Hello!
For your first journal, I would like you to discuss your hopes/fears about College Prep English. I have included some questions below to stimulate your response. I will take your comments into consideration when I am planning lessons, so be clear and honest.
-What do you want me to focus on this year? (reading skills, writing skills, study skills, etc.)
-What aspects of grammar are you unclear about and need to learn? (Punctuation, parts of speech, etc.)
-What DON'T I need to cover? (paragraph structure, avoiding run-ons, etc.)
-What fears do you have about the upcoming year?
-How would you rate your reading skills on a scale from 1-10? (1=poor, 10=excellent) Explain your score.
-How would you rate your writing skills, using the same scale? Explain your score.
-How would you rate your organizational skills, using the same scale? Explain your score.
-What do I need to know about you to make this year run smoothly?
-Finally, establish some goals for yourself for the school year. These goals can be both academic and social.
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I am very excited about College Prep English. I am taking the class in hope that I will learn many skills to help me in college. For instance, I hope to learn better study skills as well as better writing skills. I have a hard time with studying with some material and I wish to learn a method that is really going to help me. When it comes to writing, I know the basics of punctuations but some areas are a little grey to me. I definately know what a run-on sentence is and I would love to not have to go over them again. The major fear I have about this upcoming year is getting behind on my work and becoming stressed out. I am a very hard worker and always get my work in on time. I think this year may become stressful seeing how I am in three sports and am taking on a lot of time consuming classes. I know all I have to do is manage my time though. My reading skills are about an 8 on your scale. The reason they are an 8 is because I am not a very fast reader and sometimes I run into words that are challenging to pronounce or I do not know what they mean. Otherwise, I am a fairly good reader. My writing skills all depend on what it is I have to write about. I can be a creative when my mind is set to it but if it is a topic I am not interested in, I tend to not write very well. I am very organized and in that area I would give myself a 10. I have to have everything set up how I believe is neat and the way I want to see it or things do not seem to go very smoothly on my end. The only thing you need to know about me for this year is that I want to have fun in my classes. I do not want to have to dread coming to class because I'm not enjoying it. I do not think I will have a problem with this class though. My main goal for this class would be to maintain an A all year. I want to be on top of my game when it comes to homework and not slack off just because I am senior (even though I would like to:) ). I want to become an active student in this class and try to get everyone involved in doing so as well.
ReplyDelete-I would like to focus on writing skills-- especially thesis development. I always have trouble stating exactly what I intend to argue or convey. I also would love to develop verbal debate skills! Although we do include counter-points in most persuasive essays, I find it more helpful when there is another person using their own logic and thought process to come up with coutners that I may not have thought of.
ReplyDelete-I get confused as to which tense is which for certain words, such as "lay".
-Mrs. Gibson covered a lot of run-on sentence and comma placement information last year, so I am comfortable with that.
-The school year is going to be extremely busy, so I am a little worried about managing that while taking the time to write numerous college entrance essays and filling out their accompanying applications.
-(9) I read a lot and am comfortable with most material, but there is always room for improvement. I also tend to zone out a little if I get really bored.
-(8) It can be difficult to clearly organize my argument and focus on one specific aspect of the topic about which I am writing. I tend to want to include everything that I can think of about a topic, so I have to do consciously make sure that I stay on track.
-(8) I am very well organized, but not necessarily neat.
-I need high-energy classes! I love discussion and debate.
-I plan on maintaining my grades from last year while working harder to get more involved in ativities about which I am passionate outside of school. I plan on keeping my first-day-of-school entusiasm for everything!
-I would like to focus on study skills this year. I'm not a very good studier and learning study skills would be very helpful.
ReplyDelete-We have covered the general areas of grammar multiple times and it would be nice to not have to learn all that again but some of the more complicated grammar situations would be good to learn about.
-I am kind of worried that I won't be able to get all my English papers and reports organized and turned in on time.
-I would rate my reading skills at 8. I understand what I read and I am a fast reader but I tend to skim and not soak in what I read.
