A Post In Which Is Final

Over the school year, I have learned and written much and developed greatly as a writer. This blog is like journal keeping track of how my writing has developed over the school year. I can look back at what I have done at the beginning of the year and compare them to my more recent posts. I can view how my work as well as the amount of thought I put into my blog posts.

My writing was much simpler at the beginning of the year. There seemed to be more word repetition and some somewhat awkward wording here and there. Even the diction of some of my older work seemed like it could use a little bit of improvement. Now, those areas of my writing have improved greatly. The quality of my writing may have improved, but is till have along way to go.

  

When I look at my first blog post in comparison to this one, I quickly prove my own point. The writing style was very simplistic, and it sounded kind of “flat”, there wasn’t much character in the writing. The word choice was extremely limited compared to some of my more recant posts (not to say that these posts aren’t limited themselves, however, just not as limited). The post was rather dull and repetitive. I slowly started to get more and more character into my writing as the year went on. Without much to define who I am, is it really my blog or just a monotonous robot created for the soul purpose of writing dull blogs?

Still, I seem to be over-exaggerating my work. Although my writing has improved, my posts aren’t the most gripping, expressive, emotional pieces of art ever to come from the depths of my mind. I really could have spent more time re-wording them and adding character and expression to them but I honestly must say that wasn’t really my goal. I just wanted to get it over with, really. Now that I think about it, though, I have been putting some more thought into my blogs, even if they aren’t mybest work.

This, by far, is my best blog post. Being the last post, I am putting forth more effort, character, and thought into this blog than any other because I want my last post to reflect everything I’ve learned, how my writing has improved, and  to be a memorable last post, one that stands out from all the others. Well, actually… nah, I just want to do well because you’re grading the actual work this time (but we can always pretend like I have academic aspirations to go beyond the requirements, right?).

This post definitely reflects my personality, doesn’t it? Good, because that’s really what my, or anybody’s blog, really, is all about, right? Too bad it took me too long to figure that out. The blogs we do for this class are, or, at least, should be, much more than just assigments. They should reflect who you are as a person, not a student because its your own blog, created, customized, and updated by you, and nobody else.

And so I leave you with one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost:

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Nature’s first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold

 Her early leaf’s a flower

But only so an hour

So leaf subsides to leaf

So Eden sank to grief

Nothing gold can stay

(Sorry if there are any, I’m trying to be impressive and recite the poem from memory)

I leave with this because although sometimes the blogs were kind of a drag, I enjoyed writing posting on my blog, especially the ones where we posted pictures or connected things to novels we have read outside of class, posts where I can show a little bit of who I am, my interests, and the way I see things. This is by far my favorite blog post this year. Thank you for a great year of Honor’s English, and see you next year!

Not all asignments are boring

             The extra credit assignment for the Romeo and Juliet unit is one of the assignments that I am most proud of. I took a memorable scene from the play and made it into a Lego set, then designed a box for it. I probably could have used a real picture, but it would have taken me forever to search through the ridiculous amount of Lego’s sitting in my room, so I just used the computer program Lego Digital designer. Which ended up being just as painstakingly slow. Sure, the bricks were nice and organized but I could only place one brick at a time, there weren’t any shortcuts to speed that up. In the end, it looked close enough to what I envisioned the actual scene looked like when I was reading, only in Lego.

 Once I finally finished building the set and taking a picture of it, I got to practice some of the things I learned in my digital design class, which is another reason why I enjoyed this assignment so much. I built the box design around the picture using a computer program called Adobe Fireworks. That took a bit of time but I was able to work at a much faster pace. I also got to share some of the imagery that the play gave me as I read. I sat at the computer and worked for good amount of time, doing something I enjoy. I am proud of the effort and time I put into this assignment.

Poetry!

When I was in 8th grade, my English class had a poetry unit. We worked on a poetry book with 11 original pieces and an analysis of a poem written by a famous author. It was a very enjoyable experience and now I really enjoy writing poetry. I hadn’t done much with poetry before that, so this is when I realized how much I enjoy writing poetry.

 I choose to analyze the poem “The Man in The Iron Pail Mask” by Shel Silverstein. Silverstein is one of my favorite poets, and reading through his books got me excited for the poetry unit. I loved the goofy stories and wacky rhymes that his poetry consists of.

Once I started writing I realized how much I enjoy writing poetry. We had to write several different styles of poetry, so I was able to find out what styles I am good at what styles I like best. One of my favorite things to do when writing poetry is to rhyme. Of course, blank verse can be just as fun to write with and sometimes may work better to convey the message you’re trying to send.

I love all forms of poetry. Poetry is probably my favorite part of English class. That and reading. When poetry was mentioned in class, I got really excited. I am really looking forward to the rest of this unit and when we get to writing poems in class.