It seems the year has finally come to an end, and what a year it has been. I am proud to say that I have accomplished all I was hoping to at the start of this year, and have succeeded in having my expectations fulfilled. Though it was a hard and time-consuming course, I made it through by giving it the best of my effort. In turn, many of my writing and reading skills were enhanced, as well as other various skills associated with the English environment.
As in the beginning of the year, I consider myself a well-accomplished writer. I have always loved to write and have found the process considerably easy. Throughout this course, I continued to have no major problems. I was able to adjust my technique to all forms of writing, my particular favorites being creative writing and poetry. I was also able to incorporate my emotions and feeling into most of the pieces that were required.
For example, in my story Angel Dreams, about the persecution of a high school girl, I incorporated past feelings I have possessed when faced with persecution. This made the story all the more powerful, in the fact that it held realistic emotions and actions. One particular passage reveals this perhaps more than any other: “I ran as fast as I could, the hurt raging within me, a rainstorm pouring down my face. Never again would I believe that I could actually be somebody respected, for it was a useless prospect. Never again would I believe in happy endings for there were no such things. Never again would I picture myself beautiful for it was not possible. They were all right. I was fat, and I was nobody, and I was worthless, and I was a disgrace, and I was a loser…” This look into a girl’s mind gives the reader insight as to what persecuting actions can do to the minds of others. I take pride in that I am able to present the reader with such powerful emotion through my writing, in turn hoping that they perhaps learn something from it. By including and incorporating my own emotions, it makes the writing more significant and powerful. This is why I feel I have been so successful as a writer.
I consider myself a skilled reader as well. This course I was able to read all the books assigned with no major problems arising. Though critically analyzing the books was sometimes not as easy, I was overall successful in my attempts. Viewing movies and excerpts of topics studied during class helped me to interpret what I was reading also. In particular, I found viewing the play of Julius Caesar to be extremely helpful. It enabled me to understand even more what I was reading on paper. In this way, my viewing skills put into use and in turn enhanced.
One of my best skills is listening. My attention is constantly on what is being discussed in class and I rarely ever tune out others. As a speaker, however, my skills are not that strong. Outside of class, I am outgoing and talkative with others, but for some reason or another, when inside of class I turn into a mouse. This in part is because I am intimidated by some of my classmates. Though I know this should not affect my learning process, I can’t help but be shy in certain situations. For this reason, my speaking skills when in discussion situations are severely lacking.
My strengths continue to be reading and writing. These two dimensions of English have always been abundant in my life, for since I was little I have read and written almost everyday. I even want to major in creative writing in the future. For this reason, I have worked on enhancing my skills, in turn making reading and writing my strengths. In particular, I find my most successful writing to be both creative writing and poetry. I enjoy poetry because it is unlimited and allows for thoughts to be presented in a unique fashion. My poem in response to the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn emphasizes this point. I was able to take the thoughts and actions of Francie and incorporate them into a short, passionate “story.” This is why I consider it one of my strengths.
I have had many weaknesses this year as well. One weakness I have is critically analyzing a story. I am normally used to reading straight through a book and simply understanding the overview. In English class, however, we were asked to analyze every detail of the book. For me, having to identify why each character acted the way they did or what certain actions symbolized was not as easy. This is when class discussions helped. Yet, ironically, my class participation and speaking skills within class are a weakness as well. I rarely ever contributed to questions that were asked and was relatively silent the whole year. This is definitely something I need to work on, for I can not be timid around people for the rest of my life. I need to learn how to associate better with people I do not know.
When I started Honors English II this year, I had many high expectations both of myself and the class. I wrote in my introduction, “I expect to enhance my writing skills in all areas, including creative writing, expository writing, and poetry. I also am looking forward to expanding my vocabulary usage in writing and speaking, and exploring new classic literature I have not yet been exposed to.” I can honestly say that all my expectations were fulfilled throughout the course of this year. Since we were assigned a variety of writing styles to attempt, I was able to enhance my skills in creative writing, poetry, and expository writing. My “research paper skills” were extremely improved, as seen in my essay Isolation of the Human Heart. In this paper, I was able to critically analyze The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, as well as associate its plot to the author’s life and the history going on around her. Through this, I learned new skills and writing techniques, like I was earlier hoping to.
I also wanted to expand my vocabulary, which definitely occurred in this class. Though the excessive vocabulary assignments were extremely irritating, they did help me to learn and associate with new words, which will in turn help me in my writing and speaking. I can also not forget how it will help my scores on the SAT’s.
Even more, through this class I associated with new classical literature I have not yet read. From The Catcher in the Rye to My Name is Asher Lev, I was able to enter and relate to the worlds of all different characters. I must say, I enjoyed it greatly and found many of the books to be extremely interesting. The journals I wrote helped me to understand the literature I was reading as well.
In the end, this English class lived up to all of my expectations. I was even able to receive an "A" every marking period like I had hoped. This class was extremely challenging, and at times I felt like I could not handle it and every other activity and class I had taken on. It just didn’t seem like there was enough room for everything I wanted to do. Still, I stuck with it and never gave up on my work. I did every assignment asked of me by Mr. Luizzi to the best of my ability, no matter what the personal cost. Due to this persistence, I was able to succeed the way in which I did, and for that I am proud. I am farther now than in the beginning of the year, much farther, and I owe it all to my classmates and Mr. Luizzi. It took these two factors to get me where I am today and I thank them for a most enjoyable year.