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

If This Was a Movie by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a very good writer when it comes to music because when she was in school, she was good in poetry.  That is why I chose to pick one of her songs.  I chose If This Was a Movie because I remember that there was a similie in it.  There are a few caesuras in this song, and here are a couple examples:
1. "Maybe I've been goin' back too much lately
  when time stood still and I had you"

2.  "I know that we could work it out somehow
But if this was a movie you'd be here by now."

3.  "Locked up in your arms and our friends were laughing

'Cause nothing like this ever happened to them."

There are also similies in this song.  Here are a couple examples:

1.  "Sounded like footsteps on my stairs"

2.  "Come back, come back, come back to me like

You would, you would if this was a movie"

3.  "Come back, come back, come back to me like

You could, you could if you just said sorry"

4.  "And I say come back, come back, come back to me like

You would before you said it's not that easy"

There is repetition in the beginning of the chorus, but part of it changes everytime (its a pattern).  You can pull up the lyrics if you would like, but it just switches from "if this was a movie" and "if you just said your sorry".  There is also repitition in the bridge, "If you're out there, if you're somewhere, if you're moving on".  This repetition makes it sound well whenever you say it. 

There is also assonance:

1.  "Last night I heard my own heart beating"

Consonance:

1.  "Sounded like footsteps on my stairs"

2.  "Thinkin' 'bout everythin' we've been through"

3.  "When time stood still and I had you"

Fake Boyfriend

Hello bloggers.  I finished Fake Boyfriend at the beach since it was spring break this week.  The ending was very shocking, but I don’t want to give it away incase someone reading this wants to read it too!  This book reminded me of the Disney movie Prom because of all the drama getting dates, so I made connections to that movie.  I can compare the main blonde hair girl with Vivi because the blonde haired girl was planning Prom and Vivi was mainly planning everything for Jonathan.  They are both very controlling and try not to fall in love with a guy that they don’t want to, but end up doing it anyway. 

When Jonathan was pretending to be Brandon for Prom, I was thinking about how that would never work out now if it was me.  If I was in Isabelle’s situation I would have been taking lots of pictures to post on Facebook and Instagram.  Jonathan comes from an all boys preppy school like Catholic High.  If I went with a guy from Catholic High then people would recognize him in pictures, and talk about how I went with a guy from Catholic High, but then I would be confused because I thought he was Brandon!  Overall this was a good chick flick that I would recommend to girls who like a shocking ending and a fun girly book.

Fake Boyfriend

Fake Boyfriend is an alright right now.  I was hoping that it would pick up faster, but its still a little slow.  I can't decide if I want to drop it or just finish it out.  The girls are all getting excited yet stressed about Prom because of the guy that is acting as Brandon (the fake boy on myspace) is going with Isabelle.  I feel like this plan is really not going to work out. 


I have a couple reasons why I don't think this plan will work.  Vivi is attracted to preppy boys.  Jonathan (the boy filling in for Brandon) is a prep school boy.  Even though Isabelle is preppy, she goes for the bad boy type.  Also, Shawn is still trying to get Isabelle back, and even though Isabelle wants to act like she doesn't like him, she still does.  I think that Vivi is going to start to like Jonathan, and Isabelle and Shawn will get back together because Vivi will be too distracted with Jonathan to care.

Adrienne Rich: Resolution Amid The 'Turbulence' - 10 min

"Fish" Elizabeth Bishop - 25 minutes

"Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde - 20 minutes

Fake Boyfriend - 98 minutes