The Reading Lunch

I thought the reading lunch was so much fun this year.  I think everyone enjoyed it, and I'm so glad that Dr. D planned it for all of us.  I really like talking about books that I love with other people who feel the same way as I do, and that is exactly what you do at the reading lunch.  I participated both times at the reading lunch this year.  The first time, I lead a discussion for the book Someone Like You.  This discussion was okay, but most people at my table hadn't read the book before which made it kind of hard to discuss our questions.  The second time, I participated in a discussion for The Hunger Games.  This discussion was great because all of the people had read the book and seen the movie, so we compared and contrasted which was cool.  I really enjoyed talking about it to them because most of my friends have only seen the movie and think its amazing, but the movie is missing so much!  I think that you need to have read the book to participate in the discussion because it's a lot more fun that way, and then everyone at the table can participate in the discussion.  I hope that next year we will be able to continue the reading lunch, but have it more than twice a year!

Exam Study Plan

To study for this exam, I am going to make a study guide.  I’m going to start studying Wednesday the 16 because that is the last day we can learn anything new at school.  Each day I will study a different topic and day after day my study guide will form until the day before, when I will review everything that I did the days before.  I think that this is a very good technique, and that many of you reading this should take this method into consideration.  As for time, I don’t have a set time.  I will work until each task is completed for the day. 

Wednesday – Literary Analysis:

I’m going to go over our notes on this, and since Dr. D said, “write a literary analysis essay that synthesizes your thinking about the reading we have done this semester and year.  So you may want to begin thinking about connections you can make between the units we have studied and conclusions you can draw.” I’m going to start thinking and write ideas of what to write. From my notes, I will take important information and put what it important in my study guide.  I will also include my ideas and connections for my literary analysis in my study guide.

Thursday – Research:

I will look over the qualities and notes of research papers in my Norton book.  I will take the information that I found in there to put in my study guide.  (If we get our tests back, I will look over that too.)

Friday – Nervous Conditions:

I will go over my reading guides, theme, character, and other important things like that.  Again, If we get our tests back, I will go over my test.  I will also review irony, symbolism, etc in the book. 

Saturday – Poetry:

I will type up a list of terms for my study guide that we learned, go over my poem book, and test. 

Sunday – Macbeth:

For Macbeth, First I will go over all my drama notes, and make sure I know those.  I will also go over activities and homework that we did, and review each scene and what happened. 

Monday – Since it’s the day before all of our exams, I will just review everything, and it won’t be very stressful because I will for the most part know everything since I have taken a day to study each thing, and now all I have to do is put everything together and review.

Participation of 4th Quarter

I thought that this quarter was probably my best participation I’ve done all year.  I always come to class prepared with everything I need, except one, which was when I forgot my free reading book.  I think that’s not too bad because I just went and got one off of Dr. deGravelles’s shelf to read.  Besides that, I’m always prepared.  I always wait to be dismissed, and I don’t pack up my things before hand.  I also have never left class to go to the bathroom, water, or locker the whole year, so I’m glad I kept that up this quarter.  I check my email and website more than once a day, so I always know what is going on in class.  I also use appropriate email communication including, writing in the subject box.  I turn in all my assignments in at the beginning of the class, and always have it ready whenever Dr. D picks it up.  I have a positive attitude in class, and try to volunteer often.

During class, I listen and take notes when I’m supposed to.  I also comment on almost everything because I have lots to say, and sometimes I feel like it’s only me and one other person who answer questions (this is usually when we are talking about what happened in Macbeth).  For the most part I ask relevant questions at the appropriate times, but sometimes, for example, today I asked Dr. D what are blog posts were when she was about to play the Macbeth movie.  I’m pretty sure that is the only time I’ve asked an irrelevant question though.  I listen to peers questions and comments, and sometimes answer them.  Engaging in side conversation is the hardest one for me.  Whenever I do engage in side conversation, it’s usually me asking a question about what something means or something relevant to what we are doing in class.  Not a question about instructions because I will understand what I’m doing because I listen, but something that’s relevant.  Any other time is usually when Cody or someone else acts funny while acting out Macbeth and I will turn and look at someone and laugh to see if they think its funny too.

