General Reflections for English

2016:

1) Native American Myth:

The Native American Myth was one of the first formal writings we did coming
off of summer break. Of course, that means that my writing is nowhere near
what it is today, but I still enjoyed the writing process and getting back into
the swing of things. This assignment was fun for me to write because I have
always been interested in American Indian history because of my experience
at summer camp where I am part of a tribe. Because of this, I enjoyed learning
about a specific Native American tribe, both in American History and American
Literature, and I enjoyed the process of writing and discovering the tribes
tradition in accordance to deciding what myth to write my story on. I
especially loved how I was able to choose the tribe to do my story on because
I chose a tribe that is at my camp, the Caddo. After we researched about our
tribe, we were able to choose what myth to write about, a topic that was a
special part of our tribe. I choose to do my story about how corn became an
extremely vital part of the Caddo tribe. It was really interesting studying about
Native American and being able to think about how to incorporate their
traditions into a well-crafted Native American myth. I think I was successful in
creating a piece that reflected my interest in the subject matter and
incorporated the traditions of the Caddo tribe thoroughly. Overall, the writing
process was unique to others because I felt a personal connection to the topic,
making the actual writing of the myth less tedious.
2) Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Childrens Book:
After reading Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I was
inspired to create a childrens book that mocked the same ideals, yet in a
format that Puritan kids could understand. By doing this, I wanted to create a
book that taught children lessons in order to establish their own beliefs as
Puritan children. I was inspired to make a visually appealing book for young
audiences to grab their attention and truly learn what it was to being a
Puritan. Parts of the speech talk about how staying faithful in the Lord and not
committing selfish crimes, such as dancing or wearing flashy clothing, is key
into the success of getting into heaven. I twisted these beliefs and with further
research established a set of stories that would teach Puritan children not to
dress-up, do their chores, and go to church. I thought these were simple
lessons that children could easily relate to. I enjoyed this writing process
because it allowed me to be creative with the drawings, while also improving
my creative writing. It was kind of hard to work the website that created our
pictures for the book, even with me being a pretty techy person. It just ended
up taking longer than an assignment of that size took because of technical
difficulties. Other than that, the assignment was extremely fun to create and
see all my ideas together. One thing I wish we could have done is present our
books to the class because it would have been interesting to see everyones
hard work and improve our presentation skills.
3) Song of Myself Poetry Assignment:
This was one of my favorite assignments we did this year. I was able to take
something that was so meaningless to most people and make it into
something I really cared about. I think it is really important to find personal
connections to every assignment to make them meaningful. The more
meaningful an assignment is to me, the better the work produced from it is.
Being able to take inspiration from Walt Whitmans Song of Myself, and
creating something I am truly proud of is extremely rewarding. I used the style
of Whitmans Song of Myself and inspiration from the Tree Meditation
assignment to write a Transcendentalist poem about my experiences with
cross-country. It is truly incredible how much easier it is to write a poem about
a topic that has so meaning to your life. While writing this poem, I was able to
better understand the literary movement of Transcendentalism and how it

General Reflections for English

2016:

played such an important role in the lives of the people living during the
movement. I was able to move beyond common experience and
understanding during the meditation, ultimately inspiring what my poem
came to be. This poem was quite enjoyable to write and was not a tedious
assignment at all. Overall, I really enjoyed writing this poem and wish we were
able to write more poems, with this being the only poem we wrote all year. My
only suggestion for next year is to be able to do more assignments like this, so
that we can expand our knowledge of poetry to both analyzing and writing.
4) Transcendentalist Infographic:
The Transcendentalist Infographic is also one of my favorite assignments that
we did this year. It involved a variety of skills from writing, technology, to
overall visual appeal. In this assignment, we related elements of
Transcendentalism to current pop culture subjects. By my partner and Is
knowledge of pop culture and general understanding for the topic of
Transcendentalism, we were able to cerate an Infographic that was both
informational and aesthetically pleasing. We chose uncommon pop culture
references to make our Infographic stand out, like Sadie Robertsons Live
Original campaign, street art, and Demi Lovatos Confident. We thought
this was the perfect way to go beyond the norm, just as the movement of
Transcendentalism says to do. My partner and I worked really well splitting up
the assignment. We both completed the areas of the assignment that we
came up with. We used the online recommended software Piktochart, and it
was pretty self-explanatory. It is easy to get lost in the workings of online
visual Infographic software, yet we stayed calm and dealt with our frustrations
by continuing to work hard on the assignment. I love making things look
visually appealing and messing around with new websites to make each
assignment look its best. I think this was the perfect way to display our
information about transcendental ideas because it is easy to read and shows
how Transcendentalism I still seen in the modern world around us. Overall, I
loved this assignment and wish we could have done more like this, especially
reaching into the second semester.
5) Prison Door Assignment:
While figuring out how to interpret Hawthornes description of the Prison Door
in The Scarlet Letter, I tried to imagine myself as Hawthorne writing his highly
acclaimed novel. When doing this, I interpreted the Prison Door to represent
the door to all of the sins. I believed that the door represents how people with
beauty and grace can easily change and sin. The roses near the door of the
prison represent this beauty and grace as they are closely connected with sin,
a connection that is much closer than you think. Most importantly, the prison
door represents the difference and fight between human sin and goodness.
This clearly shows the nature of human frailty throughout the story. I chose to
interpret the prison door this way because of Hawthornes contrast between
the sin and frailness of the situation he was describing. The roses by the
prison door clearly represent that sin is closely linked with good things and
that these good things sometimes may hide inside acts of sinning. As time
when went on, my interpretation of the prison door changed over the course
of reading the book. Readers begin to feel sympathetic towards Hester as she
does all she can to protect her daughter and escape her saddening fate. After
finishing reading the book, I believe that the roses actually represent that
some good and beautiful things come from sinful situations. In the Scarlet
Letter, this beautiful outcome is Pearl. Overall, The Prison Door assignment
was simple and brought great light to analyzing Hawthornes intentions of the
Prison Door as a symbol and prelude to the book.
6) Shamefest:

