Reading

The books I read this semester are In Defense of Food, Nation, LOTF, Hard Love, The Escape, Hills like White Elephants, 5 People You Meet in Heaven, and Listening is an Act of Love in order from hardest to easiest. I wish I had more time to read more, but I am glad I read this list of books. I think if I hadn't read some of these books, I wouldn't have looked at reading the way I do now.
I know that just from reading summer reading, I have learned a lot as a reader. I learned how to keep track of the story better, that you have to think deep and in between the lines of the writing (not just think exactly what it says), and read more passionately. But, along the way, I also have noticed that I do have some strengths and weaknesses with it. I might be good at comprehending what the book says, but have a harder time understanding what the book might be trying to say in between the lines. I also love reading books, but I don't like annotating as much. I know it is good for you, and helps you understand better, but I just believe that it takes too much time to do.
Next semester, I hope to read more books than this semester, because I know I can. I think just the adjustment with high school, and all the homework overwhelmed me at first, and I wasn't as prepared as I thought I would be. Now that I know what its like, I will try to be as good a student as I can.


Reading times and working times:
Sunday- 30 minutes
Monday- 35 minutes
Tuesday- 20 minutes
Wednesday- 20 minutes
Thursday- 40 minutes

Reading Focus

Simon, even though he dies, has a lot of significance to the book before end even after he died. As we have talked about in class, he is like a "Jesus" figure. He says a lot of deep things that no one else knows. He knows his path, and how it is going down. He may not of made it to the end of the book, but he will be in the atmosphere for the rest of it.
The odd thing about Simon was in chapter 9, when the boys started to horseshoe around him, and start talking about him as an it. Also the boys that were hurting him were addressed as its too. I didn't fully get this until we talked about it, but the way we said it, they were de-personifying. They were acting to the equivalent of animals. Also, when we found out that Simon was the beast. I was so surprised that it was him, but now that I think about it, it does really all fit together. Simon always sneaks around in the woods at night, and the time the litluns saw it was lurking around the woods. It also connects to Simon being the Jesus because he was for there being a beast. Even though he knew all along that he himself was the beast. In one quote, Golding didn't write directly that it was Simon, but gave you many hints and clues to show that it was him. He wrote, "The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill"  (152). It talks about how Simon came out of the hill, and went into the horseshoe. He doesn't write Simon, but the beast. As they kill him, and he it sent off to sea, he is still in the midst of everyone. After this killing, the island was never the same.

Simon

My focus for the book is the character Simon. He is a very static character, being that he always says the most passionate things. As we have talked in class about, he is known as the same as Jesus, because he always the most "maxim" worthy things. For example, one thing he said always stays with me ever since I read it. The quote says, "The thing is--fear can't hurt you any more than a dream" (82). I think this is an amazing quote that he says, because it speaks perfectly about him and the book, but you can also plug it into real life.
Simon still has his troubles in the book though. He still has to deal with all the troubles of Ralph bullying him, and also his trouble with his seizures. One main place was when he was in a way having a hallucination with the Lord of the Flies. It is directly talking to him, but it is already dead, and a pig! He is feeling one of his seizures come on, and goes into this trance. Simon also knows many things that everyone else doesn't. He knows that people will be rescued one day from the island, but he doesn't say that EVERYONE will be rescued. This must mean that either 1) some people are going to die, or 2) that some people will be left behind. I can't wait to start reading the final chapters, and finding out how everything comes together!

Reading

This week I mainly focused on reading for Lord of The Flies, because I was a little behind.

