3rd Quarter Reflection

          Quarter 3 has ended and we are now moving into the last quarter of the year. We are now moving into the last quarter of middle school. We are moving into the last quarter before high school. I can't believe how far we have came and how much I have progressed. 

          I think I have made my biggest improvement in my writing for English Language Arts. The TIQA format has been a big contribution to my improvement. We were not taught this format this year. We learned this type of formatting since seventh grade. However, I did not realize how much faster and more efficiently you can write a paper using this format until we did the argumentative essay this year. The essay was overall written in TIQA format, and even included 2 TIQA in one paragraph. The essay turned out to be good. It wasn't until I compared this years essay to last years that I realized how much my writing has grown and progressed with the formatting. We are also currently taking the Reading/Language Arts PARCC test. This test includes a writing portion where we have to analyze literature and write an essay. I found that from using the TIQA format so often, I naturally started writing the essay with the TIQA format. I was able to write a good essay in a good amount of time. 

          In this quarter, the thing that I have accomplished that I am most proud of is my Night vs. "Life Is Beautiful" blog. I took a lot of time in making that and put in a lot of hard work. I first started with making an outline and included the evidence I was going to use. From there I did a rough draft. After that rough draft, I went back and revised for diction, understanding, and added my analytical thinking. I must've revised it at least 3 times before finally submitting the final draft. I ended up getting a good grade on it. I was really proud of it and felt as if my hard work had paid off. 

          I think the most difficult part of 3rd quarter was analyzing the poem assigned to me for Butterfly Project. I consider poetry as one of my weaknesses. It was hard and took a while to figure out what the true meaning of the poem what. I had to make various annotations to come to a final conclusion. I also had to do research on some of the things the poem was referencing. I struggled and would say that it took me about 3 days to fully understand the true meaning of the poem.