Quarter One Reflection

        In my forty book challenge, I just finished my sixteenth book, Witness by Karen Hesse. In the beginning of the school year, we didn't get that much homework, so I read a lot. And as a lot I mean finishing books in like two days, flying through about two-three books a week. I am currently reading A Break With Charity, by Ann Rinaldi, which is about the Salem Witch Trials. I have to say out of all the books I have read is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton because the characters seemed so real and easy to connect with. 

         Strategies that have benefited me in order to be successful this year so far have been copying my vocab on Friday, studying it throughout the weekend since it is the only time I can study with my mom. Then during the week, I do my vocab on Monday, and annotate my article if we receive one that day. On Tuesday I'll study my vocab and read from my book, and then Wednesday I would work on my AoW until youth group. Thursday is when I will study more vocab and finish my AoW. By doing this strategy, I get good grades on my vocab test and I complete my AoW on time. 

         My research skills have improved because, before I would just type the question on Google and look for the answer, not reading the rest of my information. Now I try to not do that so I can get more background knowledge of what I'm learning by reading the entire article and mentally annotating. I do this in case another question asked what is inside the article. Another thing that I do that I didn't do when I was researching before is making my own, quick and easy organizer, or taking little notes about what I am researching on if there is no organizer provided. Before, I would just answer the questions or do an essay by looking back and forth between the book or the primary source of information.

         The world will eat you up if you do not do what you can in order to succeed. I learned this last year in the course of Mrs. Larson's class. In seventh grade, I would ignore my vocab like the plague and then become enemies with it on Thursdays, this goes along with my social studies AoW, and ELA AoW. This is why I would receive mostly low nineties or eighties and then struggle to receive at least a low A. But now that I learned more about time management, I try to exercise it and seperate time for it during the day so I can do all that needs to be done without stressing. 

          In contrast to my seventh grade blogs and my summer blogs, I believe my writing skills grew. In blogs before, I wasn't as creative or descriptive in describing situations, or grabbing the readers attention. For example, in one of my blogs on Heat by Mike Lupica, I was comparing and differentiating the main character from one of the gym teachers. I wrote, "Michael is a funny character, but can easily turn serious just like Mr. Joseph is. Michael has been through a hard time and had the feeling of loss, like Mr. Joseph." Instead of generalizing that he was funny and can easily turn serious, I could have pulled examples from the book that showed he was funny and serious. Now that I learned more about descriptive details, I practice it more throughout my blogs. For example, "On page one and two, he discusses a specific woman that  had perseverance to continue to Sudan. According to Mawi, "she pressed on and on, and soon her limp became a crawl,...,but still, she kept on crawling. For what choice does a refugee have?"" Now, I could have just said that Mawi described a specific woman with a strong, persevering spirit, but instead, I pulled out text from the book.