One quarter done, 15 more to go...(extra credit blog)

Wow! One fourth of the year is gone. Those days have gone by so quickly.
Looking back to the first day in September I realize this english class was my first impression of high school. There has been a great deal of lessons, units, and assignments. As I sit here thinking about the units of which I could write this blog on, I feel that there are so many important ones to choose from. My favorite assignment thus far has been making a movie for Pride and Prejudice because I enjoyed acting very much. Yet, I think the most important lesson has been learning to correctly write a thesis statement. The ability to summarize a paper, poem, essay, lab write up, thank you note, etc. no matter what the length is very important. Before, when I would write a paper I would spend maybe a minute creating one. Now I know the thesis is the base of the paper and must be spot on perfect. This is a skill that will no go away. It will be used not only in english class, but in every class for the rest of my years in education. It is thrilling to know I am improving in this area, and I am very thankful for being taught this unit so early in my high school years.

Lobsters are in a glass tank. Am I?

Before our class started discussing poetry, whenever the word poem came up, in my mind I would think of ether little children’s rhyming poems or some very long piece of writing that contained a very deep meaning and was often times extremely boring. At a first glance this is how the poem "Lobsters" by Howard Nemerov appeared to me. "It’s a poem about lobsters...great." I thought in a quite sarcastic tone. Yet after fully analyzing the true meaning under the surface of this poem, and reading through it a good amount of times my initial assumption was wrong. For me the question most eye opening was brought up about how we are like lobsters in a tank at "Super Duper"; we as people are out of place and awaiting the known fact of death. This is so true. Lobsters are brought in from the ocean and put in a tank for people to bring home and eat.

This poem made me look at my life and the poem through a new perspective. "Why are we peopling here?" "Is death really coming for me?" Life is so short, and I guess the true meaning behind the poem is we as people are only really lobsters. We are waiting to be "thrown into the pot" and boiled. I could die tomorrow, so could you, or maybe I’ll live to 100. I know death will come, but this poem made me realize I may not know when.

Before, I was wrong. There can be an understandable idea in poems. The reader just has to look hard enough to find it.  

5 part paragraph critique

After listening to many 5 part paragraphs I think I have heard almost every single view of the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Some papers were very interesting to listen to and other not so much. All of the main critique that were repeatedly mentioned all related to the quotes chosen. If the concrete details are not perfect and completely supportive of the topic sentence then the paper will not be as good as it could be. I think that if some papers had this change they would be much more exciting.

My paper personally took a lot of time and I feel I put my best effort into it. However there are some areas in which I could improve.  One of my critiques was to bring up a topic to the topic sentence that was in the concluding sentence. If I had added this sentence I would have had a much more thorough paper and a complete thought of the theme I had chosen.