Semester 1 Reflection

The independent reading I did this semester consisted of Lexicon, by Max Berry, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, and Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. I'll start with Lexicon. It was pretty good but it was very confusing. It always had me "on the eadge of my seat" even though it was a book. Overall I enjoyed it and I'm glad I read it. Now on to my multicultural memoir. I loved this book. It was hard to read at some times but it really taught me not to take things for granted. I also enjoyed connecting it to The Color of Water and learning how people stand up for their beliefs. Life of Pi was my favorite of the three and I loved every bit of it. All the symbolism and metaphors intertwined into the characters, animals, and struggles Pi went through. It really helped me see past what I remember from the movie. I read all of these books through suggestions on good reads and suggestions from friends.

I think overall that my blog was strong and experienced lots of improvement despite the fact that I completely fell behind the on-task mark. I started strong with Alex Woods and Lexicon but drifted off during the month of October. I thought my multi-cultural memoir post was strong as well as my Life of Pi posts. I thought I did a really good job on displaying symbolism, also figurative language, and the deeper parts and meaning of the novels. My weakest blog post was probably the Lexicon one because it was all over the place. It felt like it was just a bunch of summarized sentences. I mostly did great with textual evidence and visuals and supporting my quotes with good reasoning.

I have three goals I really need to work on following for the upcoming semester. I want to read a lot more balanced out instead of having to cram for the blog post due dates, I want to be on top of my blog and care a lot more about it than I do now, and I also want to be more active in my friend's blogs and try to regularly check their posts. By doing those things I think that I will want to read more than I do and it will help me be more enthusiastic about writing and English as well. Blogging is only labored if you make it that way. It is supposed to be fun and is. I hope to improve as a student next semester.