Illusion and Reality

Our Learning

Hello everyone! My name is Hailey and I am a graduating English 30-1 student. I enjoy almost any kind of physical activities you throw at me, being outside and reading. Reading books on my own time has become rare during school because of all the homework. I hope to pick it up again during the summer.

Throughout the semester I have learned a ton. I learned how to write a proper personal response, to not have so many repetitions in my essays and that quotations are a very important part of any essay. Coming into this class my vocabulary and writing abilities were considered not much better than decent and I would like to think that this class has pushed my writing abilities to a higher standard.

My essays from the beginning of the semester had millions of red pen marks on them, and now the red pen has gone down a considerable amount. I have found that smaller quotations are easier to explain because they tend to be the statement sentences that have huge amounts of meaning behind them. The smaller the quotation is the easier it is to dig for a deeper meaning. Repeating words was a major problem for me in the beginning of the semester. I tend to use the same simple words over and over again to try and get my point across. With a limited vocabulary it was hard for me to not repeat the same word. Over the course of the semester my vocabulary expanded which allowed me to limit the amount of repetitions that I had (with some help from a thesaurus). Personal responses were a foreign idea to me at the beginning of the semester, but with some direction and practise I can now write a decent personal response.  My writing abilities have excelled a considerable amount due to my time in this class and will hopefully continue to grow.

    I really enjoyed this year of English. ELA is not one of my favourite subjects but ELA 30-1 has improved my opinion of English. When I was young I absolutely couldn’t stand English but as I got into junior high school I started to like it more and every year since I have enjoyed it more. There are three basic sections of my learning in English; My knowledge and opinion coming into ELA 30-1, my progression and learning throughout this year, and lastly my plans for ELA in university/college.

English 20-1 was a fairly good class for me. Coming into ELA 30-1 I was fairly neutral because although I hadn’t liked English when I was younger, ELA 20-1 had been a good experience for me. I had a small amount of knowledge about personal and critical/analytical responses. My essay writing skills were alright.  My reading skills on the other hand have always been very high above average. I have enjoyed reading ever since I was very little. That is one aspect of English I have always enjoyed. English 20-1 taught me how to write basic things and how to group together ideas and write a basic essay. In English 30-1 I have expanded those skills much farther and have built upon the base that I developed in ELA 20-1.

At the start of this semester my writing was too short and I did not expand enough upon my ideas. Throughout English 30-1 I have learned to write more and fully explain my ideas. I have learned that the best way to write a very good piece is to have many revisions and do multiple drafts. I used to never do pre-planning for my essays or papers that I would have to do. I would write one draft and that would be my final draft. I have found that the more drafts that are done, the better quality they are. New ideas come as new drafts are formed and doing more drafts almost never makes the overall product worse. I have learned how to analyze literary pieces or videos and turn them into critical responses. My personal responses have also improved greatly because I use more examples from my own life and express my feeling better then I used to. Throughout this year I have learned a lot and taking English 30-1 has definitely been a positive experience for me.

After taking English 30-1 I am excited to take more English classes and see what new things I will get to learn. In university English I have heard there is a lot more work to do and everything is marked much harder. I am a little worried about this but I know I can rise to the challenge and get a good mark in the class. I plan on doing a lot more homework and doing more drafts for my literary pieces. I really believe if I put a little more effort into English next year I will be able to get a similar or better mark than I did this year. It will be a little scary, but I know if I put my mind to it I can handle university English.

Overall I believe my English experiences over my whole life have been positive. Even though I disliked English when I was younger, now I actually enjoy English! It won’t ever be my favourite subject but it is definitely one I like. I hope I can keep on the path I am going and I can keep enjoying English more and more every year. I believe English is an important subject and if I need to take it I want to be able to enjoy it. This year has been a great one and I feel like I have made a lot of progress. I am very excited to continue to further my English education.

 I am an English 30-1 student by the name of Hannah Wagner. I came to this class from two previous years of being a humanities student. I love spending time with my friends, playing rugby, art and being engulfed in the natural beauty of the world. 

This was my first real English class of my high school career and am glad that I took it. This semester was full of learning for me as I experienced a more direct course on English, during this class I got to practice and develop my writing skills as well as understanding different forms of literature. 

I feel like through this semester I have grown as a student and strengthened my skill in this class. I’ve always enjoyed art, but as soon as that art became a for of literature I seemed to struggle with it. Before this year expressing my self and my opinions with words was something I would run from, but now I’m at a stage where I can appreciate and address many different forms of literature.