- I would rate my writing skills at a 7. I have a good vocabulary and know how to use it and try to format paragraphs in ways that make sense. I am a procrastinator and tend to finish my reports at the last minute which results in poorly thought out paragraphs and incomplete ideas.
-I am not very organized at all. I would give myself a 4.
- I enjoy learning english and I love to read. I am involved in lots of things and struggle to find time to finish things like reports but I will try my best to turn things in on time.
- I hope to try to keep organized and manage my time well so I get everything done that I need to.
I am excited to be in college prep english, however, I am not looking forward to reading tons of books. This year I think the best thing for me to focus on would be my study skills because they haven't been too hot in the past. I think I'm pretty well with my grammer skills and I do not think you need to cover poetry. My fears for the year are that I will be stressed out with all of the work we have in this class. My reading skills are either a high 4 or a low 5. I'm a pretty average reader. My writing skills are pretty great, especially abouth things that I am interested in because I can talk about those things for a long time. My organizational skills are probably a 2 or 3. I'm not a very organized person. To make this year run smoothly, you need to know that I love Brett Favre and you should strongly consider doing a unit on him. My goals for this year are to be successful in this class and complete all my assignments, but my main goal is to convince you to let me write a book report on Brett Favre!:)
ReplyDelete-I would love to focus on our paper writing skills! Especially transitions.
ReplyDelete-Anything in grammar skills would be great to work on.
-I believe you need to cover everything! Do not skip on anything. I am in College Prep to gain as much knowledge as possible.
-Book reports! What if I cannot finish the 500+ pages by teh due date? I'd be really sad. I can't stand turning in homework late!
-8! I love to read a lot!
-7! There is a lot to writing but I love to do it! I am horrible at that MLA stuff.
-9! I am super neat! I can't stand things out of place!
-I am willing to learn and I will be respectful at all times during class. I think it will go smoothly no matter what. We got an awesome senior class who works together pretty well.
- I plan to stay in the NHS club and to have as much fun possibly my last year at Colfax. :)
I am excited for College Prep English, but scared at the same time for how much writing is going to be involved. I know that pushing myself this year with this class will only benefit me for college and that is why I am anxious for this class.
ReplyDelete-The two things I wanted to focus on most this year are writing skills and study habits. I want to be able to write papers more fluently without having much difficulty starting them. I also want to be able to make up my own study guides and know how to take good notes for tests.
-Even though as many times as we go through the parts of speech, I always have trouble remembering them.
-One thing that we do not need to cover is run-on sentences. We did that a lot in Mrs. Gibson's last year.
-The main fear I have about the upcoming year is the amount of reading and writing that I am going to have to do. I do not have a problem doing either, I am just worried about the time crunch for them. I just have to keep reminding myself how much it is going to prepare me for college.
-I would rate my reading score an eight because I do well with comprehending, but sometimes I get sidetracked easily if I am not interested.
-I would also rate my writing score the same. Overall, I feel like I do pretty well with writing, but there is always room for improvement.
-I would rate myself a ten for organization. I am very organized when it comes to anything.
-I like to know about things far in advance to plan for them more easily.
-My goal for this school year is to pass this class with a B or higher and also be very prepared for college.
~I would like you to focus on study skills. By focusing on this it will help me when I am in college as well as the rest of high school.
ReplyDelete~I am unclear about the parts of speech. Even though we have been learning it has not seemed to click yet.
~I do not think you need to cover punctuation. We have been learning it for years and it is very clear to me.
~Some fears that I have about this year is being able to turn in all of my papers and being able to finish all of the reading.
~I would rate my reading skills as a 7. I do not like reading and when I do read it takes me awhile to finish the book.
~I would rate my writing skills as an 8. I feel that I am good at writing papers and essays.
~I would rate my organization skills as a 10. I like to be organized and I am good at doing it. I make lists for the things that I need to do and the things that I may need. If I do not have a list it drives me crazy!
~Some things that you may need to know is that I do not manage my time very well. I try not to procrastinate but somehow it always ends up happening but, I am going to try my best to get everything done.
