" by Angelmaker
150. “A teacher is never a giver of truth – he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. A good teacher is merely a catalyst." - Bruce Lee
151. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” -Dr. Seuss
152. “We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.” -Katie Thurmes
153. "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust
154. "Music is the strongest form of magic." - Marilyn Manson
155. “You won't get wise with sleep still in your eyes, no matter what your dream might be.” - Neil Peart, drummer of Rush
156. “I am not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." - Louisa May Alcott (author)
157. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” - Aristotle
158. "Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
159. "Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." - General George Patton
160. "A good friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have." - Irish Proverb
161. "Carpe diem." -Latin phrase by Roman poet Horace means 'pluck the day' or 'seize the day.'
162. "How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." -A.A. Milne in his Winnie the Pooh tales.
163. “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” - Rupi Kaur in her book Milk and Honey
164. "It's easy to stand with the crowd. It takes courage to stand alone." - Gandhi
165. Watch this video, "In a Heartbeat," and explain what it is about and how you reacted to it. What is important about the message? https://youtu.be/2REkk9SCRn0
166. Watch this bullying video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqsL0QQaSP4, and explain what is going on and how it makes you feel. Why do teenagers bully other teens? What can be done to stop it?
167. "The butterfly never meets its mother. It must survive independently and remains a stranger to affection. An animal nurtured by mother's milk, however, is dependent on another for its basic survival. A child who grows up in a cold and detached home environment is similar to the butterfly, in that kindness is sparing. Once an adult, it will be very difficult for that person to show compassion." - Dalai Lama
168. "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." - Muhammad Ali
169. "God gets you to the plate, but once you're there you're on your own." - Ted Williams
170. "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi
171. "Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy." - Wayne Gretzky
172. "I always tell kids you have two eyes and one mouth. Keep two open and one closed. You'll never learn if you're the one talking." - Gordie Howe
173. "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying." - Michael Jordan
174. "Forget about style; worry about results." - Bobby Orr
175. "If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain't enough!" - Shel Silverstein
176. "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr.Seuss
177. "Character is what you do when no one's watching." - Paul Rabil (LAX player)
178. Go to https://thisibelieve.org/essay/62068/. Read "My Father Deserves Spectacular Results," then summarize and comment on it.
179. ""No act of kindness, no matter how small, ever is wasted." -Aesop "It never hurts to be kind."
180. Slam Poetry ... Watch this video, explain it and comment on how it affected you. Warning ... it is real. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aqu4ezLQEUA
181. Go to http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510208/car-talk and listen to a podcast about cars. Try to guess the answer, then explain the problem, and their actual answer to the guest.
182. Watch this video and explain what the boy was feeling throughout. Why do you think this video was created? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjqiU5FgsYc
183. Go to https://thisibelieve.org/essay/106666/. Read "The Power of Perspective," then summarize and comment on it.
184. Go to https://thisibelieve.org/essay/106935/. Read "Your Dream Must be Bigger than Your Fear," then summarize and comment on it.
185. Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_o6axAseak. Listen to the "Wake Me Up" by Aloe Blacc video, summarize the message and explain how you feel about it.
186. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." - Plato
187. "You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky
188. "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." - Mark Twain
189. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." - Marilyn Monroe
190. "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it." - Alfred Hitchcock
191. "Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us and sometimes they win." -Stephen King
192. "The most important things are the hardest to say because words diminish them." - Stephen King
193. "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein
194. "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." ~Mark Twain
195. "What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." ~ Oscar Wilde
196. Go to https://thisibelieve.org/essay/31429/ and read the essay "Survivors." Summarize it and then include your own comments about the content.
197. "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it." ~ Mark Twain
198. "Politicians can be cheered for the promises they make. Our country will be judged by the promises we keep. That is the measure of our character. That is who we are. Out of many, one." ~Congressman Joe Kennedy (MA)
199. Listen to this essay by Tony Hawk, pro skateboarder and self-made millionaire, then summarize and respond to it in a journal entry. https://thisibelieve.org/essay/22870/
200. Listen to this insightful essay about love, "Love on Four Feet," then summarize and add your own comments. https://thisibelieve.org/essay/28061/
201. "There is nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so don’t expect yourself to do so either.” - Unknown
202. “In the end, we’ll all become stories” - Margaret Atwood
203. “We worry about tomorrow like it’s promised.” - Unknown
204. “Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” - Rachel Carson
205. “It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory” - Paul Coelho - novelist
206. "Granted, our task is to inform. But information must be transformed into knowledge, knowledge into sensitivity, and sensitivity into commitment." ~ Elie Wiesel
207. Read the following "This I Believe" essay - "God is God, Because He Remembers" by Elie Wiesel, https://thisibelieve.org/essay/41283/ summarize and then add your own comments.
