2nd Quarter Reflections

In English Language Arts I think I made my biggest improvement with annotating and being able to explain my thoughts out loud. For example, I improved a lot on the Socratic seminars for Of Mice and Men, which deal a lot with this skill. Last year when I did Socratic seminars I only contributed to the conversation once or possibly twice. But this quarter, I talked four or five times during the seminars. This is an improvement that I planned out as a goal for myself. I worked at getting my thoughts together in a way that would make it easy for me to push them into the conversation. I met my goal and improved with the Socratic seminar itself, as well as my grade for it. To do this I had to have more thorough annotations in my book. I improved with the quality of the annotations in my book. When I think of the annotations I made last year, they seem like they were slightly vague and didn’t have much to do with the blogs that we wrote about the book later. But this year it seems like I dug deeper into my reading and understood my book further. I could tell that I improved when I was writing my blogs. Previously I would have to reread parts to find the information that I needed, but this year I could flip to the spot and there would likely be an annotation giving me the information or an idea that I needed. This likely helped me additionally improve on my blogs, but I mainly improved on my annotations.

        The most challenging part of 2nd Quarter was probably writing essays and blogs. I would always sit or zone out because I couldn’t think of what to write. When I did this I would likely need to do these for homework and I also procrastinated with that too. But, I started making sure that I was in a quiet place when I did my work so that I could focus and be able to do my best work. This ended up working and I have been able to get all of my work done.

       There have been many different strategies that have benefited me for different things. One strategy has been annotating in all my books. Even when I am reading a personal reading book that isn’t being checked and I’m not going to have to write something about, I have found myself annotating just so I have a better understanding. With doing this, I don’t need to reread parts and I have a better overall understanding of what I’m reading. Another strategy that has helped me is asking other people for their thoughts on what I have written. This helps me see another point of view on my writing and be able to make improvements on it. My final strategy that I have been using is asking the person sitting next to me for help when I need it. Whether it’s an instruction that I’m confused about or a certain word I can’t remember, asking the person next to me helps a lot. In the past I have just sat silently being confused, but now I always know what to do.

I commented on Delilah’s blog, Ava’s blog, and Yolihuani’s blog.

Exploring Nonfiction Reader Response- The Diary of a Young Girl

In June 1942 Anne Frank began writing a diary about her life as a Jew during The Holocaust. In her diary she talks to Kitty, an imaginary friend about what is happening in her life and what she is experiencing. As the foreword of The Diary of a Young Girl says, “Initially, she wrote it strictly for herself. Then one day in 1944, Gerrit Bollestein… announced on a radio broadcast from London that after the war he hoped to collect eyewitness accounts of the suffering of the Dutch people under the German occupation.” Anne decided to do this which eventually made it possible for readers to follow the sufferings of The Holocaust Anne experienced. Anne watches as her life is turned upside down when she had to go into hiding to avoid being possibly sent to a death camp. But even before the call, life for Jews had been becoming increasingly worse for the past two years. Nazi’s anti- Jewish laws restricted them from being in cars, owning bicycles, being out after 8pm, or going to any form of entertainment. Now in their hiding place in The Secret Annex hidden by a door and a bookcase they must be as careful as possible to not be seen.

The whole of Anne Frank’s diary I have found interesting so far. It’s weird to think of someone actually having to go through these treacherous things as a child. One of the passages that has a large impact on me is when Anne’s friend Hello left and was going to come back later. Anne was waiting for him as the book says, “At three o’ clock ... the doorbell rang… I was out on the balcony, lazily reading in the sun. A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. ‘Father has received a call up notice from the SS.” This passage of the diary shows how suddenly things could change for people during The Holocaust. One minute a thirteen year old girl could be sitting in the sun reading peacefully waiting for her friend to come over. The next minute she could be hurriedly packing up her favorite belongings to flee the fate of going to a concentration camp. This is why I find this passage interesting. I can feel myself start to step into the shoes of all of the people who suffered during The Holocaust.

I have learned many things about The Holocaust through the life of Anne Frank. Some of these things will stick with my for the time being due to them being either horrific or being something that allows me to put myself in their shoes and get a hint at what they were facing. One of the passages in Anne’s story stands out so far more than others. The text states, “It’s sweltering… I have to walk everywhere. Only now do I realize how pleasant a streetcars is, but we Jews are no longer allowed to make use of this luxury.” In my own life I think about if I wasn’t allowed to be in a car and it seems like it would be very difficult to do. It’s absurd that Jews wouldn’t be able to drive a car or even get a ride from others when the weather is bad.This is another reason why it will stick with me. Something else from Anne’s life that will stick with me is how early Anne’s parents started moving their furniture to The Secret Annex and how the parents hid their planned move for so long. I never really thought about this before reading this book and now I have been thinking about it recently. The facts and information I got from The Diary of a Young Girl will stick with me for a while.