Category: reflection
What Works?
Honors Reflection Essay
Honors Reflection Essay Assignment
Honors Reflection Essay Prompt: After carefully reviewing the writing and assessments you have completed over the course of the year, write a reflection essay that demonstrates your understanding of your strengths as a writer, reader, and thinker and the areas in which you have grown as a writer, reader, and thinker this year. Your essay should be structured as an argument, and as such, it should include a thesis statement and specific textual evidence (quotes) from your work throughout the year to support that thesis. An exemplary essay will be deeply and honestly reflective, will explicitly analyze the ways in which the student’s growth has led to a change in behavior, and will demonstrate an awareness of an area for future growth as a reader, writer, and/or thinker.
Details:
- 400 and 500 word count
- Completed in and out of class
- Three drafts minimum Typed, Double Spaced, MLA header, Times New Roman 12 pt, 1 Inch Margins
- Graded according to the attached rubric Counts as 25% of your fourth quarter grade
Blood of Olympus Or End of Olympus?
By Gwyneth Schloer
The giants have risen along with thousands of long passed-away monsters who have only one thought on their minds: “Awake Gaea and take revenge”. In this finale to a long and adventure-filled series, heroes Annabeth, Jason, Percy, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Nico, Frank, Reyna, and Coach Hedge are aboard the Argo II trying to save the world from destruction, as the Greek and Roman camps attempt to slaughter each other.
The Mother Earth Goddess, Gaea, is rising from her once eternal slumber, and the only thing in the way of her rising, is the blood of a male and female hero, the Blood of Olympus. If she wakes, it is almost certain the world will end. Caught up in their petty rivalry that has taken place for hundreds of years, the Roman camp doesn’t even know that they should be helping the heroes fight against Gaea. Malicious, self-centered and evil Octavian decides it is the camp’s best interest to target and kill the Greek camp in order to end the God’s silence. What the Romans and Octavian don’t know is that the Gods are silent because they are suffering from an extreme case of multiple personailty disorder. Due to the conflict taking place between the Romans and the Greeks, the Roman and Greek sides of the Gods both want their side to win, so the Gods’ brains are constantly switching between personalites. In order to stop this so that the Gods can assist in the saving of the world, the two sides must stop fighting. Only then will the demigods and Gods be able to team up and defeat Gaea and her evil army of Giants. With Octavian in charge manipulating the Roman legion’s minds, there is no chance that peace will happen any time soon. The only chance that the Greeks have at surviving relies on the Athena Parthenos statue that was retrieved by the demigod heroes. It is said that the statue has magical powers, so the heroes decide this might be a good way to defend the Greeks from the pending Roman attack. The only trouble is, how are they to get it across the world in such a small amount of time? On the other side of the world, while Reyna, Nico, and Coach Hedge attempt to bring the Athena Parthenos to Long Island, its home, the heroes on Argo II are trying to kill all the giants that have risen in order to make sure they don’t succeed in awaking Gaea.
Writer Rick Riordan provides an outstanding ending to his five-part epic, Heroes of Olympus, in The Blood of Olympus. Not only does he bring back the stories of the Gods and the heroes, but he also inserts jokes, slang, references, and items relevant to today’s society, such as a Wii remote and the series Doctor Who. The dynamic characters, or heroes, in The Blood of Olympus represent the ideal humans and their flaws and imperfections. Even the relationships between each character were carefully thought out based on what mood the character was in, who was in the room, and what had just happend or what was about to happen. In this desperate fight to stop the ever-nearing end of the world, the author mixed in stories of love, tragedy, and comedy. This modern twist on Greek and Roman mythology deserves a full five-star rating.
Being Harish Karumuri
Being Harish Karumuri
The book is very well written, using a sense of living life to its fullest, feeling loss, and joy of a person trying to find out who he really is. This also has a scenario of what to do when life is controlling you, not the other way around.
The main character, who goes by many different names, but mainly as a character named “Hank”, wakes up at Penn Station without knowing who he is. The first person he sees is a psychopath named “Frankie,” a guy who will eat anything from ID cards to wallets and pages of books. The only items Hank has are a 10 dollar bill and a book called, “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, an abolitionist with many careers such as an author and a poet. Thoreau has a major effect on the book by giving Hank a pathway through the story, giving him a person to connect and feel to, especially when no one was with him. This book personifies a quote by Thoreau; “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
A good component of the story is the adventure. Hank has no idea about who he is or where he is from, but tries to figure out when life starts to stress him out, especially when he accidentally kills someone. Led by the book in his hands, he goes to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts in order to see if he can remember who he is.
