English class has been a ride over the last 2 years. We have learned a lot and worked hard from the first day we came into this Mrs. Lepre’s class in 2014 to now in 2016. I am writing to reflect on two assignments for Portfolio Night to show what my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer. Also to show how I have grown as a writer. Portfolio night is a night where we reflect on the year of being in the “Foreign Language and Global Studies” program also know as FLAGS. I had to choose one assignment from 7th grade and 8th grade. I chose the assignments I chose because it shows one strength and a weakness that I could improve on. The two assignments I choose were the highwayman from 7th grade and the lesson of the moth blog post from 8th grade.

For my 7th grade assignment, The highwayman questions we had to listen to the poem “The highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. Then we has to analyze the poem on our iPads. We had to look for and identify figurative language throughout the poem. We also had to define words to make sure we understood the poem completely. In the picture below you can see I have annotated the document. The red items annotated in red are a weakness for me and the ones highlighted in green are my strengths. I’ll start by talking about one on my weaknesses from this assignment. As I mentioned earlier we had to define words. It was a weakness for me because I only used one source which was google and no other source for defining these words. One strength for me was finding the figurative language. I could find all the figurative language and identify what kind of language it was. The FLAGS learning outcomes I demonstrated were technologically adept and critical and creative thinker. I demonstrated technologically adept because we completed this assignment on our iPads and used the internet. I showed critical and creative thinker because we had to analyze the poem to detail.

Next I will talk about my 8th grade assignment. My second assignment is the “Lesson of the Moth” blog post. For this assignment we had to write a three paragraph blog post about the story the Lesson of the Moth. The first paragraph was a summary about the story. The second paragraph was about the two different perspectives in the story either the moths which thinks that its worth it to give it all up for a second of fun or the cockroach that thinks it is better the play it safe. The third paragraph was about who’s philosophy I agree with. I said that I agreed with the moths because if you don’t have any fun your whole life then whats the point of living. As you can see in the picture I annotated the blog the same way I annotated the other assignment. The weakness that I found in this assignment was in the second paragraph. I noticed that I didn’t elaborate on the cockroach’s point of view as much as I did with the moth’s. The strength I found was that I could determine the central theme in the whole story. For the FLAGS learning outcomes I showed creative and critical thinker and technologically adept again. I showed creative and critical thinker because we had to critically find the two philosophies that were in this story and explain them in a blog post. For technologically adept, I demonstrated it by completing this assignment on my iPad and posting it to edublogs.

From 7th grade to 8th grade I think I have improved a lot as a writer. I have improved by imbedding quotes better, sighting my sources, annotating better than when I was at the beginning of 7th grade when I first walked into Mrs. Lepre’s class. I have improved on all aspects of writing. I have improved on writing all types essays. Just like everyone I do have weaknesses. Some weaknesses I would like to improve on in high school are using different sources to improve my vocabulary, quoting, and finding out how the dialogue is moving the story forward. I can improve on these by practicing on these and asking for help if I don’t understand it.