~Some goals that I have for the year is to get A's in a lot of my classes. I want to join a few school groups also.
I am more than anything excited about the class, but obviously the workload is a little intimidating. The extensive writing and reading is particularly exciting to me because I enjoy both, especially writing. As far as research papers go, I am slightly indifferent. Although I enjoy writing, I have never found the overly structured writing to be very enjoyable. Creative writing and any loosely based subjects for essays have always been a lot of fun. I do realize that at this point in my education, I have to accept that most of the writing I will be doing will be extremely formal and structured. Again, I am indifferent still about the reality of that, but I'll probably get over it. Really I don't find it completely monotonous to write research papers and any writing can be enjoyable if you like the subject about which you are writing.
ReplyDeleteMy goal for this year is to stay healthy and not miss any school so I don't have an overwhelming amount of makeup work. With these types of classes, it would be nearly impossible to make up work like I did last year. Besides maintaining exceptional grades, I just want to try and enjoy my last year as much as possible. I have no doubts that everyone is with me on that one.
-This year, I would like you to focus on how and what exactly to study for test or quiz's. When studying for test, I never know exactly what to study. I always seem to study the wrong materials.
ReplyDelete-English/grammar/spelling is my weakest area for me. Saying that, I would not mind learning everything, again. Because I feel that the more I hear it, the more I’ll understand it in my future. The whole reason I am taking the class is to push myself and be better prepared for college.
-Like I said above, I would not mind learning anything when it comes to writing papers, organizing paragraphs, run-ons ect.
-The fears I have for this year, is the amount of reading. I don't mind reading, but I tend to put it 'on the back burner' and do other things instead.
-I think I would rate my reading skills on a seven. I like to read, and are a fast reader, but like I said "I tend to put it on the back burner". I hope to change my mind set this year and read alot more this school year and in my future, not only for a class but for fun. My biggest problem is that I do not find books that I enjoy reading so I stop reading them, I just do not know what types of books I like to read yet.
-I would rate my writing skills on a five. When I sit down to write something, I have alot of thoughts about what to write about and how I want to say it. But I never seem to organize my thoughts and put it all together. Writing book reports last year for Current Events was easy for me, but I struggle writing papers, for example about the Civil War
-I would rate myself on organization on a nine. I like everything to be organized and for everything to be done on time.
-This year, being my last, I want to push myself academically to prepare myself for college. I know I still have alot more to learn, and I’m ready to try my best at what ever gets thrown my way. I also just want to enjoy my last year, try things I have never done before, and just make the best of it.
My hope for College Prep English is to be prepared for English in college, but my fear is that I will be continuously confused and frustrated.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer to focus on writing and studying skills.
I think that all grammar would be good to go over, to brush up on some familiar things and other areas where there may be more problems.
I think run-ons will not have to be covered,because I think that they are easy enough to solve on our own.
My fears for this upcoming year are falling behind and becoming frustratingly confused.
I would rate myself with a 6 on reading skills, because to thoroughly understand, I need to read pretty slowly.
I think that my writing skills (not on a computer) would be an 8, because I write pretty often and don't have to many issues with it.
With some experience with online classes, I would rate myself with a 10 on organizational skills and attempting to keep on top of things.
I think that deadlines that are told well ahead of time and frequent reminders would make the year run more smoothly. I would also like time to get help when I come across a problem that I can't solve on my own.
One of my goals is to become more confident in English, with being able to handle a heavy load and understand it all. Another would be to take very thorough notes, without a lot of unnecessary notes with it.
I would like to focus mainly on Study Skills and Writing Skills. writing a paper is not very easy for me, and I know that when I get to college it will be very important to be fast at them. I feel pretty good about grammar, maybe just a quick brush up.I would hope we have run on sentences down by now, and know that they are not good! I am kind of nervous about the amount of time that this class is going to take, because I have a lot of other stuff going on as well. I would give myself probably a 7.5 on my reading, because I am a pretty good reader, but sometimes have troubles comprehending it the first time. My writing is probably a 5. I can do it, but it is not very enjoyable, and takes me a while. On the other hand, my organizational skills are good, probably like an 8. Usually really good, but sometimes I still slip up a little.I really want to get much more comfortable writing papers this year.
