Q4 BM Portfolio Sterling Perry

            This portfolio will contain all the of the projects and work done this year in 9^th grade English. To me this year was ok. I feel as though I could have done way better. Looking back at my old work I’ve seen how far I’ve come and how much better I am now. Also from looking at these papers over with teachers I learned a lot from my mistakes. Also while looking back at my old projects it makes me think if I knew what I knew now my grades would be way better.

 

            Since now I can easily see my improvement I’ve become more confident knowing that I am a better student now. Even though I am better now I still have trouble with certain things like introductory paragraphs, conclusions and my work ethic.  Those things will come sooner or later but until then I will work with what I have.

 

My first paper at this school was a Memoir called “Snapshot of My Life” In this assignment we had to tell about a story or moment in our life that was important to us. I told about my relationship with my sister and how her going to college brought us closer.

                                      Snapshot of my Life

Do you have an older sibling? If you do or don’t you should know about the love hate relationship that brothers and sisters have. The younger one is always annoying, the oldest one is bossy and they never get along until later. Well my story is the same just with a more in depth perspective of what it is like and some of the life lessons I learned from her.

As baby I loved my sister but she didn’t always love me as much. When I sit with the family at dinner they tell me stories about how I used to break my sister’s barbies, mess up her board games in the middle of them and just flat out annoy her. I never really knew as a kid that I was being annoying. I was just being a kid. On the flipside they would tell about times when my sister would deliberately make me cry or mad. Sometimes when they tell stories I often think about what I would do if that happened now.

Pre teen years weren’t the best either. At the time I had thought I was a “grown man.” Thinking that way wasn’t the best idea for our relationship with each other. The arguments were always over stupid things like eating each others food in the refrigerator. It was the same thing everyday tantrums, yelling. Me and her were like two trains on the same track, a wreck. To us it was a usual thing. I got on her nerves she got on mine. Soon my mother decided to intervene and help us get along. My mom told me that one day I would miss her and would regret treating her like I did. At a young age I wasn’t trying to hear that “foolishness” as I called it. 

When I turned ten I didn’t know but a life changing event would happen. My sister was leaving for college. It seemed to come very fast but at the same time I didn’t really care. As a matter of fact I was happy she was leaving. With her gone I wouldn’t have to worry about her bossing me around, getting me in trouble and just being a pain. To me this was a dream come true.

Freshman year was the best. I frequently called her to see how she was doing but the conversations weren’t long. I just wanted her to feel like I cared when I really didn’t. I began to reminse on what my mom said to me early on but once again flagged it off. I was only 11 and a straight A student I had nothing to worry about. At that age all I thought about was video games and ice cream, let alone my relationship with my sister.

Sophmore year rolled around pretty quickly. That was the year when I had thoughts about my sister I was wondering was she ok. My mom sat me down and asked me did I really miss my sister. After a long and dramatic pause (which probably only lasted a few seconds) I broke down and said yes. All of a sudden it was like a burden was lifted off my chest.  It all hit me I was being a jerk and had a feeling that I was being a bad brother to he. I began to stop taking her for granted and really appreciate what I had.

Junior year was when I was ready for my sister to come back. Unlike before, I would call her everyday to the point where it was annoying. Now older and more mature we had great and meaningful conversations and even hung out every once in a while. Since I couldn’t have her at home and I still missed her I came up with a crazy idea. I knew it was wrong but I had nothing else to lose. I started befriending other girls in and out of school to try and take her place. But there is nothing like the genuine relationship of a real brother and sister. They filled the void temporarily but I just knew it wasn’t the right thing.

Senior year came and I was now a freshman at SLA. Me and my sister were now the best of friends and I was at the school of my dreams. Nothing in life was going wrong. She graduated and now lives with me and my parents. We are now the complete opposite of what we were before. I thank god everyday that I have her in my life and when everyone else talks about how much they don’t like they’re siblings I just laugh and think “that used to be me.”

In our English class like all other English classes we read books. A couple of books we read were Macbeth and The Oddessy. We were learning how to write comparison and contrast paper. So here is mine I compared Macbeth and Oddyseus. There were some examples of how they’re paths are different and are written in different era’s. They’re leadership, willingness to fight and craftiness made them really similar. In conclusion they were more similar then different even though it was two different stories told.                                           Macbeth and Odysseus

         Macbeth and Odysseus are two different leaders from two different eras. Homer wrote The Odyssey in the Greek culture. In this culture there were a lot of gods, demi-gods, remarkable mortals, creatures etc. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in the English culture. In the English culture there are a lot of different dialect, castles, kings etc. Even though Macbeth and Odysseus both leaders and great in battle, their paths were very different in some ways.

