Quarter Two Reflections

In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts? 

   I believe that my biggest improvement was my participation in the classes’ Socratic Seminars. In previous years I hadn’t drawn many people into the conversation but this time, I continued to engage with others who weren’t talking very often. Socratic Seminars can be very intimidating to some of my classmates and because of this, they often don’t share their thoughts or ideas. It has been a goal of mine to help the frightened students come out of their shell and share with the class. The reason for this is because I really enjoy hearing other people’s feelings or opinions of the text. Oftentimes the conversation is very nondiverse and you hear the same opinions every time. I enjoy giving people the opportunity to share out and speak their minds, which is why this has become my biggest improvement.

    What has been the most challenging part of 2nd Quarter for you and what did/can you do to help overcome this?

   I would say that managing my work has been my biggest struggle of the second quarter. Surprisingly, this has been something I’ve struggled a while now. The main reason being that, I participate in an early morning STEM program at Morton West Highschool. The expectations are set very high and the work can get very challenging, this, on top of our ELA work, can overload my system and make it very hard to get work done. Waking up so early puts a strain on my ability to do work efficiently and to the best of my ability. It often makes it hard to keep up with the rest of the class as they continue to move at an average speed. Another reason for my falling behind is that, I like to actively participate in school clubs and activities. Very recently I joined the cheerleading team which took up a lot of my time after school when I had to cheer at basketball games. I am also a member of Speech and Drama and I have to practice and memorize a skit which takes a lot of commitment. Fortunately, I managed to get all my work done on time but I’m afraid it wasn’t to the best of my ability. I’m hopeful that in quarter three, I will be able to complete my work but I’ll have to do my best to ensure that I can get everything done. 

    What strategies have benefited you? 

    The main strategy I have found beneficial is annotating. Some reasons for this is because, many times while reading a book or an article, I skip over important information. By annotating, I can compose my thoughts and take note of important text evidence that might be useful in the future. This is very beneficial because It helps me better understand challenging text that we are reading in class. When going into high school, the books and articles we will be reading will be much harder and will need more apprehension. Understanding books and articles has proven as a problem for me because sometimes I can’t comprehend what I’m reading. Annotating continues to benefit me when reading and writing and it will remain a strategy in the future.

  The Blogs I commented on were:

Gaby’s Blog

Yolihuani’s Blog

Claire’s Blog