Exam Preparations

          In studying for this final, I will break each subject up into a day to fit other classes in too. If I do a little each day, I will learn more than cramming it all in, in just two days. The subjects I will study are Macbeth, Poetry, Literary Analysis, Research, Wordly Wise, and Nervous Conditions. To make it easier, I will probably go in order of how we learned it.

Monday: Literary Analysis

To study for this, I will go to the Norton pages on Literary Analysis and annotate. Going through my notes and looking back on my past paper will help, too. While looking at my Literary Analysis, it would help a lot to look at what my weaknesses were so that I could change it on the essay. I may need to take an hour and a half to study this, or whenever the information sinks into my brain.

Tuesday: Research

To study for how to correctly "research," I can look back on my Global Issues Paper. I can look in the Norton book and take notes on how to research, paraphrase, and cite correctly. Studying for the research part won't be too hard since it is straight forward. I could spend an hour on studying this.

Wednesday: Nervous Conditions

Nervous Conditions is going to take up most of my studying for English. I will probably start off studying the questions for each chapter. Second, I would look back on notes. I could make notecards for the postcolonial literature characteristics, social setting, psychological setting, characters, theme, and the reason for the order of the book.I will probably set aside 2-3 hours to do this.

Thursday: Poetry

Studying for poetry, I will start at school. First I need to go to Dr. deGravelles and make sure all my definitions of the terms are correct. Once I figure that out, I can make notecards for all the terms, memorize how the meter works, study how to read a poem and TP-CASTT, and annotate different poems in our poem books. I should probably annotate one of them at tutorial so I can go to dr. Degravelles and make sure I annotated it right. This will take me a half an hour at school and 2-3 hours at home.

Friday: Macbeth

To study for Macbeth, I will go over my drama notes, and all the annotations I wrote down. I will make notecards for the characteristics of drama, and words that come along with Shakespeare plays. I will study the theme and create a plot diagram. Making the notecards and studying will all take me about 3 and a half hours.

Monday: Everything

On Monday I will review everything that I have studied for this exam. This is my only exam on Tuesday, so I can take as much time as I want. Since I have already made Wordly Wise cards and will have already taken a quiz on them, I just need to review the words until I know them backwards and forwards. I can't write down a set time for how long I will study Monday, because it depends on how well I know each subject from studying the other days.

Thanks for reading and good luck on your exams!!~Taylor

Class Participation- 4th Quarter

        Over the fourth quarter, I have participated very well. I always come to class prepared with my materials, check the web twice a day, and turn in assignments at the beginning of class. This quarter especially, I have done well in getting into class discussions. I ask appropriate questions, pay attention, and take notes as well. With the group and individual work that we did, we always stayed on topic. My group always came through with a  good grade.
         Comparing this quarter to the rest of the year, I have to say that I have excelled in staying on task and working beyond minimum. The thing that makes the difference, is that I learned to manage my time and create a plan for long-term assignments. Some things I need to work on are talking to peers in class and using time between classes for bathroom breaks. I have slowly started to get better, but still continue to do it time and time again.

Thanks for reading, Taylor

MACBETH: Act.4 Scene 3

1. Malcolm tests Macduff by asking why he would leave his family to go to England. He has to test him since people have come to him before luring him to Macbeth. Macduff proves himself as loyal by talking about how he hates Macbeth and all of Macduff's struggles in the country. 

2. Ross's subtext was that they are well at peace now that they are dead. He would probably be saying it sarcastically and too the side on stage.

3. My children and wife killed? And I have to be away from there too? He has no children! ALL my pretty ones? All of them? Wow, he killed all of my children and their mother. I need to feel it like a man. Did heaven watch this and not send help? Sinful Macduff, it's al because of you! Not for their mistakes, but mine! May they rest in Heaven. I'd rather not wait like a women, but come face to face with Macbeth and let me kill him now. If he escapes, heaven forgive him too. 