  Macbeth and Odysseus were great warriors in battle. The outcomes of their paths were different in a few ways. Both of them endured long journeys and changed drastically through out the books. Macbeth went from a loving, caring and loyal man into a mean and disloyal tyrant. Odysseus went from being a cocky and careless man to a more thoughtful man who cared about his family. In the story Odysseus always wanted to take the long or hard way out of things just so he could have bragging rights. By doing this he got his men killed and made his travels longer and harder. Macbeth, on the other hand wasn’t as cocky, he spoke with his actions. He would make a plan and go through with it and try not to make himself known, because if he does he might have gotten caught.

Both of them were fierce, brave and skillfull in battle and and did not let anyone stop them to kill another person. In some cases they killed their own men, weither on purpose or not. Both of them also showed signs of craftiness and great skill in battle. They were both leaders either good or bad. In the Odyssey and Macbeth they were both kings in one point of the story. As Odysseus went on his journey he was the leader of his men as was Macbeth. Odysseus shows craftiness when he came up with the plan to kill the suitors. By deceiving them he was able to kill them off easily. As he killed them he showed his skill and ruthlessness by killing the lead suitor by shooting them in him in the neck. Also by cutting off one of the suitors’ head. In my opinion shouldn’t have been killed. Macbeth shows these traits in a different matter. Since Macbeth was not king, him and his wife had to use wits in order to kill King Duncan. He also had to think about not getting his cover blown so he killed one of his men who he thought knew what he did. In act 1 Macbeth shows ruthlessness and bravery when he cut an opposing warrior from the naval all the way through his head. “For brave Macbeth – well he deserves the name – Disdained misfortune, with his brandish steel, which smoked with bloody execution. Like valor’s minion carved out his passage till he faced the slave...Till he unseamed him from the nave to the’ chaps and fixed his head upon battlements” Lines 13- 20 and 22-23.    

            This next project I will show is my ME Magazine project. It was my first English project here at SLA. We had to make a magazine that told about us and our interests and hobbies. My me magazine was entitles Heart, Soul, Basketball. 

                                       

For every semester we must do what is called an Independent reading project. We must choose a book to read on our own time and do a report on it. The one I will show you is a podcast I made for the book Hoop Dreams.  HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmeBZe4EqME) is the movie. 

This year we were required to keep a journal here are some of my entries…

 

Why Do We Write?

 

I write because it is a way to get feelings off my chest that I normally can’t. Its something about putting a pen to paper that is more relieving than talking. Also people don’t care about your problems all the time so writing makes it better.

 

How Important is it to Fit in?

 

To me since I am a basketball player I kind of automatically fit in. Fitting in has never ever been a problem for me. I personally think it isn’t that important ti fit inbut as long as you have a few good loyal friends and family they can help you get through anything and take you anywhere.

 

If You Really Knew Me?

 

If you really knew me you would know that I hold back a lot and can be very depressed at times. You would also know that I am silly and am a happy guy for the most part. Also you would know about my love for basketball, family and friends. They help me through everything. You also would know that I never work up to my full potential because I already know I can get all A’s if I wanted to.

 

Has Anyone Ever Exceeded My Expectations?

 

Yes plenty of times. Sometimes we make assumptions about others and even ourselves based on what we know or have seen. You never fully know what a person can do. Just like science there are variables which means maybe someone is going through something causing them to perform better or worse.

 

What is an Adult?

 

I think an adult isn’t really a person of a certain age because they may not be mature enough. So an adult is a person who is responsible and mature. Someone who takes care of their business and is beyond the  puberty stage of life.

 

Winter Break….

 

My winter break was pretty good. I hung out with some of my friends and chilled out. I ended up on punishment for the last few days but I still had fun. I am now just waiting for this summer to come.  These benchmarks are harsh and aren’t helping my transition into high school but I’ll get over them.

 

My portfolio doesn’t say a lot about the person I really can be. I feel like I could have done better and spent more time on my work. The only issues I faced while doing this portfolio was looking for my old work and scanning my me magazine. These problems were easily resolved by asking for help and checking on moodle for all of my work .When people see my work I want them to see a hard working student but this me looking for ns I must put forward the effort to do so. My strengths are in spelling, parts of speech, definitions etc (like when we do vocabulary.) Also I am good at writing papers and getting to the point without adding to much (attracting and keeping the audiences attention.) I would like to work on my weaknesses that were stated in the first paragraph which include opening and closing paragraphs and organization.