Monday: 20 minutes
Tuesday: 45 minutes
Wednesday: 30 minutes
Thursday: 35 minutes
Friday: 20 minutes

Reading Times

My reading for this week was not that good, because I seemed to always either be busy or just forget.
Monday: 10 minutes
Tuesday: 15 minutes
Wednesday: 10 minutes
Thursday: 20 minutes
Friday: 10 minutes
Saturday: 15 minutes
Sunday: 30 minutes

Lord of The Flies

By now in lord of the Flies, we are getting a good characterization on these boys. Ralph is leading the group, with Jack sort of side kicking him. Piggy is as always being excluded, but still tries to include himself. Simon is just looked down upon, literally (because he is really short). My focus so far has been the relationships between everyone. This happens in a lot of stories though, or even in real life; everyone gets along with one another except for one or two boys. In this case, its mainly Piggy. 

In the course of the chapters, my opinion on these boys have changed a lot. In the beginning, I used to feel bad for Piggy, but now I understand why these guys don't like him. He is a very whiny, high-maintenance boy who needs to be shot with reality. I also used to like Jack, because at first he respected that Ralph was overall leader. Now I think he is slowly going to take over. And Simon, I thought he would be one of the big boys, but it seems like he is almost as excluded as Piggy.

I can't wait to read more and figure out more about the "monster" and other things!

Towards the Midterm

Now that we have had school for almost a complete semester, it seems like it's only been a month or so, literally! I know that I will have to start preparing soon for the tests soon, even though I'm dreading it. When I look back at it, there are some things I understand very thoroughly, and others I'm somewhat confused about. Under literacy elements, I understand all of them very well, but if I go into depth about them, I don't know if I would be able to remember everything. For example, i know about setting, but i might not be able to remember all the depths of it (like physical, temporal, etc..). I also understand the paper we wrote on it too (even though I didn't at first).
One thing that was hard for me to understand, was how to make a literacy analysis statement. I tried my hardest and thought I did a good job, but I still think I need to review that a lot. Lord of the Flies seems to be going good. I love trying to find out where it might foreshadow here or what it symbolizes there. Its so much fun!
I'm excited to start reviewing and going over whats going to help me understand more for the midterm.

Plane Crash

This week in class, I enjoyed the discussion of what we would do if we were in a situation of a plane crashing on a deserted island. I think our group was very good at working together to make sure we "survived". In our group, Diamond acted as our "judge" I guess by just taking control over who was talking when, and what we were going to have to do to survive. She devised a plan so that if someone wanted to talk, they would have to raise their hand, and she would call on them. She also kept us in line by banging on the desk (or I guess sand?) to make sure that everyone was paying attention.
Overall, our group didn't have to many disagreements over what to do. In the end, I think everyone just said that we should either take the first graders, and send them off to find help (so they would leave us alone), or become one with Natives (we made this up) and eat the children. I think we all were just playing around and all decided we didn't want to have to deal with first graders all around us 24/7.
I'm not sure if this was 100% needed or not, but Emory came up with an idea of having a government. I wasn't really sure if we needed this, because everyone on this deserted island was only 14 or 15 or younger. She was saying we needed to have a democracy, which I think is a good idea, but only if we developed the island more, and became stable with our lives again.


This Week For Reading: Hard Love and Lord of the Flies
Monday- 15 minutes
Tuesday- 25 minutes
Wednesday- 20 minutes
Thursday- 15 minutes
Friday- 15 minutes
Sunday- 30 minutes

Free Post

This week is the last week in my 2012 cross country season. I am very depressed about it because over the last 6 months I have gotten so close to all of my cross country buddies, from 6 grade all the way up to seniors. I know that I will still see them around school, or have them in another sport soon, but it still makes me sad that next season, it won't be the same as it was this year. I don't think I have ever liked cross country as much as I did this year, because now I'm older and I guess since I'm older I have more seniority and talk to more of the upper class-men (in this case, just high schoolers). In middle school, I only talked to mainly middle schoolers. I don't mean that I wasn't allowed to talk to the older kids, but I just felt smaller and more intimidated by them. 

