English Reflection

Kayla Hernandez

English Reflection

As my senior year, I do feel that the choices we've had, have influenced my experience in the English classroom in a positive way. We were able to have more choices then in previous years. I really liked it because I got to read books that I was into and of my choosing. It influenced me in a positive way, because I was able to reflect back on my work, depending on the choices I picked.

I was able to enjoy reading most times throughout the year, although at some points it felt overwhelming. I enjoyed the works we did by Shakespeare and being able to discuss questions about the work as a class, instead of writing a paper. I also enjoyed when we read Hamlet and as we went along we got to see the scenes from the play in the movie. I've always liked reading Shakespearean plays, because they have deeper meaning then what the literature says. And while watching the movie as we read Hamlet, it gave me a better picture and I liked following along with it.

In school, I do feel like I read more then I normally have in the previous years. This was because we had our independent reading books that we got to read each Friday for the class period. Also, we had our book that we read in the classroom, as a class. Outside of school, it didn't change for me, I didn't really read unless it was a really good book. For I also read, our "book club" book and that was done outside of school. Other then that, the amount of reading outside of school didn't increase or decrease for me.

Personally, I do not feel that any of my writing assessments or revising were "authentic". I could have worked better on them and put more effort. I feel like the writing assessments were my weakness throughout the year. They will continue to need more work to be done on them.

In our English class this year, I do believe that I had some control over my own learning. As a class, we did have more freedom as to what what we read and what we could do for projects. For example, after we finished our "book club" book, we had a choice of what to do for a project to represent the big idea and theme in our books. This way students got to do different projects, based on what they felt comfortable doing but met the standards. I would say that the activity that worked best as a class, but in groups, was the projects for our "book club". This way students were able to show their creative side and also present to the class what they're book of their choosing was about. Overall it was very successful.

Gathering everything we've been able to accomplish this year in our English class, I wouldn't have changed anything. It might have seem dreadful at points when projects were mentioned, but it turned out to be fine. I liked the limited freedom we got, because it did show us a little bit of what our next year at college will be like. We were still able to get all assignments done and all that the curriculum needed to meet. Overall, the year in English has been fun.