Semester Reflection

Semester two, the final countdown. It has been a stressful six months of blood,

sweat, and tears. With the new writing samples assigned and the course load of a

senior, the second semester has been a fun run and a countdown towards graduation

and a bewildered look to the future. The semester again was comprised of four units:

Juvenile Justice, Gender Culture and Language, The novel 1984, and finally the anti-

bullying project. In the juvenile justice unit I tried to hone my ability to organise my

thoughts within my essays. This is where by best truly came out and worked to the best

of its ability. Granted we had time to fully flesh out the essays and there werent many

assignments assigned in other classes. The second unit, Gender Culture and

Language, we got to create a little sort of narrative essay and this is where you can see

the downwards trend that gets worse throughout the semester. In the essay for this unit

I needed more evidence, but the will to live was waning and I started to ramble off in the

essay. The third unit, 1984, we read George Orwell novel based in a dystopian future.

For this unit there was a socratic seminar (which went spectacularly better than the

other socratic) accompanied by, you guessed it, an essay. Followed along by early

onset senioritis (honestly a good case of being slightly lazy and done with the year) I

managed to flip-flop through essay prompts. Thus cutting my time to write something

effective. And thusly so the grade that I got on that essay was just as I expected for a

work like that. And finally the last unit, anti- bullying project, fairly I can say that we got

into this group divided the work and went on our merry ways to ride the wave that is

graduation and senior activities. And now we find ourselves here at senior finals trying

to get things done before that clock hits 9:51. This class has been quite the ride.
Honestly this has been one of my most intensive classes in my high school career.

Followed closely by Calculus AB, Chemistry, and Physics.

Now, the writing samples were a whole other process but there is a whole other

separate reflection on them in another document, but in short: everything but the issue

research was fun to write.

The Socratic Seminar that took place this semester was very interesting in the

way that we had three topics to talk about. My only regret for that seminar is that I did

not join into the third topic about government.

Weekly Reflections

January 10 - 13 2017

Classes started again to a quick paced start. The new and improved syllabus

surprised me. Time waits for no one. We must prepare to get ready to keep this up.

January 16 - 20 2017

Discussions went underway about the new unit topic, juvenile justice. There was

a new learning log to do which was not that bad to finish. There was analysis on two of

the texts in the reader. They were On Teen Killers and Punishment" and "Juveniles

Don't Deserve Life Sentences."

January 23 -27 2017

Starting the week off with a quick write, the standard summary and response to

one of the articles. Group work is always fun to do. :| there was a case given to us that

we would have to discuss in the socratic seminar, the Greg Ousley case. There was

also a preparation sheet for the socratic seminar given.

January 30 - February 3 2017

Preparing for the socratic seminar this coming thursday and learning to use

academic language while discussing to keep things scholarly. Let's see if we can remain

civil during the discussion. The discussion was not as bad as i thought it would be, but it

could have gone better. There will be a paper coming soon i can feel it.

February 6 -10 2017

The writing assignment begun and i barely made the outline, but i managed to

get the rough draft done on the day it was due. If there is one thing I need to work on, it

is my essay organizations skills. I should stop procrastinating on these sort of writing

assignments. Maybe later.

February 13 - 17 2017
 Turned the juvenile justice paper. We are starting a new unit called Language,

Gender, and Culture. I have fears that this unit will become an SJW argument

paradise. Reading the first text was not that bad a little confusing, but not too bad.

February 21 - 24 2017

Discussion on the first text is over and onto the next one. His Politeness Is Her

Powerlessness is a little tough to digest but I think I got the author argument. Started a

group questions assignment. Not a big fan of those.

February 27 - March 3 2017

Firstly we discussed the Ethos, Pathos, Logos questions Read and discussed the

text Prelude: the Barbershop. Granted I was gone most of the week so I have no Idea

what really went on.

March 6 - 10 2017

This week it has been a game of catching up and looking like you were here the

whole time without having been there. I wonder if that is what some college students

do? More going into the writing part of the unit now that we have finished reading and

analysing the texts. Getting into writing our Issue paper narrative is only getting me

more depressed.
March 13 - 17 2017

Getting more into the writing assignment. Like stated before the essay had

organizational problems. I think i got those dealt with, just need to be more careful next

time.

March 20- 24 2017

Its official, we started 1948 and reading it is interesting but doing the questions

along with it takes it to the boring level. :| mandatory reading is not fun. Its going to be

along few months.