Fellow Classmates

Hey fellow classmates!  If i had to give you a guide as to how to survive English 1; the number one rule would be to always do your work!  The thing that gets you the most points is just doing your homework.  If you listen in class you will find that Dr. D tells you everything you need to know and that she really enjoys what she teaches.  When a teacher enjoys what they teach it is easier to learn from them.  When you come to class you need to be prepared because how do you expect to learn when you don't have your materials.  Another thing is, always be on task because during class you are given a lot of time to do class work and its best to take advantage of that time.

While writing papers in English you really need to pace yourself.  NEVER wait until the last minute to write a paper.  Usually papers are assigned with a week to 2 weeks in advance and that gives you plenty of time to ask questions and write nightly drafts to make your paper good!  It is also a good idea to go see Dr. D during tutorial just to talk about things that you are concerned with and she can really help you.  She is a good teacher and listen to your problem and help you with it!

Participation

My Participation over the course of the year i would say has gotten better.  This quarter i have gotten better about interrupting; even though i still do have a problem with interrupting i have been working on it.  Also, i always come to class prepared.  I never forget my stuff and i always have things to do in class.

The thing that i would say i do the most is i go to the bathroom a lot in class.  For some reason almost every day when i get to english class i have to use the bathroom, and i apologize for that. But if i had to give myself a grade on participation it would probably be a C.

Reading over the year

Over the course of the year i think that i have improved a lot as a reader!  My reading has gotten better and i have learned more of what kinds of books i like to read.  I really like chick flick and mystery books.  I still have trouble with my reading comprehension but it has improved a lot, especially because we have had to read every week!  


In reading in the future i am going to try and read harder books that i normally wouldn't pick up on the shelf.  I tend to judge books by the cover a lot and i am going to try and not do that anymore and be more open to what i read.  I have come to enjoy reading more this year and i am glad that i have. 


Macbeth- 15 minutes
iBoy- 2 hours
Bio textbook - 20 minutes 

Lady Macbeth

In the perspective of Lady Macbeth i think that she is kind of crazy.  At first when she hears the news that Macbeth is going to be king she is happy but i think that her happiness brings out a weird side in her.  Lady Macbeth doesn't have much feeling towards other people and when she puts her mind to something she is gonna do it.

If i had to put myself in Lady Macbeths shoes i don't think i could do it.  Lady Macbeth has so conscience and when Macbeth killed the king; Lady Macbeth is the one who finished the work and i honestly can say that i could never do that.

My overall paper!

           While reviewing my WrAP I have noticed I didn’t do as good I would of liked to at all.  The topic was should downloading music illegally be allowed or not, explain your answer?  So while answering that I said it was bad and good at the same time but you shouldn’t do it because it takes away from the artist and that’s there work and they deserve the credit.  My scores on the WrAP were not that high, they averaged around 4’s.  I plan on improving my WrAP score a lot next year and I will make it a lot stronger.

My first writing of the year was my Literacy Narrative Essay.  I was very proud of this writing especially because it was the first time I had ever written a literacy narrative.  I was also proud that I got a 94 on it, which is an A! My strong suit in this paper was with my ideas and organization, with voice and conventions following right behind that.  Sentence Fluency and Word Choice are what I got 8.5’s on and when I go back through the story I can see that I used to many exclamation points and sometimes my tone of voice wasn’t the best.  Overall I was really pleased with this paper and the overall comment you left me made me really happy!

The next paper that I had to write was the Profile Draft.  When I was given the choice to write about a person or place I automatically chose to write about My Lake House.  I was excited to write about this paper because I really love that place and I have infinite things to say about it!  When I turned in this paper on turnitin.com I realized that I accidently turned in my first draft and I was so upset that my final work wasn’t what was getting graded, but still with that being  my first draft I got a B.  To me a B is a good but I think if I would have worked a little harder and made it better I could have got an A.  The thing that I liked best about this paper was that I added some pictures in it so making the representation of what I was trying to say that much more real.  In all of the categories of writing I received an A except in Convections.  When I saw that I got a C in convections I went and looked back in the paper and realized that I needed to use way more commas and I should have added some semicolons to separate my run on sentences. 