Now, it the exact opposite. I feel like I could talk to anyone on the team now, a senior to 6th grader. We all have one distinct thing in common, we love to run. The state meet will be next monday, and I cannot wait to see how all the girls do, from placing to just uniting as a team. We have all grown so close this year, and I know that by the end of the year, when it's time for the seniors to graduate, I will be crying my eyes out with happiness and sadness of everyone moving on in their lives, but also missing the old times that we all had together at summer practices or bootcamp. I think to myself all the time that if I'm already really sad now of people leaving the team, I can't imagine what it will be like when I'm a senior!

Hard Love

The book that I have just started reading is called Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger. The story so far is about a boy named John who loves to make zines and read zines. He has a particular favorite zine called Escape Velocity. He loved reading them so much, and couldn't wait for the next copy. He went to a store where the newest zine was being released by the author, delighted to find her there at the bookstore. 
The story seems like its a very gloomy/depressing story. This John boy has a very tough life, with his parents being divorced and him and his dad barely talking (even though he sees his dad every weekend). The story is supposed to be about first love, but I guess since I'm not that far into it, it hasn't really started to happen. Right now, I'm not very interested in the book, but from the summary on the back of the book it seems like it would be a book that I love. This might just be one of those books that you have to suffer through in certain parts, and then get to the good parts. I hope so, because I can't really figure out what to read next.

My reading for this week:
Monday: 30 minutes
Tuesday: 20 minutes
Wednesday: 15 minutes
Thursday: 35 minutes
Friday: 45 minutes

My 3 short stories that I read were The Sniper, The Return, and Hills Like White Elephants. I think I liked Hills Like White Elephants better than The Return and The Sniper because it seems happier. I know the stories all have some dark/sad thing about them, but the Return was so dark and sad, I couldn't seem to follow when I was reading.
In Hills Like White Elephants, it was about a couple that was on a trip in Spain. I'm not sure why they were in Spain, but they did mention about how they used to have the entire world? I was confused about that part. I knew it was 3rd person limited because the main characters mentioned many times about how they were worried about something, and also how they used to have the world, but they didn't anymore. I love the mystery of 3rd person limited stories, but I also get frustrated because I'm not sure what everything means. The thing I loved about this story though was the love of the two couples. They seemed like an old couple because they were very impatient with each other, but they still reminded one another of how much they loved the other. I think all these things matter for the thesis because from what I've seen from the thesis statements Dr. D gave us in class, it mentions a lot about many literary elements, and also many characteristics of the story itself. I may talk about the characters feelings, characterizations, or even thoughts. I don't think I'm ready for a main thesis statement though because I'm still not sure which story I'm going to use and how to make the statement all together. I'm excited to write my paper soon after finishing Lord Of The Flies!

Participation

I would consider my participation this quarter at about 3/4. I think this because in that past years, English hasn't always been my best subject, so it doesn't always come to me as the most interesting thing. Don't get me wrong, I love to write, but at times I feel down because I'm not the best writer. I always try my hardest to be the best writer I can, but its more difficult for me than other subjects. I strive to be a writer like Nicholas Sparks or J.K. Rowling, but it doesn't always end up that way. I take notes to always see what I can improve on, and ask questions if I don't understand (even though sometimes I ask classmates instead of Dr. D), but I do need to work on staying on task, and not getting sidetracked by other things.
For second quarter, I hope that I will even more things about writing that will help me improve. I will try to stay on task more, and focus very deeply on my writing skills. I can't wait to start other pieces of writing and see what all I can do to try and be like those writers. I hope that by the end of the year I will improve immensely as a writer and a student in English.

