Right now, as I'm typing, I'm looking back at all we've done this year. It's gone by pretty fast, it's hard to believe that tomorrow is the last day. I've learned so much this year; especially analyzing poetry/literature. In 8th grade all we really did was read a book and right a plain book report on the plot of the story. This year's been a big jump, learning deeply about symbols, motifs, themes...there is so much more to name. Anyways, I counted up my posts and I have made 25. Doing a blog almost every week helped me because it would boost my grade up, but also gave me alot of knowledge by reading other people's blogs. The first post we made was Writing About Reading. Everyone got to explain their reading habits and what types of books they liked. I thought that it was fun to share ideas and comment on other blogs. Ever since that first post, I got used to blogging and checked it every week. I noticed as the blogs grew, the more developed they were, in material and concept. For instance, the 3rd post was about tone- which started the specific literary devices. It moved on to Symbols and Motifs after, and kept getting more complex. I think that this helped me a lot with understanding difficult concept in literature. My favorite subject was Animal Farm. We analyzed specific literary terms, as well as having fun making a project. The good thing about blogs were that you could communicate with other students, especially when we were working in a group. When we did the Collaborating on Your Group Essay post, it gave us the opportunity to work out the essay before the next day. Great Expectations was probably my least favorite part of English. It was difficult to understand for me, and the analysis was pretty hard. But reading and making a blog helped me understand the subject more clearly. In the end writing the essay was much more easier after discussing in class and posting blogs. An important post was the question one. I think almost everyone got their question answered on the blog, which helped everyone. For example I was confused with Magwitch and Compeyson, but I was informed in class the next day. The skits we did in class were fun, everyone acted out a scene important in the book, which helped everyone understand the story more. What I liked was how Mrs.Gilman let us blog about English itself(English reflection), and how we feel about the class and what to improve on. Overall the blogs helped us communicate with each other as well as with the teacher. Moving on to books...normally someone wouldn't choose to read a book on the Honors English Reading list right? Well, thanks to this class, it has opened my reading area and exposed me to a new world of books. I enjoyed reading Of Mice and Men and Animal Farm, and also The Catcher in the Rye. To add on to that, after seeing many book talks, it makes me want to read more like Catch-22. Last semester I got a final grade of A-, because of the finals. At the moment I have an A and I'm striving to maintain that. But what I get as a grade shouldn't matter that much- it's about how much I learned this year, which is quite a lot!
"Present fears are less than horrible imaginings."
-William Shakespeare
Thanks for teaching us about literature and poetry, I learned so much this year, and I'm well prepared to take on next year's Honors English~
Extra Credit link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVITWDQVrs
And I'm stuck on the Experience-based questions right now
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