Portfolio Draft

In the beginning of the year, Ms.Dunn assigned us the project of creating a "Me Magazine”. The magazine contains articles, pictures, and facts about your life. In my magazine, I put three articles that are written on my inspiration for music, passion for the Twilight Saga, and Christmas that my family attends each year. A reason for creating this project was so we could reflect on our work at the end of the year. After reviewing my magazine in May, I seen how much I improve on my academic life. 

In the second quarter benchmark, we were learning about vignettes. A vignette is a story that illustrates a short episode in life. We read multiple examples of vignettes and we were assigned to create a vignette about an important part in our lives. I chose to write about my third grade year. The vignette explains important details in the year that lead up to my two front teeth being chipped. These important details have changed me to become who I am now and for that I titled this piece Karma.

In the middle of the school year, independent reading assignments were assigned to us all. I choose to write my review on the book Eclipse from the Twilight Saga written by Stephanie Meyer. The book is the third book in the series and because of that, it answers the questions that left readers in suspense. This is a book that I recommend to many.

The third quarter of English, we focused on reading varies of literature. A major book that we read was The Odyssey by Homer. After analyzing the book the class was assigned multiple assignments. One major assignment was our third quarter benchmark, and another was the myth project. For the benchmark, we had to create a comparison essay between a character from The Odyssey and another from a different piece of literature of our choice. I choose to compare the character Penelope from The Odyssey with Bella Swan from the Twilight Saga. In the essay, the thesis-Although Penelope & Bella are left behind, Penelope is stronger and uses her intelligence to survive- is supported.

The myth project was an assignment that allowed each person from the class choose a myth from The Odyssey. I choose the Muses to focus on. More than that, I focused particularly on the fifth Muse Terpsichore. Terpsichore is the goddess of choral songs and dance. I presented this project in a paper and also on a poster board. The project tells her myth and gives more background information for better understanding.

Journals

The following journals are my reflection to the questions and topics that came up in class throughout the entire school year.

1) What are some expectations that are put on you as a person?

Most of the time, a lot of pressure is put on me. Most of the time I can handle it. Some expectations that are put upon me are success, and being depended on. My personal opinion on the pressure and expectations is that it should be thrown away a little at a time. My family is successful in their careers and overall life. For me, that success feels promised to me when its not fully guaranteed.  My expectations of myself are success and doing the right things in the right ways. I also expect myself to know certain things and to act certain ways to maintain the most important expectations. One of my most self-expectations is to never get hurt or lose. I know that even if I don’t perform to at 100%, that it’s coming later. Sometimes it just takes patience to see it.

2) How does your environment shape who you become?

My environment meaning my surroundings and the people I am around. These things affect me by easily influencing me. If the people I am around are a bad influence then sooner or later I will pick up bad habits from them. Bad habits like cursing or slacking around and not worrying about what may come next. Eventually I will loose those habits by picking up better habits from better environments. If I am in an organized, clean and safe place then my world will adjust to that. A working environment has the best affect than them all. That way I am easily influenced to be hard working, happy and at peace. I was shaped mostly by a hard working and dreaming environment yet I was easily influenced by opportunity abused habits.

After reviewing my ninth grade English portfolio, I see that I have improved in many ways. Working hard in many areas of work used to be a dread to me, something that I struggled with, but now I see that once I have a topic that is enjoyable to me, I can easily get things done. Working in this class this year has made that possible. With a little more focus, I know that I will enter tenth grade prepared with a smile on my face and inspiration on my mind.