October 11th, 2019

           Mr Rivers began class by letting everyone know  that when you watch a movie, you should create your own opinion of it and not let others sway yours. He encourages the class to continue watching a lot of movies because the more we watch, the better we watch. He also told us he is excited to read our Be Reel blogs, so hopefully you did yours or he’ll definitely be sad.

          He then gave us a refresher on the difference between topic and theme. Topic is one point one idea statement while a theme is an argument under that topic. When constructing a theme you should go through this process: Topic> theme> specific theme (details)> Clear Theme (reducing theme) here is an example Mr Rivers did:
- First draft: Power does not determine outcome
- Specific draft: Police power does not determine outcome, especially when dealing with criminals because police rules don't apply to the truly evil people.
-Clear draft: Authority does not determine outcome when dealing with criminals; laws don't apply to evil people

               He then introduced step four in the theme writing: revise for style. You can use syntax to rearrange the order of words in your sentence to add variety to what you’re writing. He said it is not that you’re saying something different than someone else, it is that you’re saying it differently. Another part of this is using literary techniques like parallel structure and antithesis. Finally, he said use active verbs NOT passive verbs, (am, is, are, was, were, had, been) he absolutely does not like that. Here is an example:
-Mr Rivers punches JJ. Someone asks what happens he says: “JJ was punched” which is passive and not “I punched JJ.”
It doesn’t matter what the length of any sentence is, what matters is the purpose behind it is. That should decide the length.

             We ended class by reading a fellow class member’s Be Reel blog post and then writing a comment about if we agreed or disagreed with it.