Sophomore Summary

As I look back at all that I have done this year all I can think to say is WOW! I cannot believe that this year is over. I think that I have completed more reading this year in English than I have in my entire 16 years of existence. I have enjoyed reading this year, for a change. I loved being able to write journals on the books that we read. As you can tell from my Journal Page. When the idea of reading a book every two weeks came about, I have to say that I was really scared. I did not think that I could complete a 200 and then some page book in just two weeks. But after I completed it, I felt great. I loved reading and writing about Catcher in the Rye. As of now Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book. The idea of letting the students read and digest the book on their own is a much better philosophy than to have a teacher pick apart every detail. I really enjoyed the reading selections and the group discussions.

This year I do believe that I have made vast improvement on my writing skills, however I am aware that they still need some work. I enjoyed being able to describe a setting. My favorite writing piece of the whole year is the poemthat I was able to write about the book Angela's Ashes and describe it's setting through poetry. Journal writing has helped me become aware of what is going on in the text and it has also helped me dissect the text by analyzing and understanding the story not just what is written, but why a character might act a certain way or what is ironic in a certain part of the book. I find that journal writing helps me to understand and comprehend the novel with greater ease. I know that I have a long way to go in my analytical essays. I still have tendency to summarize and not analyze. Which I am sure you can see at: Analytical Essay.

Throughout the year this class was very creative. Instead of normal vocabulary quizzes in the beginning of the year, we had on going chains of stories that incorporated our vocabulary words. I thought that using a story to learn vocabulary was a great and interesting. I feel as though I have improved tremendously in my vocabulary. I came into Honors English II with a very weak vocabulary, but as the year went by my vocabulary improved. After reading the play Oedipus by Sophocles, Mr. Luizzi let our class write our characters in different colloquial language. You can view my piece at: