reflection (3/8/12-7/8/12)

This week in English, I really enjoyed our class discussion on poetry. Poetry has always been a very foreign thing to me as it can always be seen in so many ways. I often get confused about the poem itself as I do not know how to interpret and break the poem down to search for it's meaning. I hope through more lessons on it, I will begin to grow out of my 2/5 rank for poetry.


Having the discussion on the carpet was really helpful and fun as we were able to conduct a productive discussion. I would like to do more discussions like that as we are all proactively engaging each other in discussion and it's not a bore. I am glad that we are all able to converse with ease as this also help those who do not speak very often.

I seem to feel that when we're in smaller groups, discussions were not as productive such as during the THG analysis session. I intend to explore more poems and find out the different types of poems. I've tried writing poetry but I would like to know what makes a poem good. What makes them stand out? What escalates them to fame? Why do so many people relate to it? These are just some of the questions I hope to answer whenever I ponder on poetry in the future.

reflection 27/8/12-30/8/12)

Holidays came to an end and work commences once again! This week had been a  productive and great start to English in Year 11 with great presentations from my fellow classmates. I really did enjoy some of them, remembering bits and bobs such as Idura's neutered cats and Afifah's obsession with sweet potato and lasagne. 

 Throughout the presentations given and my presentation today, I learnt that most of us have forgotten to include a debatable topic like our essays, hence our presentations were mostly one-sided and had no arguments in it. 

 I also felt that I've somehow went off topic when I presented today as my classmates could not answer my questions with positive feedback. I noticed that Ms. Abena and my fellow classmates seem to be a confused with my presentation as they look rather perplexed so I  was perhaps rather vague in presenting my points in the presentation. 

 The feedback session then proved to be of help in gathering whether or not have my classmates fully understood my driving question of comparing and contrasting how Suzanne Collins and one other writer(George Orwell) deal with the idea of violence in their novels.

reflection (2/7/12-6/7/12)

This we began writing our commentaries and also talked about the whole point of reflection again. It was good to talk about reflections again as I look back at the past few months and pondered on the effectiveness of it once more. Here I am right now, trying to recall my lessons this week. This is hard enough to recall and I simply do not agree with those who want it to be a monthly assignment as it would then be completely useless. We even forgot to discuss about whether or not we've to write one this week as agreed. So, I really do think we should stick to writing a reflection once a week as it doesn't seem to be a problem at all at the moment.

The guide for our commentary is really useful as they're all the key questions that I need in mine. It's almost spoon-feeding but definitely serves as a great guideline for us to produce a good and thorough commentary. The mix 'n' match exercise was really good too as it was anything but easy. My group members and I definitely had different opinions when it comes to some replies and by exchanging views, it made us think about the relevance of the answers and whether the answers are really 'answering' the question or not.

Reflection (24/6/12-29/6/12)

This week, I went through the most important but least-looked element in finalising our essays at the last minute, which is our rubrics. I made the mistake of checking through my rubric at the last minute as I've panicked and cracked my head over the elements needed in my essay when everything is already in my rubric. Peer assessment was really helpful as well as my peers had picked out many things about my essay that needs improvement and more often than usual, I overlook them.


The whole week have really been about applying our knowledge into writing our essays. From peer assessments, paper rater, e-resources to a nice sit-down with teachers and matrons (MORE PEER ASSESSMENTS!), I'm glad we're done with the essay as it seems never ending in terms of correcting it. In today's class, I realise that the important part of critical selection is the ANNOTATION and not the arrangement of my media. I was so caught up in presenting my document well that I hardly made time to annotate the document from my bibliography. I hope that we could do more exercises in class next week. :D

Reflection on essay activity

  Through this brief activity, I saw different styles of writing. These styles confuses me as to which sentence is the thesis statement in many of these essays. It made me realise that the thesis has to be CLEAR as to allow others to understand the essay. I find paragraphs with relevant quotes interesting as it can be used as evidence. A wide range of vocabulary also catches my attention such as the word I've came across, which is "nullify". A grammatically correct and vocabulary enriched paragraph makes the paragraph sounds sophisticated and academical.

 Putting too many personal opinions are among the mistakes I find that tarnishes the quality of the paragraph. A paragraph needs to have a balance of argument, facts and opinion.

reflection (18/6/12-22/6/12)

This week we've been given exercises on Introductions and Conclusions, Unity and Coherence and more on the essay stucture. These exercises have been really helpful for my essay especially Unity and Coherence as I realise I needed to cut a lot out of my essay. The They Say/I Say templates are also very handy as they introduce me to useful terms and keywords such as "I think that X is mistaken because___." and "My discussion of X is in fact addressing the larger matter of ____."


However, I do agree that class sessions should be allocated for lessons on how to improve our essay instead of time given to work on our essays as I do not really make use of the time and I don't really do much work in the given time. Instead, I would prefer learning or doing more exercises as it engages me. The past few exercises has prove handy as it enhanced my comprehension towards writing an academic essay more. Peer assessment has also been extremely helpful as my classmates gave really good advices and tips to improvise the essay. Peer assessment helped to shape my essay almost completely.

I'm excited to see my work progress on the essay and I hope that the efforts will show in the end product where I can proudly say later that I've written a good essay on Malcolm X by next week.

Reflection (11/6/12-15/6/12)

 This week has been all about our research essays. I've been out of touch with my essay writing skills and I've definitely practised and learnt a lot. One of the most important things I've learnt about writing a research essay is the structure of an essay. After a fruitful peer assessment with Sharmaine, I realise that the biggest flaw in my essay was it's structure. It was confusing for Sharmaine as she has pointed out that I did not set a proper structure hence it isn't easy to point out topic sentences and understand the arguments that supported it. Sharmaine also pointed out that I've added too much unnecessary biographical information instead of producing my own opinions and arguments.

However, she saw a paragraph that had a proper structure and advised me to set that as the same structure for other paragraphs. Ms Abena also reminded me an essential part of the essay which is to keep it INTERESTING. I almost forgot about this element and was glad that it was brought up. I also need to avoid adding too many cliches in my essay as pointed out in the online paper rater, as suggested by Idura. Source of quotes also have to be recorded in MLA form or a uniformed manner. 

 I've practised recording all my sources when I carry out my research to keep track of it and they could also be future references. As I know that I would still be carrying out more research, I saved the links that I have yet to read thoroughly just in case I would ever need them. Basically, it has only hit me recently that a research essay is very different from a normal essay. A research essay is based so heavily on it's structure and that is what I'm lacking at the moment in my essay. With the help from Ms Abena and Ms. Sandra, my peers and online guides, I will take the initiative to use the help given as best as possible as help is pretty much a call away.