My reading this week:
Monday- Dry September- 55 minutes
Tuesday- And of Clay we Are Created- 65 minutes
Wednesday- Harrison Bergeron- 30 minutes
Thursday- Waltz of The Fat Man- 35 minutes

Literacy Elements

So far, in the short stories that we've read, the more we learn about literacy narratives, the more I understand the stories. In one of the recent stories we read, Harrison Bergeron, it seems like the setting really influences the story as a whole. It talks about how in the future everyone is the same intelligence, and that if you are above average intelligence, you had to wear this thing called a "mental handicap radio" in your ear. It would make noises that would keep you from having an advantage from others.
In present day today, people look at above average intelligence as a very unique thing. Sometimes you learn new things from them, like something they might invent or even discover about the world. We don't think of them as mutant forms of human beings, we look up to them. In the story, when Harrison escapes prison and goes to the set where they were filming the ballerinas, it talks about how people took out their radios from their ears to be the intelligence they actually were. But then Harrison and his empress were killed, and everyone was told to put their radios back on and go back to their average intelligence. Then, after it all happened, the mother and father of Harrison completely forgot what even happened! It scares me to think of the future like that, because it makes the future sound very dark and sad. I hope that in the future we keep looking at people with above average intelligence as a positive thing,  not negative.   

Reading Time

This week I was not able to read as much as I wanted to, but I got some in!

Reading Time:
Sunday- 20 minutes
Monday-30 minutes
Tuesday-15 minutes
Wednesday- 0 minutes
Thursday- 25 minutes
Friday- 5 minutes
Saturday- 15 minutes

Plot Structure

In The Rescue, it seems like theres subplots within the story. The main conflict right now in the story is that there is a single mom (Denise) who has a son (Kyle) that has learning disabilities. The subplot was in the beginning of the story was that Denise got into a car accident and almost died, and on top of that Kyle had disappeared and was lost! The resolution of all of it is when Taylor saves Kyle by finding him in a deer stand off the highway. There also starts to be a relationship between a volunteer fire-fighter named Taylor McAden and Denise.
The way it would go in Freytag's pyramid is the car accident when it all happened would be the rising action and Kyle being lost would be the climax and falling action when everyone started looking for him. And the resolution of Taylor finding him and everyone being okay.


My Reading For This Week:
Monday: 25 minutes
Tuesday: 15 minutes
Wednesday: 30 minutes
Thursday: 30 minutes
Friday: 20 minutes
Saturday: 15 minutes

I Am a Writer Who...

I am a writer who enjoys writing about personal interests. When I write, there are certain things that you can tell I enjoy because of my descriptions and words or the events or things. For example, when I wrote the literacy narrative, it wasn't like I didn't enjoy writing it, but it was more difficult for me because it wasn't something that I think is the most interesting. Last week for one of my blog posts I wrote about my cross country experience, and it seemed like there was just more spark to it; like there was a different feel to it than it would be to some of my other pieces of writing.
I am also a writer who enjoys writing more creatively than directly. In songs, a lot of writers know how to say things that don't directly say something, but you can tell by their other choice of words what they say or how they feel. For example, the singer/songwriter Lady Gaga is a very deep, emotional person who has gone through a lot in her life. She is a very passionate writer, and you can tell by her songs. Sometimes it might not sound like it makes sense, but once you put it all together you get how she feels or what she's trying to say.

Free Post

This weekend was our 3rd cross country meet! It was in Robert, Louisiana for  St. Pauls. Compared to Highland Road Park meets, it was pretty small with only about 29 teams I think. I love meets that are out of town because the team gets to take a bus ride to wherever it is, and it just seems like everyone kind of bonds during the time; 20-30 girls talking, laughing, and just having fun all while our hairs blowing in the wind from all the windows down. The only bad thing about the meets and the bus rides is the heat! It gets extremely hotter as the day progresses from 7 in the morning, when its only about 60 degrees, to noon when its probably hotter than 90 degrees.
Along with all the heat, everyones tummies are flustered with butterflies as we wait for our race. Luckily, the varsity girls was first and we got to run as soon as we got there instead of waiting until the sun came up high and got hot.
All the girls line up on the line as we wait for the official gun to go off to start the race. Everyone is saying their cheers for each team, and all the teams are saying their last wishes and prayers following with their cheers of "GOO KNIGHTS!". I get my running stance as I listen for the shot and take my starting pace. The adrenaline kicks in as if I feel like I could just sprint the entire race, until I reassure myself that I have 3 miles and have to pace myself. The feelings that I have at a meet are a range of emotions. Anger, sadness, happiness, and relief. You can never tell which one though, because it feels like all of them put together.