               >From this paraphrase, I figured that Macduff feels guilty for leaving his family. At first he is 

                 shocked, second he feels guilt, and third he just wants to be like a man and get revenge.

Macbeth Through the Eyes of Macbeth

        In class we are reading the Shakespeare play Macbeth. Macbeth is pronounced as Thane of Cawdor because of being such a brave and loyal component in the war. The king who appoints him is Duncan, who can't read people well, trusts people too easily, and is genuinely a nice person. Macbeth has a wife who seems crazy in this play, because she wants Macbeth to kill Duncan so he can be king. Macbeth doesn't like this idea one bit, because he says that Duncan has been so nice to name him Thane of Cawdor, and he has already gained a golden opinion from the people. Lady Macbeth says that she can't believe that Macbeth is such a coward and says he isn't a man. Macbeth, of course, gets defensive and says yes I am a man. He is still hesitant, so asks what would happen if it fails. After Lady Macbeth challenges his manly-hood yet again, he agrees to it.
         Once it comes the time for Macbeth to kill Duncan in his sleep, Macbeth starts hallucinating daggers in the air. Once he shakes it off and grabs the real one, he sneaks into Duncan's room. Lady Macbeth talks to him from outside the bedroom, talking about the guards being drugged. Macbeth does the deed, and proceeds to freak out. Macbeth is hearing things, thinking he is hearing men screaming about murder and Macbeth killing the king. Lady Macbeth tells him to clean his hands with water, when they heard a knocking at the front door. Macbeth starts to wish he didn't do it, and says that he wishes he could wake Duncan with the knocking. Once everyone found out that Duncan was murdered, Macbeth started to act weird and over did it a little. No one noticed, but the guilt was too much for him.

Thanks for reading, Taylor

Changing as a Reader

          Over the year, I have learned and improved as a reader. I have to admit, I have always loved reading. This year I read many amazing books and have found myself to be reading two different genres. I do like the chick-flik books, but what catches my eye the most is mystery. The kind of mystery that I like is where there is feelings of the character and a bunch of stories in one that all connect at the end. An example would be The Last Child, which I read over the summer.
          Other than finding what genres I like, I have actually started to connect what we learn in class with my outside reading. In these mystery books I am figuring out the messages and clues faster because of our close reading in class. I have started to notice foreshadowing, symbolism, and double meanings, which makes the read so much more interesting. I have a lot of books I plan to read next. One of them is 13 Reasons Why, that I learned about in the lunch book chats. I can't wait to dig in!

Thanks for reading, Taylor

Writing Wrap-Up

            This year was a great year for me in writing. I have learned and excelled much more than in pervious years and am very proud of myself. We practiced many different writing techniques and different genres of writing throughout this school year. Even though the process was rough, I would love the feeling of accomplishment once I turned my final draft in. I would feel even more proud and accomplished when I would get it back with the letter A written on it. One thing that I think helped me excel is the feedback I got. Even though you may get a good letter grade, there is always something that can be fixed or adjusted.  

