End of the Year :(

Dear Classmates,
         For starters look how far we've come!! At the begginging of the year I didn't "know" many of ya'll, and now most of my best friends are in this class! And as far as school work goes, look at all we have achomplished! We've faced so many new challenges and have gotten so far! Look at all the differnt ways we know how to write! I'm most sad about not having this class next year! I love all of ya'll so much! We always have so much fun learning about English in English class. I'm glad that I've gotten comportable enough with all of you to ask questions in class and not get judged! I'm also so lucky that I have the type of teacher that WANTS us to come see her during toutorial or whenever!

Self Evaluation

Over the course of this English class, I've leaned alot. I've learned that in class whenever I don't understand something, I'm not afraid to ask and make comments about something. However my friends and I sometimes do tend to get a little chatty. Overall I'm glad I have them in my class because whenever I miss a day or don't know how to do something their always there to help me! The class I was in was great, sometimes we would get off topic but it ussualy always had a good meaning. Ussaly. I'm glad that I got Dr.D as my english teacher, even though sometiems I though we had hard assinments to do, it really did help me in the long run. I look back now and realize I've learned so much more than I ever have in an English class. Gunna miss this block next year! :(

Over the Weekend

       Over the weekend I hung out with my two closeest friends, Anna Lee and Logan. We went to logans house and just sat there eating dorittos. It's funny how it's totally normal for us, we just talk and try to find logans cat that usally hates me. YOLO. I fell down the stairs on accident and hit my elbow on something really hard. Then we made a palate on the floor and Logan and I slept on it together while Anna Lee slpet on the "egg" its a chair the is shaped like an egg and we always fight over who gets to sleep on it!

   The last sleep over we all slept together because we saw lights outside of logans window and she lives in the woods so we thought they were alians. However it turns out that they were just lightbugs. I think thats what they are called? Anyways, we were all scared. I love our sleepovers I cant wait till we can drive so we can go get IHOP.

The Hunger Games

   So I've taken all of my friends advice and have gone ahead and started reading The Hunger Games. Even though I'm a little behind in the trend it's still a really good book! I stay up later at night just to read it, once you start reading you can't stop! I'm really exitied for the other books to come out too! The book starts out the same way the movie deos, but i've noticed that there is alot more dialog in the movie. In the book they describe things so well, like how things look and what it feels like to live there.

   I also understand things alot more reading it. I understand who the people are and more information about them. Now after reading some in the book I can say that I like the book alot better than the movie. Almost all of the chapters are clift hangers and even though I know what's gunna happen it's still so exiting! I set aside 30mintutes each night to read in my book or I will read on the way to and from school. I love this book!
mon-30mins
tues-30mins
wends-30mins
thurs-30mins
fri-30mins

Common Errors

Common errors list:

1.      Underlining book titles

Ex: The Hunger Games

2.      Run on sentence

Ex: Last weekend I went to the movies, the movies are always really fun, I always have a good time there, most likely because I go with my friends, we always meet up early.

Should be:  Last weekend I met up early to see a movie with my friends. The movies are always loads of fun and we always have a good time.

3.      Correct spelling

Ex: affect and effect

Affect-  to change

Effect-  result

4.      Capitalizing Nouns

Ex: the French

5.      Punctuation

Ex: We went to the store to get; eggs, milk, pasta and corn to eat for dinner.  

This years writing reflection

Overall, since the beginning of the year my writing has improved in several areas. One of them being voice, which I’m glad about because that’s a big category. Looking threw all of my papers ‘voice’ was one of the categories that I always received good feedback on. Maybe this is a technique that I can use to my benefit and where I lack in one category I can benefit from the voice category. Another area where I have improved is word choice, at the begging of the year it was pretty limited, now however I can describe things better and use more words to make my sentences longer. I still need help with organization, in some of my papers this was my lowest point. I think that if more and more people review my paper before turning it in, then I can get some feedback on whenever something doesn’t make sense or I’ve already mentioned it.