My Time for Literacy Narrative this Week:
Monday- 1 hour
Tuesday- 15 minutes
Wednesday- 0 minutes
Thursday- 30 minutes
Friday- 0 minutes
Saturday- 0 minutes
Sunday- 1 hour

Literacy Narrative Processing

This week for my literacy narrative, I think I learned a lot of things that will help me with my literacy narrative, along with writing for the future. My group and I have come up with good ideas to help each other and to improve our writing skills.
Myself personally, I worked on my look for my paper this week. I needed to change and look at this more like how some certain books changed me instead of how I liked the book so much. It seems like I can go off topic about the book more often than I need to. Others in my group had really good ideas for their topics. I know Lily's paper had a lot of good choice words, and I think once she edits it more and finishes up the paper, it will be an amazing paper! Same with Matthew, because his paper is very detailed and knows how to bring you to the scene. His story also sounds very passionate because I don't think he's a bad writer at all, he's actually very good!
I'm still working on my 2nd draft, but I think it's going to turning out pretty good! I can't wait to see the feedback for it!

The Rescue

The book I'm reading now, called The Rescue, by Nicholas Sparks is a really good book. I haven't been able to stop reading it now because I like it so much! I like how its not like all the other books Nicholas Sparks has written, but still has that love romance to it.
The book it about this woman named Denise, who is a single mom on her own with a son who has some sort of communication issue (they aren't sure what it is though, because they have gone to multiple doctors and they all say something different).
So far in the book, Denise has been driving around when all of a sudden, a huge storm comes and starts to go crazy! Denise sees a deer on the road in the middle of nowhere and, BOOM, the next thing she knows, she's waking up to a man seeing if she's dead or not. But (gasp) she turns around and sees that her son is nowhere to be found! She is looking everywhere for him, but can't seem to find him in this terrible whether. Where her car crashed was right by a swampy area, so everyone is worried sick that he will get hurt, or even worse, die. While Denise is looking for him, people realize she has a concussion and has to be rushed to the hospital.

Reading List
Sunday- 15 minutes, 12 pages
Monday- 35 minutes, 27 pages
Tuesday- 25 minutes, 19 pages
Wednesday- 25 minutes, 20 pages
Thursday- 35 minutes, 28 pages
Friday- no read
Saturday- 18 minutes, 14 pages

Literacy Narrative

I'm not positive on what I want to do my literacy narrative on yet, but I have some ideas that I think all would go great with it!
I know when I was in fifth grade, we read the book Where The Red Fern Grows in Mrs. Boudreaux's class. It was a very good read because it was the first book that I actually felt like I was there in the book, with the main characters and all. It was the real first book that I felt the sorrow for like when the dogs had died and it actually put a tear in my eye. I guess since then I have read many more books that have also put me in that "tear in my eye" because the reading levels have gone up and a lot of the authors are more experienced for more older books.
Also, I remember when I was in sixth grade, we were doing our reading for the class one day and I didn't know what to read, so Mrs. G had suggested the book I Have Lived a Thousand Years to me. It was a book about a girl, around my age, who went through the holocaust with her mother and brother. After I had read that book, I was obsessed with books about the holocaust or just world war 2 in general.
Continuing from that book, in eighth grade I read the book, Sarah's Key. It was another book about world war 2 and how a little girl had to go through it without her little brother, who she loved very much. That book is now one of my favorite books ever because I loved how it went back and forth from the little girl in the 1940's to a woman in present day doing an article about the war and all the people that went through it. I guess it was sort of like a suspense book too because throughout the book this writer is trying to find out clues about this girls past and what she did during this hard time in the 40's.
All these books are very memorable to me, so I know it will be a hard decision to choose which one I write about for my Literacy Narrative!