208. Read the following "This I Believe" essay - "Live Your Life So That You Will Have No Regrets" by a former Massachusetts teacher from Avon, " https://thisibelieve.org/essay/4155/ summarize and then add your own comments.
209. "When creating art I really disengage from the world around me, and it allows me to think unencumbered.” ~ Sarah Lancaster
210. "I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” ~Michael Jordan
211. "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" ~ Abraham Lincoln
212. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." ~Isaac Newton
213. “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde - American writer and feminist
214. Listen to the You Tube Ted Talk video "The Danger of Silence" by Clint Smith. Respond to his talk. You may want to listen more than once. He begins with an excellent Martin Luther King quote and includes words on his blackboard that may resonate with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKtZgImdlY
215. "If you were born with the weakness to fall/you were born with the strength to rise." - From Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
216. "Life is like a camera. Focus on what´s important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negatives. And if things don´t work out take another shot." ~Ziad K. Abdelnour -President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners Inc.
217. "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs
218. "The biggest crime happening in America is the fact they’ve pulled all these shop classes out of schools. Kids today, their dream isn’t to build something, it’s to buy something.” ~Chip Foose (American auto designer and customizer)
219. "Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
220. Watch this video and explain how the basic message connects to your own life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjnEciwYRX0
221. "Sadness alone can't harm anyone. It's what you do when you're sad that can hurt you and those around you." ~ Rainbirds by Clarissa Goenawan
222. "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." ~e.e. cummings
223. Respond to the following lyrics:
Closer to Free
by the Bodeans
Everybody wants to live,
Like they wanna live and everybody wants to love
Like they wanna love
And everybody wants to be
Closer to free
Everybody wants respect, just a little bit
And everybody needs a chance, once in a while
Everybody wants to be
Closer to Free
Everybody one
Everybody two
everybody free
Everybody needs to touch
You know, now and then
And everybody needs a good, good friend
Everybody wants to be
Closer to Free
I said everybody one
Everybody two
Everybody Free
Everybody wants to live
Like they wanna live and everybody wants to love
Like they wanna love and everybody wants to be closer to free
Yeah, closer to free
Closer to free.
224. "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." ~Mark Twain
225. "Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." ~Mother Teresa
226. "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." ~Will Rogers
227. "We must become the change we want to see." ~Gandhi
228. "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." ~Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)
229. "Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head." ~Garrison Keillor
230. "When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends." ~Japanese proverb
231. "My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging." ~Hank Aaron
232. "You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give." ~Winston Churchill
233. "I fear more harm from everybody thinking alike than from some people thinking otherwise." ~Charles G. Bolte- former vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
234. "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." ~Isaac Asimov
235. "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." ~Winston Churchill
236. "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." ~Mark Twain
237. "I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind." ~George Bernard Shaw
238. "You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy." ~Eric Hoffer
239. "Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life." Bertolt Brecht (German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet)
240. "The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price." ~Vince Lombardi
241. "Your Life is Now." ~John Mellencamp (American musician)
242. "If A is success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." ~Albert Einstein
243. "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit 'nature' and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." ~E. B. White
244. "He who limps is still walking." ~Stanislaw J. Lec (Polish aphorist and poet)
245. "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one." ~Ellen Hubbard
246. "Never mistake motion for action." ~Ernest Hemingway
247. "There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." ~Buckminster Fuller (20th century inventor, architect & global systems visionary)
248. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing." ~ Abraham Lincoln
249. "The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold." ~Kahlil Gibran
250. "Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." ~Albert Einstein
251. "When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it." ~Margaret Chase Smith
252. "Criticizing a child all the time will only open up a portal for them to manifest darkness in their souls." ~Amanda Kadisevskis (2019 AHS graduate)
253. "If you are not yourself, you are not anybody." ~Sarah Rose (2019 AHS graduate)
254. “You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to make the deepest cut.” ~Nick Raffa (2018 AHS senior)
255. "With great power comes great responsibility." ~From the movie Spiderman with earlier look-a-likes from the 1700s.