General Reflections for English

2016:

Shamefest was definitely an assignment that ranked high for me this year. Not
only did it further an understanding for the book The Scarlet Letter as a whole,
but it also allowed students to find their creative side to both art and writing. I
like how we were able to choose a popular icon that has committed a crime
similar or equal to that of Hesters and create our own story on how they have
sinned. I choose to exploit Sea World for cruelty of animals such as the Killer
Whale, or orcas as most know them. I choose the letter C as symbol of
cruelty and captivity. The silk blue represented the whales natural home, and
the ruffled black outline described the waves of sin that encompassed James
Atchison. I put careful detail into constructing my letter, just as the book
described Hesters. My creative writing described Atchison as being a
wretched human engulfed in his own guilt and sin. My goal was to capture this
in the construction of my letter C. I tremendously enjoyed completing this
assignment because its complexity inspired my creativity when reaching for a
polished piece that reflected my connection to the matter being described.
One of my favorite parts of this assignment is how we could pick the subject
matter; especially one I might have a personal connection to. I know that in
Mrs. Pritchards class the students had to complete the same assignment, but
shaming themselves. If I had to do that version of the assignment, I definitely
would not have enjoyed it quite as much. I think shaming yourself is harder to
be creative with because it is somewhat embarrassing. For next year, I think
the assignment should be the same for both classes, to complete a Shamefest
on a popular icon, not on oneself. Overall, I enjoyed letting my creative side
flow during this assignment and believe that I was successful in completing a
piece that echos Hawthornes writing in his first description of the scarlet
letter.
7) Realism & Naturalism Journals:
In our Realism journals, we analyzed parts of stories for elements of Realism.
The good part about the stories we read is that since they were Realistic
stories, they were extremely easy to understand. Authors during that time
period gave readers the facts simply and quickly, making the reading process
less tedious than most. Although, that does not account for the fact that the
stories were long. Having to read a story and do a formally written journal
became very time consuming. I think a longer due date for assignments to be
completed would have been helpful for optimal work. With the information we
learned during the Realism and Naturalism units, we were able to construct
formal and beautifully written journals that reflected the true connection
between the literary movements and their pieces. The writing process for
these journals was not as bad as it could get. If you truly understood the
meaning of each story, the journals were not as hard to complete. I was able
to complete the reading and journal in about an hour. Looking back now on
the journals, there is definitely an improvement in my journals as I got to the
end. I was able to obtain more vocabulary specifically aimed at analyzing
pieces for elements of Realism and Naturalism. Also, I was better at looking at
specific points in a story that related to the elements I was looking for. Overall,
as my writing improvement from the Realism journals, I gathered important
vocabulary and information regarding Realism and Naturalism.
8) Persuasive Essay Draft (WrAP Practice):
My main goal when completing the Persuasive Essay Draft was to train my
brain for the real WrAP that would take place the next day. I was most
concerned in using complex and educated vocabulary that would form
sentences that would reach my point as quickly as possible. I just wanted to
make sure that I had enough time to make sure all of my ideas were
communicated, in order to get the best possible score. In order to do this, I
briefly made a paragraph-by-paragraph outline that summarized concisely the

General Reflections for English

2016:

