End of The Year Reflections

As I sit here and reflect on my ELA class this past year, my brain fills with information, memories, and other nostalgic thoughts that I will cherish forever. I ponder about what was the most important, though, and my mind goes blank. Every piece of information, every word that was read is important to know and I almost cannot choose. But, I can narrow it down to the important things for life, since some of it just gives me a good laugh. The number one important thing I learned to do this year that will help me in the future, is annotating. Before this year, I never annotated. I’m not sure I had even heard of the concept. But, after many long chapters annotated to the fullest, I can honestly say that I know how to annotate. I have even found myself annotating books read on my free time, not even realizing it until it’s done. I know I will find myself annotating books in the future, just to fully understand the words being read. Annotating is a skill that I will hold on to forever.

I cannot tell what the future will hold, but I can predict what might happen, and what I will remember. One thing that I think that I will remember, for possibly the rest of my life, is the To Kill A Mockingbird unit. This unit included the most annotating I have done in my life, the reading of a complex book, the making of many tedious socratic seminars, and a feast. The feast was probably the most memorable event to me, since it was the finale to the unit. And, we all brought food and ate together, which was a very rare event I will probably remember this for a long time. All of these events were interesting to me, and gave me many stories to tell and memories to think about.

This class was, in general, very nice to me and other classmates. I remember countless times where a classmate filled me in on something I missed or explained something to me that I didn’t understand. It would be unfair of me to prioritize any of these everyday kind gestures. So, I do not have a “nicest thing someone in our class did”, due to there being so many nice gestures and so many nice people.

I would like to think that I have taught someone in my classroom something this year, but I don’t know because I haven’t heard anyone mention it. I’m sure that I have taught my classmates small things, like how to do an essay if they needed clarification or what to annotate about if they didn’t know. But, I haven’t taught anyone anything major, or I would certainly know about it. Honestly, I don’t think I have ever taught anyone a life lesson or anything major like that. But, I am fine with that because I do what I can and I try to always try my best.

As I look back on this past year, I can see many aspects that I improved in. I improved in my writing, my reading, my annotating, and even my social skills somewhat. But, I think the biggest improvement I made was in my reading and annotating. Now, I can fully understand the text being read, through my annotating, which is an improvement in both of the reading and the annotating aspect. In a way, these aspects are connected because they affect each other. So, it makes sense that these would be the two areas that I improve in. I have improved in annotating from all of the practice I have gotten from To Kill A Mockingbird, Night, and Of Beetles And Angels. Now, I have noticed that I am annotating in my free choice reading books not even thinking about it. This is something that I am proud of.

This year, I experienced the perfect amount of challenges in my ELA class. I wasn’t overwhelmed by all the challenges, but I also wasn’t bored by the lack of challenges. But, even with all these challenges there was probably one challenge that stood out among the rest. This challenge is referred to as “Socratic Seminars”. Socratic seminars were really stressful to me and I always just couldn’t do them right. Since I typically tend to be a quiet person, having a conversation with the entire class is difficult to me. I always found myself unable to talk even when I had something to say. But, after many of these socratic seminars, I had my best socratic seminar of the year, which happened to be the last one with Mrs.Larson present. I talked about four times during this particular socratic seminar, which is good compared to my average of one or two times. I feel like next year, this concept of socratic seminars will be less of a challenge for me.

I did lots of writing this year, through blogs, essays, stories, etc. When I look back, it is almost unbelievable how many words I actually wrote. So, I cannot say which was my “best” piece of the year. But, in this passage I will determine which of these pieces of writing isn’t the best. By doing this, I will find out which is one of the best. As I sit here and think about my writing, I realize that the passages I wrote in the beginning of the year were not the best. I had almost no experience with writing when I began this year. I recall not knowing what I was doing, and therefore rushing through them, not doing my best. I grimace when I reread my first writings of the year, noticing so many more mistakes, and so much more I could have done. So, I have to say that my recent writing has got to be my best, since I’ve had much more experience and have learned so much more things.

Most of the books I have read this year were enjoyable to me and I cannot possibly decide which of these was my overall favorite. But, I can say that one that I would consider a favorite was To Kill a Mockingbird. I liked this book a lot because it had a perfect proportion of fiction to history. In the reading of this book, I heard an interesting story, and also learned useful facts. I also learned about the events of The Great Depression, which I found interesting. Plus, I got to read about the classic story of Scout, Jem, and Atticus, which I had been waiting to read.

Now that I have almost completed my ELA class of the 2018-2019 school year, I have so much more experience, I am so much more wise, and I am so much better at things than I used to be. So, I must give the future students of Mrs.Larson’s ELA class some advice. The first advice I would give them would be to just try your best and you will do great. I would tell them to have faith that you will do good, and you will do good. Also, check your work again and again to make sure you did you best work. And, finally, I would tell them that less is sometimes more.