Quarter 2 Reflection

In what area do you think you made the biggest improvements in English Language Arts?

The area I think I've made the biggest improvement in is reading more often. Last year, I didn't read too often compared to this year. Last year I didn't find too much time to read and didn't try too hard to find the time. Now, I feel a little more motivated to read all of a sudden. Ever since this year started, I have committed to finish the 20 book challenge and hopefully surpass the maximum. I have been reading more in class and at home. I asked for books this past Christmas to get ahead on my reading and have books at home I could read. So far I have read about 12 books and am certain that I will go above and beyond by finishing the 20 book challenge early.

What is something that your have accomplished since the new year that you are proud of?

Something that I am proud of is that I have gotten all threes on my vocabulary/roots test. I know that an accomplishment like that seem minor, but it is a big one for me. There were some days where I just wasn't having a good day and I would get a lot wrong on the test. Throughout this quarter, that hasn't been happening. According to my grades I have gotten all threes on every test we have done for this quarter. That rarely has ever happened to me ever since 7th grade. Sometimes I would get all threes during one quarter or a couple bad grades in one quarter. This time I did get all threes on the tee and am very thrilled of.

What has been the most challenging part of 2nd quarter for you and what did/can you do to help overcome this?

Out of all the things we have done, I would have to say the investigative journalism unit was a little challenging. It was a little hard for me because of two things. One, what could make a good story? To me, It's hard to come up with a unique idea for news story and when you have something good, everything seems easy. When you have a new article that isn't that interesting, creating it can be a little difficult. Two, for me it was hard to sort of create the article at first. When this was introduced, it se,ed like an entirely new way of writing. It was very unique and different from styles that we have been working with for a while. A big aspect of investigative journalism was that you had to write from a third person point of view. When you are the one coming up with the facts and physically seeing very thing you're writing about, it can be difficult to put all of that in a third person point of view. I'm pretty sure through trial and error, I have progressed a little a had gotten better writing news stories. Writing them more and more helps me fix my errors I have done from the last. Overall, this quarter was pretty good. There still is room for improvement though.

Watchers I.D. Book Talk

     The book I am currently reading is Watchers I.D. by Peter Lerangis. This Science fiction novel is about Eve Hardy. Eve is a 14 year old girl as you will find out right away is a clone. Eve was adopted at birth by a random family and does not have any memory as to who her actual parents were and where she came from. On a ski trip in the mountains she witnessed the death of a teenage girl who died from an accident shares a similar age to Eve. She discovers there have been some deaths from teenage girls who were the exact same age as Kate who have died for unexplained reasons. She is currently further researching into these girls deaths and how/why it's happening. The mood in my eyes seems mysterious. You as the reader wonder how and why are these girls dying? What's keeping me not stop reading is that you want to get a clear answer to all these numerous unanswered questions you ask yourself. Of course this far into the book, it’s a little hard to determine what the these is at this point. From what I have read so far, the theme is teenage girls are dying for unknown reasons.

     I like this book because it's a book that has a little bit of mystery to it. To me, having mystery in a book always keeps m from wanting to go to the next page or reading the next chapter. You will always want to keep reading constantly just to get to the bottom of the mystery. That’s how I feel when reading this book, its mystery is so engaging and confusing which makes me want to invest more of my time to finish. I'll always remember how discombobulated I was reading the introduction. It’s still a little confusing currently where I’m at in the story, but the beginning sort of started at a certain point to address some key details and then just fast forward to a different point in the story. I feel not a lot of books take this approach to introduce a different event in a book and makes this one unique for doing so.

     I would definitely recommend this book to my dad. I would recommend it to him because he likes to watch a lot of shows on TV about mysteries and conspiracies. He just gets really into it and it finds TV shows like this entertaining. He doesn’t read too often, but I feel if I handed him the book, I have a feeling he would be interested. You should go out and get this book because it's a book that has characters who share some of our same age which can make some people relate to them easier. Also, if you like science fiction in your books, this book from what I have read so far is a good book under that category.