ReplyDeleteI'm both excited and nervous about this class. I'm excited because it's another step toward being able to leave highschool, and also to learn better writing skills. I'm nervous though, because I know this class is going to be A LOT of work, but in the end I believe it will work out. Some things I would like to work on some are my grammar, and my analysis of books. I don't feel that we need to cover topics such as sentence structure or avoiding run-on sentences as much because we've been learning about those for years and it would just feel redundant.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings heading into this class this year. I am excited to begin to prepare myself for college, but on the other hand I am nervous I will not be able to manage all the work I have in this class in addition with my other classes. I need to work on my reading skills the most, although I do not really want to. Usually, I do not have a problem with keeping myself orgainized. When I decide I am going to sit down and write a paper, my writing skills are fairly good. I look forward to learning all I need to know to be successful in this class and in the future.
ReplyDeleteI am actually very excited for this class despite the hard work that I have realized it will be. I am hoping that on top of Social Problems, this class will prepare me fairly well for next year when I head off to college.
ReplyDelete-I think I would like if you focus on study, and reading skills.
-In my opinion, I think that since we went over grammar a good portion of last year, that shouldn't be THAT much of a problem. However, it is never bad to just quickly refresh our memories. Along with that, I think that we completely do not have to cover things like avoiding run-ons. I think that if we are taking college prep english, we probably should already be avoiding mistakes like those :)
-The fears that I have for the upcoming year are all the homework that I know that I will have. I also have to manage all of that, dance, and a job. My days will be very long and stressful but I DO believe in the end it will pay off.
-I am not really sure how I would "rate" my reading skills?... I mean, I don't think I am a poor reader by any means.. but I am not sure how I could rate it.
-Same situation^. However, from previous writing assignments that I have done well on, I would assume fairly well.
-My organizational skills, however, I would rate as probably an 8 or 9. I actually cannot handle when most things are disorganized.
-Finally, some of the goals I have for this year and this class are to just keep my head up and no matter how much all of the work may seem, I just have to realize that in the end it will pay off.
I am excited to improve my reading and writing skills this year in college prep english, but also have fears of not being able to budget my time accuretly especailly with the other classes i am taking this year. The skills that i would like to work on most this year are reading, writing, and studying properly for a college level class. Like everyone else has said already, I don't think we need to go over what is a run on sentence. A quick over view of grammar and punctuation would be nice though. I would give myself a 6.5-7 on my reading skills because I do have troubles comprehending things the first time I read them. I would give my writing skills a 6, mainly because i have a hard time getting started. Now organization on the other hand i would give myslef a 8.5. I think organization is key to suceeding in anything. My goal for this year is to become a better writer and faster reader!
ReplyDelete-I am excited to take College Prep but I am a little concerned of how I am going to handle budgeting my time correctly with all the other things I need to finish.
ReplyDelete-Reviewing now and then wouldn't be a bad idea
-What a run-on sentence is because I'm pretty sure we are all aware of that by now.
-How I am going to budget my time, reading, and comprehending what we are reading at that time.
-7-7.5 I have trouble with comprehending what I read the first time I read through it, and even the second time on occasion
-6 Since when I try to think of how to start my writing I end up taking longer than needed.
-8.5 I am very organized just have some trouble budgeting time while working on certain things.
-I try my best not to procrastinate but somehow it seems to happen quite often.
-My goals would be to not procrastinate nearly as much as I usually do. Try to be involved in discussion rather than just listening and to become better at comprehending what I read.
There should definitely be a balance. It's a choice for everyone to make on their own, and I've found there's a lot of trial and error in finding the right fit. I think I'd definitely rather be making a little less money, but in a job I liked and that gave me time to write, than a high-paying job that made me dread getting up in the morning.
ReplyDelete