3rd Quarter Reflection

08.04.16

Prompt--
-*In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts? 
- *What is something you have accomplished this quarter that you are proud of?

- *What has been the most challenging part of 3rd Quarter for you and what did/can you do to help overcome this?

-Of the books you have read this quarter, which was your favorite? Why?

Woah! Third quarter flew by fast! I can't even remember where second quarter started and ended! Just to think that only in a month we will be graduating and will be off to summer vacation. Over the course of third quarter, I have wrote an argumentative essay, learned about the Holocaust, and also have read a memoir by a Holocaust survivor. The new topics and things I am learning are astonishing, such as genocides and politics. 

I have completed so many books this quarter, it's getting too hard to track whether I read them in the third or second quarter of the school year. Throughout the collection of books I've read, I have to believe my favorite book thus far has to be Travel Team by Mike Lupica or The Fault in Our Stars by the famous John Green. Travel Team was a book I had read during Battle of the Books, and it was a very interesting book. It is basically about a boy who doesn't make the travel team because of his height. Lupica, the author, revolved the book around the underdogs of Indiana, which was interesting to focus on instead of the top, best team. The Fault in Our Stars was also a very interesting and mind capturing book because of the way it is written, and the thoughts Hazel and Augustus discuss throughout the book. The book itself was not a higher educated book, just the concepts and diction used throughout the entry was very thought provoking. 

I believe I made my biggest improvements inside my grammer and vocabulary. Although I don't use a grandiose vocabulary, I have noticed my writing is very verbose and uses a more educated vocabulary while completing an assignment. Sometimes however, being too verbose is a bad concept, and I try my hardest to stray away from that confusing habit. My grammar has also improved a little bit from first and/or second quarter, and obviously from when I was younger. And I still make a lot of grammar issues, because I'm clearly not perfect, I just used a conjuction to start a sentence for example. But while learning grammar, I've learned how to fix sentence fragments and how to tell what type of voice I need to narrate a paper. 

During this quarter we have worked hard and long to finish projects such as the butterflies each student constructed or to finish reading the last chapters of Night. But throughout all projects and papers we have completed, I believe I am most proud of my butterfly that I worked on to express my poem "Terezin". I am most proud of this project because it was a lot of work to paint and to print the pictures, based off of similes assembled in the poem. It was am little difficult at first to understand what Hachenburg, my author, was trying to express by using the concept of dreaming as a comparison. After I established what the author was trying to compare his Holocaust experience to, I was able to fabricate the butterfly with every part of the body and decor to act as a façade to the ugliness the Holocaust truly was. This is why I was so proud of my creation, even if it was messy and not that easy on the eyes. 

I believe the most challenging part of the quarter was reading Night by Eli Weasel. I think this was the most demanding part of the quarter, because there was a lot extra work that was added onto reading the book. The work was demanding in understanding of Eli's ideas and views of the Holocaust, as well as religion. His views were riveting to read because he was so young while experiencing labor camps and pain, that you couldn't even imagine what it would be like to undergo such a terrible time in history. The author's thoughts were sometimes very remarkable, but at the same time very unapplicable towards your life, that you had sometimes had no idea what he was talking about. These snippits in the book would make the questions extra hard and sometimes very difficult to answer.

Third quarter was a quarter of hard work and fun times. Including our class parties, and spring break:) I can't wait to see what fourth quarter has in stored for me and what new challenges I will come face to face with. But throughout all challenges faced in and out of Mrs. Larson's class, I can't wait to tackle them head on with my God at my side.