1st Semester Reflection

 Throughout the first semester, I think growth is an understatement of a word to describe how I've come in my writing. Not to sound like I'm tooting my own horn because I promise I'm not, but I think my writing has changed greatly since the beginning of the school year. 

To start, the depths of my work have increased greatly. All this talk about the "meaning of the work as a whole" has started to make some sense to me. It has become significantly easier for me to identify the themes and motifs in a story, after so much practice in class between the short stories, poems, plays, and novels we've read. 

Another thing I can confirm has improved would be my inclusion of diverse vocabulary in my writing. Blogs are a different story, because they are a more casual style of writing, however, I have gotten a lot better at phrasing and summarizing in a way that makes the writing sound a lot more sophisticated than it is. 

Although I am still working towards getting that sophistication point in some of my essays, personally I am proud of all the vocabulary I have learned to incorporate in my writing so far this year. 

Something that has really challenged me, however, was the play reading. Even with the class discussions and group readings, I still find plays very hard to follow because of the complex language. I don't love reading plays, so that was something I struggled with first semester, however I started getting the hang of them after a few practices. 

Another thing I struggled with was the harkness discussions, because although I had read the material and wanted to speak, I found myself very nervous to contribute to the conversations sometimes because of the intensity sparked from the people within the circle. 

Overall, I am proud of the progress I've made this semester and hope I can continue to make more to prepare myself for the AP Exam this year!