Final Reflection Blog

Final Reflection Blog- 5/22/16

Prompts:

What are the three most important things you learned this year, what is something we did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life? What was the nicest thing someone in our class did for you this year, what is something you taught your teacher or classmates this year, in what area do you feel you made your biggest improvements? What is something you accomplished this year that you are proud of, what was the most challenging part of this year for you, what was the best piece of writing that you did this year, why do you think it is your best? Of the books you read this year, which was your favorite, why, what advice would you give students who will be in this class next year?

     I can't believe it! I have already finished my eight grade year and middle school expirence! It feels like just yesterday I was walking through the doors as a nervous little sixth grader. Three of the most important things I learned this year are, One, never procrastinate. I learn this lesson every year, the hard way. I always wait to the last minute to finish assignments, and find myself scrambling at the last minute to finish them. Towards the end of the year, I started doing them earlies in the week so that I didn't have to be in that perdicimant. Number two, always put forth your best effort. The reason for this is simple, if you don't show effort, you don't get a good grade. Last, always bring a sweater to Mrs. Larson's room because it is as cold as Antarctica there! 

     In all of this year, I will remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like this book made the most profound impact on me because it taught a very important lesson that everybody should know and be exposed to. I will also remember this because we spent a lot of time working on it, the majority of second quarter to be exact. On top of this, we made notes on every page so that the story really stuck in our minds!

     The nicest thing somebody in our class did for me this year was when Ieft some assignment at school and Diana was nice enough to send it to me. If she didn't do this, I would have gotten a falcon foul!  Although I don't remember the exact assignment, I clearly remember being absolutely grateful of what she did because I was beginning to panic about it. Therefore, thanks Diana for the help you gave me when I left my assignment at school!

     One thing I taught my teacher this year is that if I work hard enough, I can create a good piece of work that I am very proud of. At some point during the year, my essays were becoming of lower quality and later on I feel that I proved I can create great pieces of writing with effort. My grades also started to drop too but I proved that I can work and make it all up so that I get a good and passing grade. I am very proud of being able to do this.

     The area which contained my greatest improvements has to be my writing. As I mentioned earlier, I started out with poor work, which vastly improved into better quality and of course, grades. I learned many new techniques and words which I have implemented into my writing which I also feel helped me improve loads. On top of that, I started to proof my work better and was able to fix many errors and mistakes that I never would have caught otherwise!

      This year, I have have succeeded in achieving second place in best of Berwyn. I am very proud of this huge accomplishment! This is largely due to the fact that I learned many things in my accelerated ELA class. Without all of my learned vocabulary and writing skills, I would not have even made nearly as far! One of the largest parts of the application parts was writing a plethora of essays, my work in ELA class made this once highly difficult process for me much easier.

     The most challenging part of this whole year was time management. I had a lot of trouble with refraining to wait until the last minute to do my "Thursday night homework." Even though I had a lot of trouble with this, I was able to slowly overcome it and begin my work earlier. I have to say that I am not the only one with this problem, just about every kid had problem with this sometime during the year. Like me, many of us were able to overcome this problem at some point!

     The absolute best piece of writing I did this year was my Morrie aphorism project. This assignment I worked super hard on and actually got a four!  I was very enthusiastic about it! I am extremely proud of my effort and hard work when I was completing that assignment. I was very excited about comparing my aphorism to Diana Nyad the 60 year old swimmer who saw, from Cuba to Florida! I found the perfect quote and was able to embed it very well!

     My favorite book that I read this year was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I really enjoyed this book because I feel like it thought a very important lesson and left a long lasting impact on me and other fellow readers. It also connected me to understand the troubles of living in that time period and what everyday life was like during that time. Not many students read that book during their middle school years, so it sets me ahead of many kids from other schools.

     Some advice I would give to next year's class would be to never procrastinate. Every student makes that same mistake every single year, and we are all stressed out on Thursday night rushing to get our homework done! Even though you will be warned, you still need to be careful of your time management, if you have an two essays and a Vocab quiz, do one of your essays before do you won't rush through both on Thursday night! This will save you s lot of time and trouble. Therefore, if you are new to Mrs. Larson's beware of procrastination!