When I began to consider which two assignments I was most proud of, two immediately came to mind. The first was my Creative Project. I read the book Room by Emma Donoghue, and created a board game as a physical representation of Jack and Ma's escape from Room. This was my most favorite assignment/work, actually; I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, and I love creating things, so putting the two together was a fun experience. I felt that both my game and explanation had their strengths. I felt that my game was neat and creative, and I hope others viewed it as such because I spent more time than I would like to admit cutting and gluing those colorful squares to the board, as well as creating the game cards. I also felt that the cards captured many of the (disturbing) elements of the novel, since many of them had specific quotes to match the examples. I was proud of my explanation, too, because I felt it showed my understanding of the novel and the darker aspects of it. To many, this novel would seem strange because it is narrated by a five year old; however, it is exactly this aspect that makes the novel all the more disturbing, because Jack's lack of knowledge about his situation is appalling. The only weakness I saw in this project is that when I actually tried to play my game, it didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Obviously, the point of the project was not to make a perfect game, but I was hoping it would have worked out. This project taught me how to incorporate complex elements of a novel into a game; I have created things based on books before, but this novel was very complex and it forced me to really think about how I wanted to portray the themes of the novel.
The other work I am most proud of is my group's American Drama Project. The play that we read/acted out, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', was a very strange one indeed, but that proved to make the assignment all the more interesting. I felt that our acting, while certainly not Oscar-worthy, was decent given the nature of the characters we were portraying. I did my best to pretend to be a middle-aged man, and I think it worked out pretty well. Our explanation, though, was probably the better half of our project. I felt that it was very well written and hit on all of the points it was supposed to, and then some. A lot of hard work was put into this project, and I'm extremely happy with the grade that my group got, because I believe we deserved it. This project, in my mind, did not have any major weaknesses, and I would hope that our near-perfect score is enough evidence to back that claim up. If anything, I would admit that we could have done a little bit more with our video, or perhaps tried harder to make it look a little more realistic; however, I think everything else about our project made up for all of that.
In terms of participation in class, it is with a heavy heart that I admit I did not participate nearly as much as I would have liked to, especially in group projects. During this trimester, I took two other honors/AP classes, and was also participating in the longest tennis season I've had to date. That being said, I found it to be an honestly serious struggle to keep up with everything that was going on. During the first group presentations, there were many times when I came home from matches at 7, only to find that the majority of the presentation had been finished. I felt (and do still feel) awful for putting most of the work on my other group members, and I certainly do not want to make excuses, but there were days when I couldn't help that I was home late and had a lot of homework to do on top of those presentations. I truly and honestly tried my best, however, to contribute what I could and I made sure my group members knew of my situation so they didn't think I was slacking on purpose. While I'm sure they were still upset (I don't blame them at all), they were very understanding, and I'm very grateful for that.
After the tennis season ended mid-October, I found it to be much easier to participate. This was, hopefully, seen in my group's American Drama Project. I chose to take on one of the two larger roles in the play so that I could contribute more. I ended up not contributing as much to the final paper as I had liked; I typed up the scenes (dialogue) that were in the final paper, and was a part of all of the conversations about the final analysis, but the day that portion was typed up in class, I was pretty sick, so I wasn't at school. I told them that I would do anything they needed from my house, but they told me not to worry; once again, I was very grateful for their understanding, but I felt like "that person" who gets a good grade but doesn't contribute. I wanted to make sure my individual papers reflected the hard work that I do put into my writing, and I think that especially with my Hamlet essay, I did that. I am excited for third trimester, because I know I will have a lot more time to contribute, and I would really like to do that.
My goals for the trimester were very broad and, as I later realized, not very good goals. I needed more short term ones. However, I am going to try and address them anyhow. One of my short-term goals was to be able to define more poetic terms and literary devices on the multiple choice tests. I also wanted to be able to "choose between A and C - and choose correctly." I think that I was definitely able to do that; my score went from a 75 to an 89 by the end of the trimester, and I am very pleased with that. I spent a lot of time after the first test looking up terms and whatnot in order to help me with corrections, but that didn't prove to be enough, as I only raised my grade about 7 percentage points. I paid more attention to terms in class throughout the trimester and studied for the final exam ahead of time. This time, my intial score wasn't much higher than my first, but with corrections, I was able to easily eliminate answers and bump it nearly 20 percent. All in all , I think I have met my short term goals, but there is still plenty of room for improvement during third trimester.
On my blog, I listed three long term goals: to earn an A in this class, to earn at least a 4 on the AP exam, and to succeed. These are all very broad goals, but I think I have done a decent job of working towards achieving them. As of now, I have an A in this class, and I truly hope it stays that way after everything is said and done. If so, then I can say I met my first goal. As for the AP exam, I obviously cannot discuss that yet, but I do feel more prepared for it now than I did 12 weeks ago. I know more literary terms, and I know how to better analyze poetry. Hopefully, I will meet that goal this spring. My third goal - and my most broad - was to succeed. I suppose I would define success as meeting my previous goals, and then feeling happy with myself at the end of it all. Feeling more prepared for college, since I am majoring in creative writing/English literature, also seems like a good definition for success. While I know that there is still plenty more to learn and achieve in this class, I still feel that I achieved some degree of success. I can't wait to see what happens third trimester; I can only go up from here.
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