Reading Reflection

  Over the course of the year I have been expanding my reading limits and I believe I have become a better reader. Although I am excited about moving on to be a sophmore it makes me sad to believe my freshman days are coming to an end. My reading greatly developed from reading Harry Potter to the Godfather which was a true challenge.

     I believe I have been able to discover more in books better after learning about theme and other devices in literature which I carried over into outside reading. For example I really didn't know how to identify theme in a piece of literature and now after learning about it in class I can easily find theme in any work. I am not sure what I will read next, right now I have been reading Newspapers and Magazines.

    25 mins ESPN the magazine/ 30 minutes the Advocate Sports section May 6/ 30 mins Sports Illustrated April/ 35 mins The advocate May 7

Through the eyes of Macbeth post

  Wow, what a time I have had so far, from killing the undeserving Duncan to becoming the King of Scotland. My wife has proved to become a true monster and I wonder what will happen between us; she forced me to kill Duncan. I could not believe I actually killed him and know that I have become King I realized that the witches prophesy has come true.

   Ever since then my mind has been all over the place; I cannot ever reveal to anyone why I am acting weird. Since I have become King it ha become even harder to live with my dangerous, crazy spouse. She convinced me to kill Duncan just so that she could be Queen; I am starting to wonder if she even loves me for me or just for the monarchy. Its been quite difficult and according to the prophesy more pain will come.
       


          -Macbeth-

Writing Wrap up

Writing Wrap Up

            Over the course of the year my knowledge in writing has increased thanks to my classmates and Dr. D. In each writing assignment my classmates helped revise my papers and gave me suggestions that eventually helped raise my grades. Dr. D has helped me to appreciate writing a lot more and she showed me how to use different techniques in multiple writing styles.

In all my writing pieces I have found some errors that occur in many of my papers: missing commas, comma splices, and spelling errors. However, I do show lots of good characteristics in my papers: great titles, good organization, and ideas. The most challenging paper to me this year was writing the global issues research paper. Although researching material for that paper was easy; I discovered that I wasn’t very good at merging that material into the final product---this actually happened in all my papers that required in text citations. In the research paper I found that about 70 percent of the comments were on quote integration, comma splices, and the “spider man” flaw---the quotes jump around not making much sense. These simple mistakes ultimately led to my grades reflecting my mistakes.

This year my classmates have done a great job in peer editing during our editing  groups; when I take advantage of their feedback it dramatically changes my resulting grade. Although my scores have gone down since the beginning of the year, I feel like my writing has ascended over the course of the year especially in grammar. It took an abundance of point deductions at first to get me to stop using comma splices but now I feel like I’m a professional. My knowledge using feedback on subject verb agreement is still cloudy, and I still do not have a clear sense of what mistakes I have made in my writing. Although, some feedback has saved me from disaster, almost all of my quotes were done incorrectly.

            This year in English has been interesting and with every new prompt comes challenges. Even though I have been improving over the year in my writing I feel like I could have done much better. Also on my Wrap Test I did not do as well as I had hoped, in fact, I did worst than last year getting all 4’s except two 3.5’s. Compared to eighth grade, the grades dropped .5 and 1 in all categories, although it is above average I did not achieve my goal.  In spite of all the difficulties, I still have stayed consistent for the most part especially in organization and ideas. Even though they went down overall I have improved my writing this year in many ways.

                        

Reading

I read ESPN the magazine and Sports Illustrated on the Kentucky basketball team for 2 hours. I also started reading black hawk down for 45 minutes.

Holes

  This week I spent my 150 minutes on the book Holes by Louis Sachar. When I was smaller I saw the Holes movie and recently I was reminded by it when my little cousin was watching it. The first chapter is one of the most detailed works I have ever seen. The author uses great imagery to make Camp Green Lake come alive. The author first introduces the main character and protagonist Stanley Yelnats in the second chapter.
 

  I would recommend this book for anyone who has seen the movie so that they can really see the true meaning of the story.This book is very hard to put down and I look forward to reading it in the weeks to come. Since the Hunger Games books I read I have been looking for another book similar, so if you have suggestions leave them in the comments.Thanks.

I read all my 150 minutes with Holes

Those Winter Sundays

 For my Poetry post I chose "Those Winter Sundays" not because it was the shortest poem but because it was to me the most detailed. The author Robert Hayden uses a large amount of adjectives to portray the imagery of the poem. The author talks about what life was like in the mornings during winter; he uses many different terms of pain- aches, cracks, blaze, splintering, breaking, and chronic. All of these adjectives paint the picture of the poem.

 The narrator seems very unappreciative of what the father does for him. It is said that the father got up early to polish shoes and take care of the house. Since the title is Those Winter Sundays we can concur that this is his routine each sunday and that he works hard and the narrator still does not accept it. I think what the narrator is trying to get across is that you need to be appreciative of your families efforts for support.

The Hunger games Mockingjay post 2

  This week I finished Mockingjay, the final book of the Hunger Games triology. Mockingjay wasnt my favorite of the 3 books but it still was very good and it wrapped up all the loose ends of the book. I picked up where I left off where Peeta was being tortured to get Katniss to stop the rebellion; needless to say Peeta escapes back to District 13 where Katniss finds him completely changed.
 
  Its hard to imagine one of your best friends who used to love you is now programmed to kill you but after what the Capitol did to Peeta you can see why. I dont want to give away anything at the end but Peeta and Katniss find themselves in the streets of the capitol in front of President Snows mansion where the unthinkable happens. This Trilogy helped accelerate my reading, I read all three books in about 2 or 3 weeks, for one reason; I couldnt set it down.