Throughout 11th grade English, I have learned a series of different skills that I have never used in previous years or paid much attention to. These include the use of literary devices, proper MLA formatting, discussing a novel, and adapting to an author's writing style. Honestly, I was very nervous when starting English this year since I didn't have the marks I desired in previous years, yet Mr. Cohen's teaching skills and the course curriculum in general have now made me a confident reader and writer.
Another thing I have noticed about myself throughout this semester is how much I have evolved as a writer. I always used basic punctuation at the start and never used semicolons or ellipses. Yet now I am able to properly use this punctuation in everyday sentences. Additionally, I didn't do well on the assessments at the very start of the year. and wasn't confident when writing a language or structure analysis. Yet now I am able to confidently do so. This is clearly seen in my grades, as my first discussions and writing pieces were in the mid-low 70s, yet now I have an average of 90%.
In terms of essay writing, I did terrible on almost every essay I have written in the history of my life. Yet ENG3U taught me how to properly support my thesis, analyze narrative methods and literary devices, and compare it to academic sources. With these new abilities I learned in English, I was able to accurately write a detailed essay with all the correct requirements. It's all the abilities I learned in this course that led to my being able to write a perfect essay.
Grade 11 English was definitely a positive journey for me, all thanks to Mr. Cohen's teaching expertise and Blyth Academy's curriculum. I would say it has been my best experience doing English in the history of my life. I feel like everything I have learned in previous years hasn't been beneficial in terms of my future, but the skills I have learned this year will assist me in writing for the rest of my life. I am planning on applying during early admissions for University, and the writing skills I have learned will help me write my application; my presentations will also help with any interviews, whether for a job or a University. I look forward to starting grade 12 English and pray to God that Mr. Cohen is my teacher.
I named my website "My English Adventure" because this website shows my english work, and progression throughout the term. I displayed all my blog post's showing my previous work on the main page so you can see my english adventure throughout the term. The home page includes a photo of my family, friends and dog, which are the most important things in my life. They are my motivation in life and are the very reason I have the ability to persevere through all the struggles and obstacles in life. In the photo with my friends, you might recognize the famous rapper Central Cee. I included this because I always enjoyed listening to his music, and I randomly met him at the OVO store in the summer. I also included a photo of me on vacation with my family because that is where we get to spend the most quality time with each other, and travelling has always been one of my favourite hobbies in life. The use of the controller as my background image is to represent my slight interest in video games. When I have absolutely nothing else to do and no one else to hang out with, I spend my free time playing video games. Purple has also been my favourite colour since the day I was born, so I went for a purple-ish vibe when creating the theme of this website. I also included an about me section with a photo of me as a baby, and talked about how I like spend my free time. I also gave details about me and my family, and facts about my learning style.
Without further a-do, here are my 5 favourite pieces of work I submitted in grade 11 English:
This assignment was our first marked assessment in this term. I am most proud of this assignment because I almost completely forgot what adverbs, adjectives, nouns and verbs were. But with the lessons we did before this assignment reviewing them helped me be a confident writer. I am also proud of the fact I accurately used MLA format in this assignment, as I was never doing work cited's properly in previous years. I liked writing this assignment because as I mentioned, I enjoy writing when it something of my own personal choice. And this assignment allowed you to create your on story from scratch based off the photo of your choice. I never found interest when writing about Shakespeare, so when writing something of my own creativity; I am a lot more passionate about it. Even though this was one of my lowest marked assessments, it is one of my favourite because of how intrigued I was when writing it. My low mark on this also helped me realize I need to lock-in the rest of the term to get the mark that I desire. Seeing my average being low on edsby after this was assessed helped me build the courage to try harder on future assignments. I loved an assignment like this because it really used my creativity.