In my individual and group work I feel like I’m very focused.  Whenever I get to choose whether to work in a group or solo, I usually choose to go solo because I don’t like whenever I end up having to do all the work, but people still get credit.  If I get to choose my group then it works out better because I will choose people that will actually contribute to whatever we are working on.  I don’t distract others or engage in conversations that aren’t relevant to class because I want to get the work done and not procrastinate.  I will also help the group stay on task.  I follow instructions and always aim for the best we/I can do.

I think that my participation has been the same all year, and not much has changed.  The only thing that I may have gotten better at was answering questions in class.  Overall, I think my participation this quarter was excellent and the best I have done so far. 

Outside Reading Reflection

This year, I have learned to love reading.  In the past I didn't enjoy reading that much, and the only books that I had really enjoyed were The Hunger Games and The Twilight Series.  I have grown as a reader this year, by learning to like more different types of genres.  My favorite are still Chick-Flick, but I did enjoy reading Nervous Conditions which I thought I wasn't going to like at all.  At the beginning of the year I dreaded reading for 150 minutes, but now I enjoy it; especially when I am reading an amazing book.

It had surprised me that I love reading now because I thought I never would.  I guess reading just grew on me like everything else does, and I'm glad it did since I'll be doing a lot of reading throughout the rest of my life.  Finding litterary elements isnt hard for me anymore, and it actually comes naturally now.  I notice things like static and dynamic characters, Irony, foreshadowing, symbolism, and imagery without even thinking about it since I have done it so much in class.  I don't really think about the theme often whenver I finish an outside reading book, usually, I just think of the moral of the story.  I should probably start thinking of the theme since that would be good practice for me because we do that all of the time in English class.  Next in my reading, I would like to open my horizons to more genres such as Historical Fiction because I really enjoy reading books about World War II, and it would be good for me since they would be educational.  I would also like to try some mystery books.

Reading Times: Sometime around 5 hours I think, I didn't keep exact time but I read for about an hour a night because I was so into my book "The Lucky One" by Nicholas Sparks.  I finished it this week too.

Macbeth's Thoughts

So much has been happening so fast.  I mean first of all, three witches tell me I'm going to be king.  That sure doesn't happen everyday.  I just have so many thoughts going through my head.  I thought I wasn't going to kill Duncan, well believe me I DIDN'T want too, or maybe I did?  Lady Macbeth persuaded me to, and I tried to tell her I didn't want to, but…but…but she got angry and called me a coward and I, Macbeth, will NOT be called a coward.  I don't know what is going on with Lady Macbeth, and she has been acting strange lately.

It's been hard for me keeping the secret of me killing Duncan.  I feel so guilty, and try not to give it away that I did it, but its getting hard.  I guess it will be worth it now, since I'm king.  What I'm worrying about though, is how the town is taking Duncan's death and people figuring out that I killed Duncan.  It actually is working out pretty well right now though since Duncan's two sons ran off, so that made me king and made them look suspicious.  What I'm not happy about is how Banquo's sons get heir to the throne.  That just doesn't sit well with me.  My son's deserve to be king.  Well, I mean I hope I have sons…because I just wouldn't be able to handle another little Lady Macbeth.  

Writing Reflection

            This year, I have grown as a writer more than I ever thought I could.  We have written many different types of papers, which I think has helped me, and will help me in the future.  Even though I have grown a lot as a writer, I still make mistakes.   My mistakes that I make seem to relate to each other for the most part but are slightly different each time. 

            When I got my Wrap score back I wasn’t too surprised because I have never done outstanding on it.  I got all 3.5’s and 4.0’s, which is what I have gotten every year since I started taking the Wrap.  The only thing that was different this year is that I got more 3.5’s than I usually do, and it was on overall development, support, and sentence fluency.  I think this is because I didn’t have much to say about the topic, and that gave me trouble with developing and supporting my ideas because I usually do well on those areas of writing.  As I go back and read my Wrap, I can see a drastic change in my writing for the better.