256. "Monsters are not born they are created." ~Original author unknown
257. "Let your smile change the world, but don't let the world change your smile." ~Businessman Connor Franta
258. "Don't you know everyone has the same 24 hours?" ~Unknown origins
259. "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." ~Poet e. e. cummings
260. "Don't lose your present to your past." ~Michelle Tucker
261. "I don't know what else I would be if I wasn't me. I am not looking from the outside, looking back. I am who I am." ~Cher
262. "Music is the space between the notes." ~Claude Debussy
263. "Patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting." ~Joyce Meyer (A Christian author and speaker and president of Joyce Meyer Ministries)
264. Check out "The Dark History Behind Your Tires | WheelHouse" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-piTbo0hdc&t=382s.
265. Check out https://thisibelieve.org/essay/57159/, "Thirty Things I Believe" by Tarak McLain. Note the writer's age.
266. "Love is like pickled pig feet: it tastes kind of strange, smells kind of funny, but when it tickles your tongue, the memory lasts forever." ~Louise V. Gray
Check out: https://thisibelieve.org/essay/34996/
267. “Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.” ~Walt Disney
268. “Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come.”
~Bob Ross (American painter, art instructor, and television host 1942-1995)
269. "Words are powerful but your ability to overcome those words is a super power." ~Georgeann Estrada (2019 AHS graduate)
270. "Success is an attitude. Success requires maximum effort. You need to take the risks to learn from it. Let the fear of failure help you thrive and succeed. Allow yourself the freedom to fail, so don’t overthink and worry so much." ~Julia Hedtler (2020 AHS graduate)
271. "See most of us are afraid of the thief, they comes in the night to steal all of our things. But there is a thief in your mind who is after your dreams. His name is doubt.” ~ Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody lives By Prince Ea (American poet)
272. "We have to dance it out, that's how we end." ~From Grey's Anatomy
273. " When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful." ~
274. "Where words fail, music speaks.” ~Hans Christian Andersen
275. "I came up different; I took a different route. I want to lead my own path.” ~DeMar DeRozan - San Antonio Spurs shooting guard
276. Go to https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting and choose a news article. Read it and write about your thoughts. Is this topic something that you want to do something about? What could you do?
277. “We will illuminate dark places and, with a deep sense of responsibility, interpret these troubled times.” ~Joseph Pulitzer III (1913-1993)
278. "I have always believed that no one should be left to fight alone." ~U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (CA)
279. "Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other." ~Joe Biden (47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017)
280. "The racial divide lives within me. " ~Mayor "Pete" Buttigieg -Presidential candidate for 2020 (South Bend, Indiana).
281."Americans are fighters. We're tough, resourceful and creative, and if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one - no one can stop us." ~ U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA)
282. Choose an age appropriate Podcast that is at least thirty minutes long. Listen to it/watch it, summarize it, then reflect about it in a full page entry. REMEMBER, this is worth two Journal entries, so do your best work. Be sure to single space and include the link.
283. "I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions." ― George Carlin
284. Watch the following Ted Talk on YouTube and summarize it, then add your own comments and connections to the entry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB5IX-np5fE
285. Read the following This I Believe essay. https://thisibelieve.org/essay/57159/.
Write down your own thirty things you believe in. Give your opinion on a seven year old boy's list.
286. "Not flesh from my flesh, nor bone from my bone, but still miraculously my own. Never forget even for a single minute, you didn’t grow under my heart, but in it. ~By – Fleur Conkling Heyliger
287. “Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come.” ~Bob Ross (American painter, art instructor, and television host 1942-1995)
288. "The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it's gone. I mean, you may think to yourself that you're happy. But you don't really believe it. You focus on the petty bullshit, or the next job, or whatever. It's only looking back by comparison with what comes after that you really understand, that's what happiness felt like." ~FALLOUT 4 _ Kellogg.
289. “ I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” ~Philippians 4:13- Jesus
290. "Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven." ~ Paradise Lost by John Milton
291. "Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth..." ~ Kahlil Gibran
292. "If there was no God, It would be necessary to invent him." ~ Voltaire
293. "You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you." ~ Unknown
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