Thursday, May 22, 2008

Reflective Essay, last assignment.

I remember walking on the third floor C house classroom on the first day of school. As I took my seat, I was wondering what the class could possibly offer. I looked around noticed that I was one out of 30 in the class. Well, a packed classroom, I said to myself, but what else? I was in for some surprises, I knew that much. While in my seat, I kept wondering if switching from English senior CP to English Honors was the right decision. I had Mr G. freshman year, so I figured it the class would some what relatively the same as my freshman year. And before something is said, yes, I heard all the rumors from previous students about how Mr. G was a maniac when it came to the workload in his class. I figured it couldn't be that much different though. I would just move from CP to Honors. I would have the same teacher if I did decide to stick with CP anyway. So I figured, hey, why not give this a shot. So I did. And still, to this day, I'm not sure if I was the best decision in my whole high school career or my worst. It does not matter anymore, though. The class is over.
Where should I start? This class has helped me tremendously with my writing skills, and
many other writing techniques. Before I entered room C333, my writing couldn't even be called writing. I had hoped by taking Mr. G's senior honors class, my writing level would jump from meager to what I would consider satisfactory. And I believe that my writing skill had from taking this class. When I entered this class, I was someone lost to literature. I have never had the experience of writing an explication or understood words like analysis, or meaning. A year of this class had helped me achieve so much that I could not possibly imagine if I was to be put in a different class.
When I read a book before, I never looked for meaning or depth. Let alone author’s purpose. Now, that’s all I look for. My papers were plain and boring- no depth, no meaning, nothing. I had no knowledge of what a research paper was or what a critical essay was. Within one month of the class, my knowledge shifted from being lost to being secure. Thanks to this class, I probably written two essays within the first month of class and took multiply vocab quizzes. I will miss a lot when I leave room C333, but I will not miss those vocab quizzes. Even though the vocab had increased the creativeness in my writing, I dreaded the vocab. Every day when I walked into class, I dreaded being the one called up to put my sentence on the board. Fortunately, I was never called. I learned the trick of not being called, don’t look at Mr. G. My trick had helped me till the end of 2nd quarter.
I can’t believe it. This is the last assignment due for this class. Some days, I felt the workload will never end. I remember nights when I will stay up till 2 or 3 in the morning trying to finish a paper due the same day. That James Joyce critical essay was brutal. I finished the paper at 3 in the morning and two hours later I received an email stating that Mr. G would not be in class that day. I was infuriated. I stayed up all morning for nothing. And, as I find out later that the paper wouldn’t be due until days later, put me in a even more rotten mode. Those days are behind me now, though.
As I am about to finish this paper, I look back at all those memories I cherished in this class. I never had a teacher who made their classes humorous, up until this year. It’s a sad feeling knowing that I would leave this class for good and will not be coming back. But thanks to this class, I learned how to write an explication, how to conduct as research paper, and much more. Thanks to this class, I enter college with a strong hold of literature and confident in my writing.

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