            On my literacy Narrative, Dr. deGravelles commented, “I would encourage you to strive for more vivid detail throughout and work on some conventions issues.”  Throughout this paper, I did misuse commas and semicolons.  I think I misused them because in 8^th grade we didn’t do a lot of writing mechanics.  Once Dr. deGravelles had graded our papers, she went over some convention issues we had trouble with which helped me a lot because it included commas and semicolons.  Besides convention errors my paper lacked vivid detail.

            My Profile was one of my best papers I have written this year with almost a perfect score.  Since my last paper, I had no misuses of commas or colons, and my paper had lots of vivid detail.  I was proud to not repeat any mistakes, and overall there were only two main things to be improved.  Dr. deGravelles wrote, “I think your assessment was, for the most part, right on, but I would still like to see more active verbs in your second paragraph.  When you are writing dialogue, watch for repetition of words like “say.”  You use “answer” and “exclaim,” which are more specific.”  These two corrections are similar, and since I only had two issues on this paper, it helped me to be able to really focus on those issues in the next paper I wrote.

            In my Literary Analysis, it seems like I struggled which made me loose motivation as a writer.  Most of my mistakes were careless such as comma and colon issues which I had already been corrected in my Literacy Narrative.  Another careless mistake is I forgot to put my citations in my turnitin version, but included that in my paper version.  This really affected the grade of my paper, since it made me get a D in MLA/citations.  If I would have included my citations I would have gotten an A on this paper rather than a B.  My support and Organization are the only things that I got B’s in which, for the most part, have no problem with since I usually have a lot to say.  This is the same issue I had in my Wrap because in both of these essays I struggled with words to say and ideas to write about.  I still managed which is what gave me a B, so it wasn’t too big of a deal.  Dr. deGravelles said, “Work on using strong transitions that connect each point to your thesis rather than to the plot.  Also, make sure you are fully introducing and analyzing your quotations, and citing them correctly (period always at the very end).”  The transitions I used were strong, but connected to the plot instead of the thesis.  In the next paper, I had issues with analyzing my quotes like I did in this paper.

            My Global Issues Paper was extremely hard for me.  I had trouble with citing correctly, analyzing my quotes, organizing my information.  The bad part was is that you could tell.  Dr. deGravelles wrote, “Makes sure you follow each quote with adequate analysis – most of the words in any paragraph should be yours.  This paper seems a bit less polished than your other work.”  I had the analyzing quote problem in my Literary Analysis.  I also had some semicolon and comma issues like in most papers I have written.  What surprised me was that I had MLA formatting issues, which I have never had before.  My margins weren’t right, and my header wasn’t in times new roman.  This made me mad because that mistake could have easily been avoided.  Most of my mistakes were careless convention and quoting mistakes that I could have fixed if I just spent a little more time on checking and editing with my Norton book. 

            I have learned a lot about myself as a writer this year.  I learned that the more motivation I have, the better the paper I write turns out because it definitely showed.  Even though I can correct most of my mistakes, many of them are repetitive.  Overall on my aspects of writing, I need to work on conventions and sentence structure.  Of course I will still need to keep working and doing well on the other aspects of writing, but the ones I usually get the lowest scores is on conventions and sentence structure.  Next year, I hope to have fewer errors on commas and semicolons, keep up my good use of vivid detail, use better transitions, and analyze all my quotes.

Common Errors List:

1.     Misuse of a Semicolon

- So of course when Mrs. Young announced to us that we would be doing a poem project, and we will have to present in front of my whole class; my stomach dropped.

2.     Analyze Quotations

-       “The war in Germany isn’t right.”

After the quote you need to explain it.  In this instance, you would need to say why he or she thinks that the war in Germany isn’t right and maybe add your opinion.

3.     Repetitive with transitions in dialogue

-       He said, “Okay. Lets go.”  Then she said, “No. I already have plans.”  After he said, “Whatever.”

Instead of saying said, you can say exclaimed, whispered, remarked, answered, replied, etc.

4.     Comma Splice

-      I just met you, this is crazy.

To make this correct you could say:

a)    I just met you. This is crazy.

b)   I just met you; This is crazy.

c)    I just met you, and this is crazy.

5.     Missing Comma

-       As I sat up in bed I realized that I had fallen asleep.

6.     Misspell of a lot

-       alot 

Reading Log: 150 minutes. 69 pages. 13 Reasons Why