 I’ve also noticed that as time goes on my spelling and conjunctions get better and better. Especially whenever I type my papers instead of writing them in my notebook. Maybe I can use this information to my benefit and start typing everything that I write.  My ideas is something that varies from paper to paper usually whenever the paper is assigned and I’m not too interested in the topic then my ideas will not be strong. However whenever the assignment is something that I like writing about my ideas tend to be stronger. This might be related to my level of interest in the paper, I need to learn how to always do well in ideas because it is the main part of the paper. If the ideas in the paper are dead, then the whole paper itself is dead. Sentence fluency is something that I’ve always struggled with. For some reason I always have a hard time moving from one sentence to another without any awkward pauses or leaving something out.  Organization is another topic that varies from paper to paper, sometimes I know what will sound good at the beginning, middle and end of a paper, then sometimes I forget and say things that should be left for the end or things that should have been mentioned from the very beginning.

My writing this year I believe has only gotten better; I now know the different types of writing techniques and topics that you should stick to. I also have learned different ways of how to write a paper and what the differences are between them. I also have improved and gotten to know what my strengths and weakness are. Most of the grades that I got on my paper matched up on the rubrics, however on some I feel like I deserved a little more. They were most the same when talking about word choice and punctuation errors, however when it came to sentence fluency I thought I did a better job than what I was categorized into in the rubric.

 On the WrAP test I had trouble with sentence fluency and spelling words correctly. Also with organization from paragraph to paragraph. I could have written more too. However I did do a good job on staying on topic and the voice of the paper overall was fairly well. On the Narrative Essay I preformed a good job on ideas and organization as well as the voice. All three of them were there, I was particularly proud of this because usually one of those I do not do too well on. I could have worked more on sentence fluency and conventions, it was not a bad score I just could have reviewed the paper more to correct careless mistakes. On the Literacy Analysis paper I scored lower than usual for me. I think this was because this type of paper was harder for me to write therefore I lacked in supporting the thesis, organization and in general. I overall did well in voice, word choice and sentence fluency. This is odd because it’s the exact opposite of my narrative essay. In the Global issues paper my weaknesses were organization, word choice and conventions. Maybe this is because I could have gotten more and better feedback from my peers regarding my paper. I did well in my ideas and voice which is good because I normally lack a bit in my ideas.

               Reading through the comments on my papers you’ve mentioned several times when I need to come and see you because you can tell that I’m not on the right track. The times where I did come to see you, I got a better grade and understood more than the times where I put it off to the side and did not come to see you. I think that I will take this as a lesson to remind myself that whenever my teacher says that she wants to see me, I should probley go to see her, just to get clarification and advice on what I can improve in and the things that I need to fix. I can also get help on the material that I do not understand.  The way that I now evaluate my writing has changed dramatically, I can now write different types of papers and have a better understanding of why some punctuations are the way they are. I can grade myself harder now because I know that I can write good it’s just a matter of showing it.  

My sisters keeper part 2

sunday:60min
monday:0min
tuesday:30min
wendsay:30min
thursday:30min
friday:30min
saturday:30min
sunday:30min

Outside Reading; My Sister's Keeper

    I've started reading a book called My Sister's Keeper, you may remeber it whenever they made a movie about it. I remeber going to see the movie and it being really sad. I never read the book though, so I just so happend to run across it in my sister's room so I decided to start reading it! The book starts off with a girl named 'Anna's point of veiw. Anna is not like most regular babies were, she was made in a labotary. She starts out saying why babies are born and what is the point of it all.
  
   Then the plot quickly changes to her in a pawn shop selling a necklace of her's. I wonder how old she is in the book becasue I remeber in the movie she was still young, however she goes into a pawn shop by herself? Then she goes on talking about how her parents try to make things as normal as possible. I wonder is they will have other points of view in the book besides Anna, that would be interesting.

Modern Family

     If you don't know what Modern Family is, it is a TV that has been on for a little over a year now. I've always been a fan of it ever since it started however I would every now and then skip watching it a week. Now I have the new season and I've been watching it ever since I got it! Every episode is 21 minutes so it's pretty much half of what is a 'normal' show. It's the funniest show ever! The actors in it are really good so it looks so real and the situations that they get in are so real too.

     Modern Family consist of three familys that are all somehow conected. Each family has a differnt situation how the are related but each family is related to one another. The two sisters in one of the familys is Haley and Alex, they remind me of how my sister and I used to act towards each other. I hope Modern Family never stops making shows cause they are so funny!