point I wanted to make in that paragraph. I believe that practicing how I was
going to plan the essay before the actual WrAP was extremely beneficial. I was
able to train my brown how to formulate an argument concisely and as quickly
as possible. After completing the persuasive essay draft, I felt a lot more
confident going into the Wrap. I feel that years prior, we were not prepared
well for the WrAP, and it just took us by surprise. I like how this assignment
helped us to prepare and become more comfortable for the actual day of
writing the WrAP. I intend to take this knowledge and information I learned
from the pre-writing process into other aspects of my writing. This shows me
that it is important to formulate ideas and prepare before jumping into the
writing. I think learning about the ethos, pathos, logos model for my essay
was extremely helpful when I was preparing my essay. This was a model of
persuasive essay that I didnt previously know about, and I believe it really
helped me formulate my ideas better. Overall, I think practicing persuasive
essays was extremely beneficial in my success creating a polished WrAP
essay.
9) Color Journals:
I believe that the color journals were beneficial in truly understanding F. Scott
Fitzgeralds goal in writing The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald proved a deeper
knowledge for the use of colors to portray an even deeper meaning to what
developed the characters emotionally. The color journals really did help me
understand Fitzgeralds intentions and helped me establish a closer
relationship with the Modern novel. The process of writing the journals was
quite interesting to me. By formulating what I thought each chapters color
was, I hopefully succeeded in creating journals that spoke to the reader and
showed a deep understanding for the connotation of Fitzgeralds brilliant
words. My main goal was to create journal entries that brought light to both
my understanding and Fitzgeralds understanding. What I found was especially
difficult about the writing process was the time constraint on the writing itself.
We had to read a long chapter every night and complete a journal that was
350 words or more. This became very tedious as time went on and if you
became behind one chapter, it only plummeted into a domino effect of late
work. Even though the journals became overwhelming as time went on, they
did help my writing tremendously. It is extremely prevalent that my writing
improved over the course of writing the journals. I was able to gain more
knowledge on how to complete each journal efficiently while gaining general
vocabulary and understanding that resulted in a polished journal entry.
Overall, the color journals were a big assignment, yet that helped me to
establish my style as journalist.
10)
The Great Gatsby Conversation Hearts:
I thought the Great Gatsby conversation hearts were a unique twist on
understanding the deeper meaning that Fitzgerald intentioned. Going along
with the theme of Valentines Day, we created Great Gatsby turned classic
conversation hearts to show the various interpersonal relationships in The
Great Gatsby. In my group, consisting of three people, we were each assigned
one conversation heart to come up with, support, and draw. I came up with
the conversation heart entitled U Sparkle which represented the relationship
between Gatsbys party guests and himself. I believed that his was an
extremely fitting slogan for the relationship between Gatsby and his
partygoers because it represents that his guests see him as a wealthy and
golden man that sparkles because of his elaborate parties. Other conversation
hearts we created were entitled Always and Its Lit. The Always
conversation heart represented the relationship between Daisy and Tom, as
she goes back to him after dealing with Gatsby because he is somewhat of a
security blanket for her. The Its Lit conversation heart was brought on by

General Reflections for English

2016:

11)

12)

the relationship between the people of West Egg and all that surround them.
This relationship shows there is a hope for a good time, a part and never
ending flow of money into the pleasures of the characters. When choosing
quotation to support our arguments about the relationships between the
characters described, we did not have that hard of a time finding the perfect
ones that illustrated the point we were trying to make. Overall, my group
worked very well in splitting up and completing the work to create a set of
conversation hearts that represented a broad range of important relationships
described in the book The Great Gatsby.
Poet Presentation:
I really enjoyed the poet presentation, as it was one of my favorite
assignments that we completed this year. After completing the long journey
that the research paper entailed, it was fun to present that interesting
information that we learned to our class. It was also a very unique
presentation because we were able to get into the character of our poet by
dressing up like them and talking in 1st person, as if we actually were our
poets. To prepare my presentation, I created an outline of what I would say
about the poet I selected to write my research on. I wanted to represent key
details about my poet that were interesting enough to keep the audience
engaged and interested. I started my presentation talking about the early life
of my poet and then reached deeper into analyzing some of my poets work. I
thought my presentation was fairly successful because I was able to portray
myself as a Modern poet, while still keeping my audience engaged in the
information I was presenting on. After presenting, I feel more confident
presenting on topics during English. We never really have the opportunity to
present on much during English, and really in any of my classes this year, so I
enjoyed have the opportunity to further my presentation skills. For future
presentations, I will now know to prepare my information in a way that I dont
get confused in my words. Most importantly, next time I want to be able to
engage my audience and keep their attention my not being afraid to go out on
the limb sometimes. Overall, I felt dressing up as my poet brought the entire
presentation together and created an environment that conducted positive
presentations and comfortable presenters.
Poet Book Cover:
The book cover was definitely my favorite assignment we have done the
entire year. I have always been especially good at creating complexly brilliant
assignments through PowerPoint, which is the program I used for this
particular assignment. I completely enjoyed creating a book cover that was
not only visually appealing by generally informational. I wanted it to be book
cover that stopped you in a bookstore and made you want to read the back.
My inspiration for the creation of the book cover was Sara Teasdales dramatic
shift in her writing style as her life passed on. She went from writing
simplistically beautiful poems to ones that reeked of death and fear, and I
illustrated that in my attempt to creative a book cover that grained from a
sweet pink to a deep black. The title I choose, Beyond all Beauty clearly
describes Teasdales escape from the simple pleasures of life to analyzing her
deepest and darkest fears. On the back of the book cover, I wanted to
persuade readers that is was collection of poems worth reading by giving
them interesting facts that highlighted her greatest accomplishments. I also
wanted the book cover to be as realistic as possible, so I included a publisher,
prices, and a bar code. I really enjoyed the process of creating this book cover
because it allowed me to use my creativity with graphic design. Overall, I
really enjoyed this assignment because it was unique and allowed me to be
creative in creating a book cover that was visually appealing for readers.