The upbeat part of the story is when Hank meets a person named Jack, who gives him shelter, food, and a job at the library. He then befriends many people, and even gets a girlfriend. Life seems to be simple, and most of all, he seems to be happy. However, he still goes searching for who he is and wants to figure out how he got to the place he was at now. Throughout the book, there seems to be a struggle between himself and a “beast” that seems to guard his memory and prevent him from remembering his past. However, once he finally gets information about himself, he freaks out trying to figure out what he should do next.
The end was very beautiful, as he begins to see everything come through. In spite of the hardships to leaving this new life, he decides to go back to who he really was and live his old life. That “struggle” is what makes the entire story very well written and enjoyable to read. This was one of those moments where I wished I could cry. It was just that moving.
As I mentioned before, the story gives a meaning behind “build your life”. You have control of your life; your life does not control you.
I feel that a story is made through emotions, actions, and interactions. The emotions are what the person is thinking behind his actions, and those actions lead into interactions with other people, other objects, and themselves. Cal Armstead has used those components very well making the book have an uplifting feeling inside of you after seeing or witnessing something emotional and inspiring.
I clearly remember the feeling that I got after I finished reading the book. I was struggling to go to sleep as the thoughts I had about the book were swirling through my head. I was and am truly glad about joining the club and deciding to give the book a shot.
As Thoreau said in Walden, “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” This quote is the meaning behind this story and for that reason, and the reasons before, I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read this book.
Optional reflection for students who want to increase SS grade.
Q1 Reflection Summary of Responses
96 responses
Summary
What Works? Determine which aspect of the class benefits you most. Describe what this aspect is and why it is helpful.
Process Writing
Reflect on the Process Writing Project implemented this semester. What about the process is the most helpful? What is the biggest hindrance? Explain why your final draft is/is not better as a result of the process.
Literature Survey
Explain the literature structure(the way we study it as opposed to the stories themselves) of the course as you understand it. Give at least two detailed reasons you feel comfortable (or uncomfortable) linking the literary terms we presented in class, or the big questions, to the stories we studied.
On a scale of It Was Awesome to I Still Don’t Get It, how did you feel about the Story and the Storyteller project?
1 | 37 | 39% |
2 | 39 | 41% |
3 | 12 | 13% |
4 | 7 | 7% |
5 | 1 | 1% |
Were there any components of the project(or future projects in this class) that you would like to see changed? How?
Reflect on your performance on the Story and Story Project. Based on the work that you put into it, what grade do you feel you should have earned on the project?
A | 51 | 53% |
B | 34 | 35% |
C | 7 | 7% |
D | 0 | 0% |
F | 0 | 0% |
0 | 0% |
Independent Reading
How many books have you read for the Independent Reading segment of this class?
1 | 24 | 25% |
2 | 24 | 25% |
3 | 17 | 18% |
4 | 16 | 17% |
5 | 3 | 3% |
6 | 3 | 3% |
7 | 1 | 1% |
8 | 2 | 2% |
9 | 2 | 2% |
10 | 4 | 4% |
How does reading conferencing increase your understanding of your Independent reading? If it does not, how could the conference or IR time be altered to better serve your needs as a reader?
Technology
Detail your view of the iRockEnglish ClassBlog, VISION, email, RemindHQ or other tech as a classroom tool.
Odds and Ends
What grade do you feel you have earned in this class?
A | 58 | 60% |
B | 28 | 29% |
C | 7 | 7% |
D | 0 | 0% |
F | 3 | 3% |
Do you feel that your grade an accurate reflection of your effort/performance?
yes | 88 | 92% |
no | 8 | 8% |
What was your single favorite moment of class this Quarter?
What was your single least favorite moment of class this Quarter?
Describe your reaction to the PSAT test you took. Please do not discuss details from the test, rather how you feel about your test-taking experience. Did you feel prepared for the PSAT test? What could have been done differently to improve your preparation for the test?
Have you participated in Socratic Seminar before?
yes | 24 | 25% |
no | 72 | 75% |