English class Reflection

Cameron Egan

5/8/2017

1. For almost any significant project or other style assignment, our class had multiple options of how to take on the task. These options provided a very positive experience for myself and other classmates because we were able to do assignments on a more personalized basis. It felt that we had a little more control over what we had to do in the classroom in terms of work because if a student really liked writing essays for projects, then they could write their essay, but if a student preferred to make a Prezi, slide show, or poster about a topic, then that was okay as well. These options let to a lot more potential creativity and less “cookie cutter” style projects where everyone’s product was exactly the same.

2.  I was able to enjoy reading throughout the year because I had chosen books to read independently and with my book group that sincerely interested me. Those books consisted of the topics of modern war, World War II, and the holocaust. I love learning about war and history and these books fit me perfectly. I was also able to draw a lot of similarities between two different books that i read about the holocaust because the books followed such similar guidelines of how their stories played out.

3. I felt that I read a lot more this year than past years because we were constantly reading  books either in or out of school. At times we were reading 1-3 books all in one day as a class, in our groups, and personally. It was a little crazy reading all the books at once because I was reading stories with so many similarities between them.

4. I do feel that my writing experiences were authentic because I noticed I personally tried to make my work better when it was going to be put on a public forum. By only passing work into my teacher in the past, I would sometimes put less work into proof-reading into essays and blog posts, but because they were going to be made available to everyone on the internet I made sure to take an extra bit of time to make my work better.

5. I felt that my fellow students and I had some control in learning in English class this year. Most of that control that we had was in the assignments we were given based on the books we were reading. A good experience I had was when we had book groups that met on a bi-weekly basis. At the end of our books were were given several choices for a project, including creating our own style of a project to make and present in class. My fellow classmate Shervin and I elected to create a rap song about the story we had read in our groups. Not only was this a good way for us to make a deeper look into the novel’s story, but it was also a very fun way to gain a better overall understand of the story as well.

6. At some points i found it almost a bit stressful to be reading three books all at the same time for one class. Although it was very doable, I just found it confusing at times, but that may have been because that two out of the three books that I had been reading at the time were both about the Holocaust.