One of the options that we were given was to write an optional Profile Revision.  Looking back on all of my work I see now that I really wish I would of wrote a revision of my profile.  It was really nice of you to write to offer for us to get the extra points to rewrite our papers and I wish I would of taken that opportunity.

The next paper that we were assigned to write was the Literary Analysis paper.  I had a very hard time writing this paper, but the process made it a lot easier.  At first I wanted to write my paper on a story by Edgar Allen Poe, but after further reviewing the story I realized that it wouldn’t have been the best choice.  So instead of writing the paper on that I went with another story called Stilettos.  With this story I analyzed the characters and tried to retell the story is a different way.  In every single category I received a C and I am not sure why I got that.  My overall grade on this story was a 79 and I wish I would of tried a lot harder on this paper.

The last paper that I had to write was the Global Issues paper.  This was probably the most fun paper to write because you got to write about anything you wanted.  I chose to write about the Strait of Hormuz because that is what interested me the most at the time and it was a good topic to research and learn a lot about.  The grade I got on this wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but after reading the comment I realize that my ideas were not in order and that I needed to take some of the information out. 

            An overall analysis of all of my papers showed that my average word was a B.  The topic that I always did the best in was Ideas and Voice.  In all of my papers I received comments saying how strong and great my ideas were.  My topic that I usually score the lowest in was Convections, which actually makes since for my writing.  Usually I get confused where I need to put my commas in a sentence. Over the year what I have improved in most was my Word Choice.  I started using better descriptive words to make the paper sound better.

Over the course of the year, my writing has progressively gotten worse.  That was shocking to me when I realized that because I thought that I had become a better writer over the year.  Next year my goal for writing is going to be that I will make sure to write at least 3 drafts per paper and I want at least 2 people to peer edit it.  My writing usually sounds good to me but when other people read it they have positive feedback and help me change it in a good way.  Next year I plan on working a lot harder on my papers because I really want to improve in my writing. 

comman eras list

1. At first when I handed it to her she was a little confused, but when she realized what it was she couldn’t stop saying “Thank You!”

~from the Literacy Narrative Essay

Explanation: Though it may not always be grammatically necessary, a comma can often help to prevent a misreading.  When a sentence opens with an introductory element, it is a great help to your reader to place a comma after that introductory element. 

2. I was confused and I didn’t know why she told me that (because): I thought it was the best book ever written.

~from the Literacy Narrative Essay

Explanation: In the sentence a colon would work better than the word because so the sentence flows better.

3. The boathouse looks like a huge open aired tiki house with two boats and two jet ski’s resting in the water.

~from the Profile Paper

Explanation: One common trip-up on apostrophe usage for a plural group occurs when people want to discuss what a family owns. For instance, say the Smart family lives across the street from you and owns a boat. The boat is "the Smarts' boat," not "the Smart's boat." Because you are talking about all of the members of the Smart family, you would start with "Smarts." Because all the Smarts (presumably) own the boat, you add the apostrophe after the "s."

4. The sign ‘Now Hiring’ on the door interested one particular girl; her name was Nicki.

~from the Literary Analysis Paper

Explanation: This sentence contains two or more independent clauses.  Separate the clauses with a period or semicolon. 

5. With all of the threats about closing the Strait of Hormuz Iran has “yet made no attempts to disrupt shipping through the waterway, the route for one-fifth of the worlds crude oil, and U.S. and allies have warned they would respond swiftly to any attempts at a blockade” said news media in the current worlds article.

~From the Global Issues Paper

Explanation: This is not cited correctly

6. By that we can infer that maybe her shop will be robbed again or maybe something worse will happen next time and there won’t be a person there to save her.

~from the Literary Analysis Paper

Explanation: Though it may not always be grammatically necessary, a comma can often help to prevent a misreading.  When a sentence opens with an introductory element, it is a great help to your reader to place a comma after that introductory element. 

Outside Reading!

IBoy- 1 hour and 45 min
Biology Textbook Chapter 16 - 30 min
Poetry - 20 min