First Quarter Reflection

          I have multiple goals for the following three quarters in ELA. For instance, I would like to improve on determining the theme of a story and enhancing my writing. I am familiar with the idea of determining the theme of a narrative thanks to my seventh grade ELA class. However, this year, in our short story unit, I somewhat struggled with the idea of finding and analyzing the theme of a story due to how superficial I was. Like I said previously, I would also like to improve my writing format and grammar throughout this year. I am not completely satisfied with it, yet and I probably never will. This is because I want to keep exceeding this skill by learning new words, such as the words we are tested on in our vocabulary exams, and reading stories more frequently.

          Personally, I believe my greatest success in ELA was this year. One such accomplishment was my dramatic change in word choice. It wasn’t till last year in seventh grade when I truly had a passion for ELA due to the great teacher I had. This benefitted me to become more of a frequent reader and wanting to exceed in my vocabulary. Which also meant the dictionary was my best friend at the time because it helped enhance my grammar, memory skills, and have a phenomenal essay. However, since I and another very little amount of peers that also volunteered to do this, I wasn’t as committed to it as I am now. I have personally seen a huge difference in my vocabulary due to the tests that are held every Friday. These quizzes made a huge impact on my speech and writing, which I am truly thankful of.

          Like I said before, I would say my personal struggles throughout the first quarter was determining the theme of a story. Personally, I believe I understood and found the accurate theme of a narrative for most of the stories I’ve read. However I had difficulties with some specific tales that were quite complex to understand in my opinion. It is not simple to understand, not because of authors grammar and vocabulary throughout the narrative, but because of how explicit the author writes the plot of the story. If the author is not the most clear and lacks explanation while writing the narrative, I on the other hand would have quite of a hard time determining the theme of a tale. A good example for a story that was easy to understand its theme was “The Lady or The Tiger” because the author explained most of the narrative clearly and in detail. However, there were stories, which I can’t see to recall the name of, were not as explicit and easy to understand. Wich will and has effected me throughout last quarter, and explains why I should practice more frequently with this skill.