Friday, June 3, 2011

English Class Portfolio Reflection

This was written in about one night, with a little editing the next day. I totally sucked up, because I know my teacher, and I know I'm going to pass with this essay. I hope you find it humerus and educational.
My expectations for this class before the school year started were that I was going to read a few books and write some essays. The course met and challenged my expectations. I remember my first essay “The theme Of Mice and Men” I got a 79. I was so shocked, I consider myself to be a good writer, and I'm passionate about it, until 9th grade I aced every essay with out putting in a lot of effort. The same was true about tests, It drove my mother nuts, but I never had to study and still got an A every time. The very first test of the class I got a 60/104. The most useful thing I learned this year was how to structure a thesis. Allow me to show off what I've learned, I can now successfully write an argument essay, analysis the deeper meaning of text, and lead a class presentation.

I've always liked to write, but writing an argument essay with quotes was, and still is something I find difficulties with. My Romeo and Juliet Essay is something I'm most proud of writing. I spent a lot of time doing research and collecting quotes about why we should not read Shakespeare in school. My thesis for this essay was; “Shakespeare used inappropriate perverted language in his writings, which is hard for a lot of kids to read, and he was an anti- Semite, which is why, we should not be reading Shakespeare in school.” My thesis is structured with three reasons that I turned into body paragraphs.
With a few exceptions every book we read this year had a lot of sexual content. I did not appreciate this, nor find it necessary. Two books with sexual content would have been fine, but we read 6; Of Mice and Men, Shakespeare, Oedipus, To Kill A Mocking Bird, The House on Mango Street, and I know why the Caged bird sings. I know why the Caged Bird Sings was the most challenging book for me to read. It was very graphic during the rape scenes, and boring during the rest of the book. The strategies I used to get through the book was by skimming boring sections of it. To understand the difficult books we read, I read every night, and answered the review packets thoroughly and as we went. This strategy drastically helped improve my test scores. On the House on Mango Street unit test I got a 94/100, much, much better then I did on my first test.
The second to last unit for my English class, and sadly the second to last unit of (my teachers name) long and successful teaching career was about Maya Angelo. One of the assignments was a group project we had to find an author mentioned in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,  (I don’t) and to write an essay and prepare a presentation. What I learned was that group projects are group efforts, and everyone has to contribute, and my group did, we got 100% on the entire project.
Now in the last few days of the class I know I’ve learned a lot. I know I successfully pull an essay together in one night, like this one.  I know that there is more to a book then just what’s on the surface, you have to dig deeper and analysis it. I also brushed up on my presentation skills. For the most part I really enjoyed this class, and I hope my lovely teacher, (my teachers name) has a lovely retirement.

1 comment:

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