The Hunger Games

     It is just like Twilight all over again! People are going bananas over the movie The Hunger Games, the book came out before the movie, but I havent read the book or seen the movie yet. But from what I've been told, it's VERY good. My sister, Mallory read the book and couldn't put it down when she started reading it. Mabey I will give it a chance and start to read it. But it will probley take me a long time to finish.

    My sister said that they had left out alot of detail in the movie and that she wants me to go see the movie before I read it just to see what a person who's never read the book thinks about it. I'll probley end up going to see it with my grandmother because all my other friends have already seen it. Just my luck. But I'll probley force one of my friends to see it again, but this time woth me so that I can ask questions and won't get lost during the movie.

French Book

      For my reading this week I had to read a book in French. It was hard to understand at first because it's a much harder reading level than I have ever read in French. The name of the book is La Grande Traversee. It looks like a comic book with alot of pictues. Ive noticed that alot of the French books that I have read have alot of pictures in them. Mabey the French just like pictures.

      The book is about a young boy with blonde hair (the name is never revealed) and his friend who is a large redhead man that walks around without a shirt on and a pot on his head. They are touriest in India and accidently took one of the tiribes most precouis iteams. The indians start fallowing after them and fireing at them but they don't know why they are after them. They are so confused, I feel bad for them! I wonder if this has ever happened in real life?!

Outside Reading

    The outside book that I'm reading is called Love the One Your With it's a book about love and fallowing your heart. The main character is married to the 'perfect' husband but she runs into her ex boyfriend one day and starts second guessing all of her chocies. She starts wondering if she settled down with the rigth guy. I wonder if her husband knows that she is second guessing thier marriage. I wonder if this happends to people in real life alot.

      I hope that Ellonor and Andy stay together because I think they make a really good couple! But it sound like to me that she is bord with him and you can't help but to feel bad for him! I wonder if she had never seen her ex if she would still have been hapy with her marraige? Mabey it's what is for the best, but she should end her marraige before she starts anything with her ex.

mon-60mins
tues-30mins
wends-30mins
thurs-none
fri-30mins
sat-30mins
sun-30mins

One Direction Infection

         About three weeks ago the most wonderful thing happened! I became a directioner, oh my gosh I'm obssed. They are the these five guys that all tried out for the X factor individually but didn't make it own there own so one of the judges decided to put them togther. Even though they lost the X factor they were still signed and have there own album. Louis is the oldest in the group and likes to prank the boys, Zayn is the quiet and mistryious one, Harry is the flirt and has curly locks, Liam has a birth mark on his neck and starts off all the songs. And last but not least is Niall.

      Niall is the one that I'm most obssesed with. He has blonde hair that he's dyied since he was fourteen. He is Irish so he has an irish accent and it's the cutest thing in the world! Niall finds everything funny and absolutly amazing, he's always laughing even though it may not be funny...hhaha. He loves eating food espeshally Nando's, which is a fast food restront. Niall loves garaiffes.....not really sure why, Niall is also very akward mabey thats why he likes garaifes.

Over the Weekend

     Over the weekend I hung out with my two closest friends, Anna Lee and Logan. We met up at Mia Padres, to eat mexiacn food because I was craving gracomolie. Then we walked down to the crosswalk right by prowe and waited till it was our turn to cross, we were standing there forever. Then we reliezed that we had been pressing the wrong button. So after we finally got across we headed over to mcdonalds and each got a mcflurry. Then we walked over to prowe and ate it right outside the red mango.

      Then we went inside barnes adn noble and looked around, then we went to different stores trying on clothes. After that, Logans mom picked all of us up and we went to Logans house to sleep over, we talked about one direction, justin bieber and more. Then we decieded to go to sleep and I called sleeping on "the egg" it's this really big, comfortable chair that Logan has. Anna Lee tried to convince me that we could both fit....but we couldn't. So we promised her that the next time she could sleep in "the egg" haha!

More French Books!!

        This week in our French class we had to read another french book. The book that I picked out was by the same auther as the last book that I read was last time. The name of the book was called "Animaux du Monde" which translates to 'Animals of the World'. That author must really like animals because she likes making books about them. In this book she talked about the parts of the world where certin monkeys live, how much they weigh and what they eat.

