Reflection for Senior English

 The choices we had in the classroom did influence me in a positive way that it allowed me learn of authors I’ve never heard of and want to read more of that author’s work. It also got to think deeper about the literature such as Oedipus. I had to think if we are in charge of our faiths or that no matter what we do can’t change our faiths like how Oedipus’ parents tried doing. They knew that their son would kill the father and marry the mother so in order to avoid that they gave him away to another family but Oedipus still ended up killing his father and marry his mother as well as having children with her.

 For some of the books i enjoyed reading them because they weren’t the usual type of books i would read such as Laughter in the Dark. This book had a certain element to it where it’s twisted but funny at the same time. As well as having karma come after a certain character betrayed his wife and daughter. It was nice reading book that I wouldn’t typically decide to read on my own time.

  I believe that I’ve read more both in and outside of school than I have had in the past.  In the past I would rarely read any books outside of school unless I had to but this year I read my independent book outside of school. The independent books that I’d chosen were captivating to me that I would be reading them before I go to bed or before I go to school. My writings and revising were authentic because I wrote how I felt about the books I’ve read and my point of view.

 I do feel like I did have some control over my own learning since we were able to decide how we wanted to present our books whether it was a poster,song,activity, alternative version/ending,and videos. The project where we were able to come up with a way to show the other groups what our book was about for the book clubs. This was a fun activity because we were able to do anything,there really wasn’t any limits. We got the chance to decide how we wanted to represent our books which showed our creative ways and personality.

 What could have been differently to enhance my experience would probably be instead of writing blog posts about our independent books we talk about our books like how we did with the book club books.

Reflection On Choices and Experiences

Julie Leal

Having choices rather than assigned a specific thing to do or book to read helped my experience in English class. It was something positive for the class. Usually, we are given assigned books/ projects in our English classes which made reading for me more difficult. Choosing something to do on my own allowed me to be more creative, something that I'm usually not.

I enjoyed reading in English on two occasions. The first is when we read "Laughter In The Dark" and the second is when I read "Still Alice" as my independent reading book. "Laughter In The Dark" was an interesting book that made me want to keep reading. "Still Alice" was a book that I have been wanting to read in a long time but never got the chance due to not having enough time. I enjoyed reading these books and that made classes more enjoyable.

This year I think I read a lot more than in the past years. This is because we had many books being read at the same time. We had the in class books, our Friday book journal books, and our book club book. As stressful as it was to be able to juggle all these books in our brains it was very helpful with multitasking skills and to prepare us for all the books we will be reading at once in college. Having so many books to read in class and being mostly interested in all of them motivated me to read more at home. 


I feel that none of my writing was truly authentic. I didn't put my full potential into my work and this made it so it wasn't authentic because it wasn't a true representation of my potential in writing. Personally, I feel that I could've done a lot better.

I feel that I was able to have some control over my own learning in class this year. I feel this way because we were given the freedom to choose our own books and projects. You also took feedback from us with everything we did with discussions and surveys which helped enhance our learning experience. An activity that I think went really well was the independent reading books. This is because it gave students like me a chance to read a book that they might have been interested in or have been wanting to read but never got around to it. It also gave us the chance to discover what type/genre of literature we like because we could change our book anytime if we didn't like them.


With everything we did this year, I feel that there was nothing you could have done to enhance my experience in English. You did things no other teachers have done like give us the freedom to choose books and projects and also be able to read a good amount of books in just one school year. I feel as if you helped prepare us for college more than any of my English teachers have before. Thank you for making English enjoyable this year!

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.

English Reflection

Setting aside designated time for an allotted length of meaningful reading has provided this class, along with myself with a sense of flexibility in the curriculum. Coming into class knowing that the class period would be dedicated to something that I decided to read, and something that wouldn't lose my attention or curiosity. The days I enjoyed most were the silent Friday mornings where I could immerse myself into the book of my own choosing, with the full one hour of dedicated time that would be invested in myself was split between a half an hour of reading followed by a journal entry. I noticed that by having these consistent reading intervals on Friday's that it kept me on task, to stay focused on the task at hand. I have a tendency to jump around from author to author when it comes to my reading habits at home when the act is mere leisure. But when I come in on those Friday morning's where I know I have to devote my attention to several pages of The One Thing by Malcolm Gladwell, which by my standards was by far my favorite piece of literature I chose to read on our class reading assignments. I believe that by having at least one day out of the week where I was totally and completely immersed between the pages of a book of my liking that it reinforced my joy and passion for reading, on a daily basis that transcended from Friday's and onto the weekend and through the week. As for my writing experiences in this class, I felt as though there were times where I was completely focused on my work which would produce a piece of work in which I was satisfactory towards, but there were times I felt I didn't put that same level of satisfactorily approval rating that I initially gave myself following a finished product. Revisiting a class experience where I felt that I had complete control over my learning, at the same time felt satisfied with the level of output I put forth was with the Shakespeare soliloquy projects. It was with this project that I had the ability to be creative, with little to no restrictions on where that creativity could take me. With the preexisting curriculum I don't have any complaints with the amount of material or independence among creativity and individual work, but I do have a suggestion in that I feel as though I don't know all of my classmates on a comfortable level, possible group switches of students may have been helpful, to counter a lot of the work that was completed on a individual basis.