The goal of this assignment is to write a review on something of our own personal choice; using the review-writing skills we learned previously. I love the idea of writing about something of your own personal choice. Part of the reason I never liked English is because you are forced to write assessments on novels I have 0 interest in. But when I can write about something of my own interest, I am always so much more passionate about doing so. Wolf of Wall Street has always been a movie I rewatch all the time, and I've always been interested in the fact that it's based on a true story. So when I had the opportunity to choose what I right about, this was my first choice. That is why this piece of work is one of my favourites. I am really proud of this workpiece because it was my first real jump and a step of improvement this semester. I achieved low 70s on every assignment before this, so getting an 83 on this assessment really gave me a motivation boost to keep trying. I tried a lot more on this assignment by studying how to write a good review based on our work from class and finding good evidence for my thesis. I also finally got the hang of proper punctuation, like semicolons and MLA formatting. So doing well on this assignment made me really proud, knowing my hard work paid off. This assignment taught me all the aspects of a good review, like having expert opinions, comparing it to what else is out there, and the tone to use. I also learned how to analyze a review and determine whether it's good or bad. The practise for this assessment involved us analyzing two reviews, which will be useful in the future to determine if a review is biased or not.
I really like this piece of work because it was something I had never thought about doing before and made me think outside the box. At first, I thought this assignment was going to be dumb, and I didn't even want to do it. Yet I was very interested in the plot of Lord of the Flies, and Golding's writing style used. I liked how this assignment really challenged me, yet in the end I was shocked at receiving a 90%. I found a lot of pleasure in opening Edsby and seeing this mark, as I feared I would do badly and didn't like the idea of adapting to a writing style. Yet when I saw my mark, it made me a lot more confident and comfortable with going outside the box and trying new things. I am most proud of how my reflection had a strong thesis as well as supporting points. I was so fearful of essays at the start of this course, as I did terrible on all previous essay writings, so introducing the essay writing style of a thesis with point and explanation challenged me. However, I saw that I got 19/20 on knowledge, which was determined by your ability to write a good review. This made me go into the idea of an essay with a lot more perseverance. Adapting to Golding's writing style taught me the use of dialogue as a narration style. I always just wrote in the present tense and third-person omniscient, which didn't include dialogue, so being forced to write in Golding's style taught me a new ability.
The task for this ISP was to read a novel from the choices given, and create a thesis for two of the characters. This project included majority of the fundamentals we learned throughout this course. This included using academic sources, MLA citations, language analysis, structure analysis, and an explanation of the quotations. It used essay-writing skills in a slideshow, which I really liked the idea of. I also liked writing the general background about Golding and the time period. Learning about his history and his inspiration for this novel was really interesting. I was intrigued by how his previous life experiences are clearly displayed in the plot and characters of this novel. I am extremely proud of this assignment because it was the highest mark I received this entire course, a 94%. This assignment was worth more than anything else, being worth 15% of our entire mark, so getting a higher mark than ever before made me really proud of my work. Just like the essay, this assessment required me to use all of the principles I learned throughout this course. So knowing I did well on it really showed me that I learned all the different English fundamentals we learned.
As I mentioned earlier, I was terrified at the thought of writing an essay at the beginning of this term, let alone an essay on a Shakespeare play. I always hated Shakespeare growing up because I was not able to translate or understand the text, so writing an essay on it was my worst fear. I also dreaded the idea of writing an essay during the whole start of this term, so when we finally reached that point, I knew I had to try my best. I really liked how I did surprisingly well in terms of translating the text. At the start of reading Romeo and Juliet between Acts 1–2, I was thinking to myself "This is the dumbest thing ever.". Yet later, I finally got the hang of the way they speak and was able to understand what was being said. This allowed me to be confident with my supporting points in the essay. I am also most proud of my mark in this assessment, which was 88%. Out of every assignment I would've expected to get a low mark on, it would be this one. The essay includes all the skills we learned throughout the term, like academic sources, supporting your thesis, and proper MLA citations. Yet all the previous work we did this term had me fully prepared to do well on this assignment. I am proud of my mark because it reflects how good I am at all the different things we learned in this course, and also because it was 9% of my mark and I managed to do well. This gave me a lot more confidence when writing about a Shakespeare play in 12th grade English, and all the other fundamentals used in it.
This website includes all of my assessed, and some of my unmarked assignments throughout the entire course of ENG3U. I plan on adding all my future grade 12 work so be sure to bookmark this website and stay tuned!
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