     She also talked about sharks (my favorite!) she talked about the different types of sharks and where they live. She also mentioned what some of them ate and and how big they where going to grow up to be. I liked reading this book because it made me read slowly and think about what the words ment and what they mean if put together. Hopefully we will have more of these assingments!

French Book

    Each week we get a bunch of assinments in our French class that we must complete, this week it was to read a French book. The book that I picked out is called "Plus Grand, Plus Vite, Plus Fort" by Steve Jenkins. The title of the book means 'too big, too fast, too strong". The book is about a chettah and all his animal friends. 

       In the book there is a whale, a mouse, a jellyfish, a spider, an eel, a snail, a snake, and a turtle. On each page there is a different animal and there is a long discription about that animal. Such as how much it weighs, how big it it, where it lives, what it eats. This a difficult task to do however I liked it because it was like decoding stuff!

mon-20mins
tues-30mins
wends-15mins
thurs-25mins
fri-0mins
sat-25mins
sun-15mins

The Vow

         Over the weekend I did multiple things, all of which were fun. On friday night I went to the basketball game, it was crazy! The girls one with 3 seconds left, we were all going crazy! And the boys one with 5 points I think....anyway after the game was just as much fun I had teo people sleep over and we were up most of the night.

         Then on saturday Logan, Anna Lee, Mary Micheal, Isabell, Mallory Baldwin and I all met up to have lunch at La Madalines and then we went to the movies and saw The Vow. It was good but I thought it would be better, I guess I set my standards up too high for it. However I thought that the ending would have been better, it was kind of a disapontment.

This weekend

       Last weekend I went to the movies with my two friends, Anna lee and Logan. We saw a movie called "The Women in Black" it was a horror movie, which was not the best idea for the three of us. The theatre was PACKED we had to sit on the 3rd row at the bottom so things were REALLY in our face whenever stuff poped out! I sat by this girl that was hilarous, she kept making the funniest comments while Anna Lee was laughing because she was so scared.

           The movie was about a mother who sent her child to live with her sister and the sister killed the child. The mother got mad and commited suicide, and starts haunting the old house. She gets mad at everyone and everything, she possess children into killing themself so she can get her revenge on the town. I was extreamly desterbed by this movie. I think the next movie we go see is going to be Big Miracle....which is about whales.

Nervous Conditions

         In class we are reading a book called Nervous Conditions, the author is Tsitsi Dangarembga. At first I was extreamly confussed because reading this book is almost like a code that you have to decode to understand. The book starts off by the main character saying that she is not sorry for her brother's death. This of course caught my eye because I had never herd of such a thing, naturally I was courouis so I kept reading.
 
       While I was reading I had to keep the sheet that Dr. D gave us in order to find out who she was talking about. I found out that her brother Nhamo was killed in 1968 and she was only 13 years old. She also goes on by saying how she was always jelous of her brother because he got to go to school because he was the oldest and the boy, while she just had to sit at home. I wonder how her brother did die, since they live in an unsafe area mabey he was murdered.

     I have also been woking on my Global Issues project, going to nootletooles every night and making sure that I have what I need. I have been practicing preparing my qoutes and putting them into the correct format. I split my time up into 30 minutes every night which really helped me.
mon-30mins
tues-30mins
wends-30mins
thurs-30mins
fri-30mins
sat-30mins
sun-30mins

Global Project

Over the last week I've been working on this project nightly. Monday night I got another website I sited it and pharaphrased it. Tuesday night I did some more research on my project, I found out alot of facts about it, so I sited that website and paraphrased the facts. Wendsday night I looked back on all the notecards that I did and made sure that I was satisfaied with them.

           Thursday night I began to work on my outline and Friday night I worked more on my thiesis and my outline. Saturday I found another website that I liked and I even got to use the information that I found out in my outline. Sunday night I woked on my outline more and looked back at all my biblyographies and notecards making sure that they fit the standards. I set out 30 mins for each night to get the things that I needed to get done. I really helped and I think I'm going to use that method again.

Mon-30min
Tues-30min
Wend-30min
thurs-30min
fri-30min
sat-30min
sun-30min