            Throughout the year I have improved greatly on organization and voice, stayed consistently good with ideas, word choice, and sentence fluency, but have been struggling in conventions.  In my first paper, which was the Literacy Narrative, I scored low in organization and voice. I organized it more as an essay than a narrative, which is why I scored low in that, and I scored low in voice from a lack of vivid details. I never fully knew how to change my organization techniques, which is why I have always struggled in it. With the feedback from classmates and Dr. deGravelles combined with advice from the Norton book, I really picked it up and made A’s and B’s for the rest of the paper’s organization and voices. One good piece of advice that was given to me about voice, was to sound like myself, but still knowledgeable and sophisticated. 
           Other than these improvements, my best scores are definitely in ideas. In the Literacy Narrative, my ideas were very good because of how I portrayed myself growing as a writer. In the Literary Analysis, I scored pretty high in ideas, but I could have done better with embedding my thesis. I also received good advice on this paper about how I should try to focus on only one literary element in these papers instead of multiple. Other than ideas, my word choice has stayed consistent as well. Just because the scores are high doesn't mean I can't improve, though. I received comments on multiple papers about using more active verbs and letting people infer rather than me straight out saying something. Along with word choice and ideas, sentence fluency has stayed consistent. I make pretty good scores on this, but I don't know how to improve. I try to make my sentences sound good and flowy, but feel that I could make it even better. This is definitely something I need to research and work on. 
             Lastly, my conventions slowly declined in score. They went from an A to a C. The thing that messed me up was the citing. The Literary Narrative had great citations; Dr. deGravelles even said that they were almost "flawless." It started to get harder for me towards the Global Issues Paper. I was putting the period before the citation, not after it, and I also forgot some of the authors. The good thing is that all of this can be fixed. With a little help from my teacher, the internet, and the Norton book, and can create perfection. Conventions is probably the top thing I want to better myself in next year. 

            I have definitely progressed in writing since last year. I have actually learned much more about papers and writing than any other English class I’ve ever been in. Also, I have to admit I’m proud of all the papers I have written this year. In some of the papers’ feedback I agree, but others not so much. When I saw the organization grade and overall grade for the Literacy Narrative I was actually shocked. I had thought that I tied my writing in together very nicely. As it turns out, I was doing a different kind of paper than was assigned. The reason I thought I was doing the right thing, was that it was about my progressing as a writer, but it was supposed to be more narrative. Another time I disagreed was with my thesis in the Global Analysis.  I felt that it was one of my best theses, but my comments said to slow down and make more of an intro. I understand now that after my quote I should have eased into it more, but I feel that my transition sentence after was very clever. Besides these surprises, I pretty much received what I expected. It’s not that I didn’t do the best I could in them, but that I knew it wasn’t perfect and didn’t know how to make it any better. Overall, I think the reason I have been improving is because I like the topics we have been writing about. Usually if I don’t like the topic, I don’t have much to say. Since I’ve liked these topics, I was free to adding my own flare and making each one unique.

            Next year I plan to keep excelling in my writing, and to better my citing skills. Each year I get a little better at my word choice, and I hope to improve a lot in that as well. To conquer these goals, I need to pay attention to Wordly Wise words and to the Norton book. The Norton book could really help me in all subjects of writing, and I would learn a lot from it if I would read and take notes on my weak points. Wordly Wise could help me on my word choice if I build on my vocabulary and really learn and know each word that we learn. I hope to become better and succeed in my writing even more than I did this year.

Common Error’s List

• ·      Lack of vivid detail
• Example: In my Profile I could have described my dad more with visual, vivid details to make it come to life more. 

• ·      Strengthening active verbs
• Example: In my Profile when describing my dad's office. If I would have used active verbs, I could have let the audience infer and visualize rather than me saying it straight-forward. 

• ·      Cut back on “is” and “has”
• Example: In my Profile, I could have taken these two repeated words out and replaced them with active verbs. "He has blue eyes and is very smart. He also has brown hair that is wavy. His son has his smile and is just like him."

• ·      Slow down and explain more
• Example: "Joyce Carol Oates’ story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is about a teenage girl named Connie who is a rebel and usually knows what she’s doing with boys." (Literary Analysis)

• ·      Run-on sentences
• Example: "I can still hear all of the parents fighting outside of it, my cousin crying and yelling back, and my little cousins were oblivious." (Literacy Narrative)

• ·      Don’t use contractions in formal writing
• Example: "Even though we can't get into..." (Literary Analysis)

• ·      Citing techniques
• Example:  "The Vatican was actually called on because it now requires suspected child abuse to be reported to the police as soon as possible. (“Irish Government Slams Vatican For Role In Abuse Cover-up”)" The period goes after the citation. (Global Issues Paper) 

Reading Log

Read: 150 minutes
Pages: 70