Reflection on Senior English

I feel like these choices did influence my experience in the English classroom in a positive way. Throughout my other English classes, it was always mandatory reading, essays, research, and tests. In this class specifically, the students were given the chance to be independent and have fun fun with the books and topics  that were focused on. I felt like I was being treated more of an adult than a child for once.

I first enjoyed reading when we were able to pick out own books for the independent reading. I was able to choose a book that intrigued me and if I didn't like it as I read it, I could choose a new one. I also enjoyed reading when we read the book Laughter in the Dark. That was definitely the only book, mandatory to read, that I truly enjoyed reading throughout high school.

I think I read more both in school as well as outside of school than I did in the past. Part of the reason was because it was mandatory. The independent reading that I had to read in class, I started to read at home as well. That helped me with using my free time to do something productive such as read.

With the essays and my other writing, I can definitely say my writing was "authentic." For one, I could never stay on topic in my writing. I would always steer into a different direction. Overtime I was able to work on that flaw and fix it. I think everyone's writing is "authentic" in their own way, their style of writing to be specific.

I think I was able to have some control over my own learning in English but I feel like it didn't do me much justice. It helped positively when I had the decision in choosing what book I wanted to read for independent reading. I also liked how we had options in topics and ideas for projects. It helped negatively with the blog posts. I'm used to following a rubric on what needs to be included in something when it comes to writing so I had a tough time with that. I think our projects on poems went well. At first, I didn't like the idea of it. As I started my project I became more interested in it. I had new insights in some ideas and I enjoyed reading the poems by my poet as well.

Personally, I don't think you could have done anything differently to enhance my experience in the English classroom this year. I enjoyed the class and you did everything you could to make things fair for everyone as well as comfortable.

English Class Review

Senior Honors English Class review

These choices influenced my experience positively, as being given the choice to do a project the way i would like it to be done, whether it be a powerpoint, or a cool song, I was granted the freedom to think outside of the box and do it as I please.

I was able to enjoy reading on Fridays, where we given free read time. I was able to finish an interesting and informing book on Grit, and this gave me a great idea of what it means to persevere and show great work ethic as it will always lead to success in everything I do.

I read a little bit more in and out of school than in past years, as we were forced to read on fridays. Although i enjoyed reading on fridays, I’ve never read that much in class in past years.

Yes, I feel that some of my writing and revisions were authentic. Some of them were just done as I simply went through the motions, not really putting forth my best efforts, however a lot of them I feel like I put in authentic effort into them.

Yes, I feel like we had a lot of choice in controlling our learning experience throughout this year. One specifically that I loved, was the project at the end of the year for our book club books, where we could do whatever we would like for a project. We chose to make a song, a very good song at that. We were able to create a beautiful rhyme scheme over a captivating beat, and produce one of the best musical pieces of 2017.

To enhance the experience of students in the future in terms of the curriculum, you could try to do more engaging projects and fun activities having to do with Hamlet, as I often found myself dozing off at Shakespeare’s old english. More engaging activities could get more people involved in the curriculum and have them to actually enjoy it.

Final Blog Post

Val Mamish
5/5/17
English 12H

Review on Independent Reading 

In my opinion, I feel these choices influenced me in a positive way because each book was a little different. I learned a new skill from each project or assessment. Also which each book I learned something new with the discussions we had or the presentations that other students did. I liked choosing better because having more options made it easier to understand the assessment also.

I enjoyed reading while we read "Laughter in the Dark". I enjoyed reading that book because I understood the text and the plot never got boring. I also enjoyed having discussions about the book which made me like the novel even more because everyone was engaged in the conversation. I also liked the book club books because my book was very interesting and since I had the chance to choose from many options, it made me enjoy reading also. During "Hamlet", however, I did not enjoy reading the play only because I never really understood the text. But when it comes to Shakespeare I never really enjoyed his writing.

I think I read more inside and outside of school this year really because I enjoyed the majority of the books we read. Especially since there was a handful of books that we read only inside of the school. In the past years we would only read outside of school, so the in school reading was little to none.

Yes, I did feel like I had a choice in English. For example, the book club books we had up to 11 different books with different themes and genres. This gave me a choice in the type of book that I wanted to read. I think "Laughter in the Dark" went well because I really understood the text, which made it easier when doing the final assessment, and when we had discussions I was more interested in the conversation because it was a novel that I really enjoyed.

I think my blogs for independent reading was "authentic" because each post was my opinion and my opinion only. But other than that I felt that the rest of my writing was not really authentic because I needed to follow an outline. Even though there was an outline for the blog post, I felt as if I had more freedom to move it around with a way I pleased.

Something that you could have done differently in class would be maybe not to do so many things at once. At one point in could really confusing. It wasn't necessarily stressful, but it maybe would have been easier to understand if we weren't doing more than one assessment at once. Other than that I thought I had a good time in English this year.