Blog Reflection

Honors English 1A Blog Reflection

Annie Backs

Bell Four

Feb 21, 2014

This trimester I have really grown as a reader and writer. Blogging weekly has helped me read deeper into my novels and look closely for specific details. This has also helped me improve my writing skills by being able to compare and contrast with outside sources to my current books, writing summaries, and many more things. This trimester I read 2 books and I did meet my goal. I will admit I could have done more though. The second book I chose was no where near as good as my first one so, I had a harder time engaging myself in. The two books I read are, “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Premeditated”. Good-reads played 100% of a part in my book choosing! I think it's really a great way for students to find books they really enjoy. I know that I have a hard time sitting myself down to read and when I have a book I'm interested in, this just makes reading so much easier and more enjoyable.

One thing I struggled with in this experience (blogging and reading) I struggled with keeping up on my yellow sheet (mainly with commenting). I got all of my comments done, but, I didn't always do them the week that I needed to. This gave me more work in the long run. One of my strengths in blogging was summarizing. I think I did a good job when it came to summarizing and throughout the trimester I got more and more practice. Summarizing is something I'm going to do throughout my whole life so the more practice the better right?

My understanding of theme and character growth over the trimester has increased by sooo much! At the beginning of the trimester, writing a thematic statement was really challenging for me. However, we practiced a ton and now I understand how to write a theme statement. Writing about character growth hasn't been quite as challenging for me but, writing blogs has helped me improve on analyzing different character traits.

http://charliesreadingblo.blogspot.com/2013/11/big-girl-small.html#comment-form

My first blog this trimester talks about Judy Lohen and her characterization. At this time I feel like I did less describing the character and more of trying to use big words, and well written figurative language. While those things are important, you don't want a metaphor in every sentence, or have every word so complex that its hard to understand what you're trying to say and explain.

http://charliesreadingblo.blogspot.com/2014/02/behavior-premeditated.html#comment-form

My more recent blog post in this trimester is talking about the characteristics of Dinah in Premeditated. While I still use good vocabulary and well written sentences, I also do a better job of explaining what kind of person Dinah is. Such as, describing how she looks, her expressions, how she acts around other people and how she treats them, what thoughts go on in her head, etc..

I really think blogging this trimester improved many skills of mine that I will be able to take advantage of in the future. It has helped not only me become a better writer but also all of the other students blogging.

Predicitions - Premeditated

Right now in Premeditated, Dinah is still hating on Brooks for his actions towards her cousin Claire. My future predictions for this book are that Brooks and Dinah are going to end up really liking eachother. Dinah is going to realize that Brooks has changed since the bad things he did to Claire and Claire will get better. I think this predicition will happen because I think that people always deserve another chance. Life makes people learn and although some people don't learn from their  mistakes, many do and clean up their act. Brooks is probably feeling really guilty for the way he treated Claire and I think that will make him a better person in the long run because he will know not to do whatever he did to her again.

Behavior - Premeditated

Behavior in different books can vary based on how the book is set up. In premeditated much of the behavior of characters is relating to stereotyping people. At the beginning of this book, Dinah is attending a new school and as she is learning new people's names, she puts them into specific categories as if they all belonged to a specific stereotype because of how they looked. One example of Dinah putting people into different categories is when she first meets Abigail-not-Abby. Abigail-not-Abby is characterized by Dinah as "a girl who wore her life on her face", one of those who follows rather than leads. So far I really like this book and recommend it to anyone looking for something to read.