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The first quarter of English 2 for Copper stream was the beginning of an era for my learning experience. It marked the beginning of what would be a world-changing period of educational growth. In terms of outline, Copper stream wasn't far from any other 10th grade English class in the city. What made the experience so unique was the discussions we were able to have on the text that we all read as a class. Reflection on last year, specifically in that class, I've been able to come to the conclusion that group analysis and discussion is the best way to understand literature.

Since its original publishing in 1954, William Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies” has grown to be one of the most frequently challenged novels in recent history. This is due greatly to its allegorical references to society. I remember sitting and picking apart and analyzing the content of the book in E-band for almost the entirety of the first quarter. The fact that there was enough in the book to allow me to analyze it for a whole quarter and still find new things is what makes it so powerful. As we powered through the book, the students that were truly engaged in the class and its works were building up to a mass revelation. As we were preparing to begin the process of our benchmark, I was anticipating Kay assigning the class a prompt about human nature, due to the fact that it frequently appeared in the book and was often discussed in the class. That wasn’t the case, but it wasn't far off from what we actually ended up doing. We were given the task of forming a thesis statement and justifying our thesis throughout the course of our essays. Having only written essays based on specific prompts before, this style of writing was all new. Writing that essay caused me to reevaluate the manner in which I wrote analytical papers. I had never been given the task of forging a thesis that had to meet specific standards before. D.U.C.K stood for debatable, unique, creative, and knowledgeable. If our thesis statement failed to meet that criteria, we would only be granted approval when we submitted something that did. Within a week, the majority of the class had submitted their essays and were awaiting a grade. After he had read and graded the essays of the class, Mr. Kay commended Copper Stream, stating that the batch of essays that had been submitted might have been the best that he’d ever seen. I would like to think that we did the novel some justice. The goal of Lord of the Flies was to spark great debates and conversations, and that’s exactly what it did.

The thesis that I used for that essay was “People are often restrained by society. In the William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” the boys have been on the island for around two months when Jack begins to paint his face. When Jack begins to paint his face, it symbolizes his release from societal restraints.” I proved this thesis by using a series of quotes. The first quote and analysis was “When Jack first paints his face in chapter three he begins to break away from his societal restraints. When he wore the mask, Jack felt liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” What came with reading so far into the book was being able to see from the get-go that most often, it will contain some form of metaphorical symbolism, and not everything should be taken so plainly as a boy deciding to paint his face.

Literature isn't something that can be memorized and regurgitated onto a piece of paper so someone can say you understand it. Everyone has to come to their understanding of literature at their own pace and point. Nobody reads literature the same way, and nobody understands it the same way. Literature is a powerful thing, and I'm glad I got to experience it the way I did.

I found my pace, and eventually, my point, by being able to share my literary journey with a group of people embarking on the same journey. Through this, I found my own way. Discussions allowed me to see how everyone was comprehending it, therefore making me look at things in a multitude of different lights. Literature never only means one thing, so it shouldn't be taught like it is either.

2 Questions:

How many memories would you suggest that I use?

Reflection:

I learned that not everyone is going to have the same view as you and not everyone has the same preferences but that's okay because not everyone is the same. I also learned that I should take the things people are saying in a positive way not a negative way, I say this because you can learn from mistakes or you can get advance for the present or the future.

I switched the picture of me because there was a white border on the previous picture and it was out of place and drawing attention away from the rest of the slide. I also added a picture to cover more of the slide, and lastly I also rearranged the words and their placement.

In grade school I had a friend named nick. Teachers would always call him out because he was scared to read in front of the class. From the beginning his self confidence was low. He was very shy and didn't talk to many people, and if someone new tried talking to him he would take a long time to feel comfortable with them. Nick had a stuttering problem. Whenever he was in front of a large group of people his voice would lock up and he would shut down. His self confidence was destroyed in the 8th grade when a teacher made him stand up in front of the whole grade, all 225 of us. He was alone and he shut down completely botching his graduation speech. I talked to him afterwards and he said he had never felt so sick before in his life. His confidence was no longer existence, he shut eve the people who were closest to him out.

People with speech impediments and other problems with speaking and writing have severe problems with their self confidence. They feel as though they are not normal. But what is normal? Is there a direct definition that labels these impediments as not normal? Normal is defined as standard, usual, typical or expected. But how do we define normal? Society's normal is, if people are all the same they are normal. Any defining feature or change to their personal, or physical appearance warrants them to be “not normal.”  There is a story written by Mike Rose called “I just want to be average,” And that is a direct quote from the story that points out how people who are not seen as normal feel about their surroundings. People who are not “Average” or “Normal” can feel like somewhat of a group of outcasts. They are separated from the mainstream classes and put in their own “Vocational Track” which means d-level learning which does not help. In d level classes you are not treated as a human being, and you are certainly not respected by the people who are teaching you. This very easily make these students feel like they do not matter. This is why many of them act out or show off, in an attempt to get the attention that they so desperately need. If people took their time to sit down with these students and try to help them, they would not feel the need to act out and do bad things to get someone's attention.

My older cousin Nicky had a speech problem when he was younger. It was hard for him, he was teased and put in a special learning class. A teacher sat down with him one on one and walked him through how to cope with stuttering. He told me it was one of the hardest things he has ever done, but having a teacher to help him and calm him down when he got annoyed or angry with himself, helped push him through the problem. Today he is an officer in the United States Navy, and has no problem whatsoever with speech.

With proper learning strategies and help, people with speech problems and other disabilities can feel like they are part of this so called normal society.

I decided to make some major changes to my slide. When critiquing my slide, many people told me that my image that I used was pixilated and a little to difficult to see. Looking back on my slide, I agreed with what they said. I also thought that my slide had too much blank space in a way that did not look appealing to the eye. I decided to just get rid of my image altogether and replace it with a new one. To keep my slide from looking too empty but still not cluttered, I decided to make an image my background. The image still pertained to my passion, which is reading. I changed the color of my words from red to white so that they would contrast better with the image as suggested by one of the sources we had. The source said to have a color palette that contrasts, which is why I had white words on top of a darker image. I stilled used kerning to fit the words “my passion” on top of the “read” section of the word “reading” in a way that is visually pleasing. I also slightly moved my words so that they did not touch at all, since that was one concerning to some viewers. The rule of thirds still applies because I  positioned my slide so that the image catches the viewer’s attention first.

Pictures that covers the whole slide, makes it less eye catching. When it’s a big picture, it takes away the main focus. On my slide itself, I felt like it was a bad picture to put as a slide shows. So instead of making it a plain picture, I changed to texture of it.

I changed the color of the fonts and I also changed the positioning of the word “photography”. I kind of had made it follow along the line at the top of the building and then moved the words “me magazine” to a different area. The last thing I did was taking out my name.

After receiving criticism from my classmates I found that the size of the chocolate picture made it hard to make out, to fix this, I made it bigger. Also, the picture of the butterfly turned out pixelated because I had to widen it to fit the slide, so I made it longer to balance out the alterations. The title of my original slide was “ The Wonderful World of Waverly”, but after consulting with my peers I found that the inconsistency in words beginning with “W” caused a subconscious discomfort. In response I changed the title to “Waverly’s Wonderful World” to eliminate the unpleasant vibe. I’m happy with my edited slide and think that the little changes made it all the better. The next time I see a sign I will be able to appreciate all the planning, science, and critical thinking behind the advertisement.