Its a Wonderful Life vs. 5 People You Meet in Heaven

After seeing Elizabeth's comment about how 5 people you meet in heaven and its a wonderful life, I realized they are a lot alike, but also very different.
First, In both books it talks about how both main characters sort of look back at their lives from when they were very little to present day. But the difference is that in It's a Wonderful Life it goes exactly back to those days when they happened and they re-watch it. In 5 People You Meet in Heaven, he meets people who were in his life at some point that reminds him of his past, and then they just recall the story, not go back to the complete day. Also, in both books they are in like an alternate universe where only they and the people they are with can't be seen. They can see the people but the people can't see them back. But the difference in them is that in It's A Wonderful Life the mans not dead, he just goes into this stage where he's not there. In 5 People You Meet in Heaven, the main character dies form being squashed by a ride at an amusement park.
I haven't read the book It's a Wonderful Life or seen the movie, but I did see a play on it when I was in 5th grade.

Reading Response

                                                        Reading response

        This week, I have finished my book 5 People you meet in heaven and started a new book by Nicholas Sparks called The Rescue. 

       The 5 People you meet in Heaven was a very good book. The main things it helped me to remember is that I only have one life, so I have to live it to the fullest and always act like its my last day to live. It also taught me about other things, like to love people with my whole heart and that if I ever have some grudge over something or have something bothering me, to not just keep it unresolved my entire life. I thought this because it seemed that Eddie had a very bad vivid memory of when he was in the war, when he was catching that camp on fire. He said he could've sworn that he saw a child in the fire, but he didn't have time to save it because his friends were telling him to come on. It bothered him so much, that when he got back from the war and was in a good place, he had nightmares that would wake him up in the middle of the night terrified for the rest of his life. He felt so guilty, because he wasn't sure but he would always tell himself that he had killed a child. 

          I'm not that far into my new book yet, but I am very excited because I have read Nicholas Sparks before and I always fall in love with every story. Really all I know so far about this book is that the main character is a fireman who has never found love. I can't wait to get into this book and found out everything that happens!

Reading List

Sunday- 20 mins. 20 pages

Monday- 30 mins. 33 pages

Tuesday- 25 mins. 23 pages

Wednesday- 30 mins. 29 pages

Thursday- 20 mins. 18 pages

Friday- 15 mins. 13 pages

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven

   5 People You Meet in Heaven has definitely opened my eyes to some of the ways to look at things like death and heaven itself. It has taught me to have an open mind about things like what heavens going to be like and who I will see there. I know in Eddies case he didn't even personally know some of the people who talked to him (blue man), but they still had a big part of Eddies life to remember. Eddie had no clue at all what impact he had on their lives and how he had done things which he didn't even think he did. Like when the blue man told Eddie that he had killed him, Eddie thought that he was crazy, because Eddie had never killed anyone outside of the war. Then he realized that just by dropping his ball in the street, it sent a trigger into that blue mans life and later killed him. It made Eddie realize how precious his life was and how such little things could mean so much to someone, but yet he didn't even know that himself.
   This book so far is very fascinating and sometimes very hard to put down. I am not quite finished with it yet but hope to in the next few days!

My Birthday

        Hurricane Isaac was very unexpected and came very quickly (until it hit land and decided to slow down to 8 miles an hour.) When I found out that it would hit on my birthday, the same day as Katrina did seven years prior, I was very amazed. When the day came, I was surprised to wake up with the electricity still on, and barely any rainfall. But not much time passed until it started to get very windy and be raining deliriously! The power went out at about 10 A.M. and soon enough it was started to get very hot. I discussed with my mom and dad when would be a good time to have the birthday celebration (which was just my entire family having cake and ice cream and me opening my presents) and we decided we have it after lunch before it started to get too dark. When the time came, I was so excited to see what presents I got and what the cake would look like.

        At last we got the cake out and started singing happy birthday and eating. Afterwards when the time came to open presents, I was astonished to get a new running hat and a water bottle! My parents knew it wasn't what I would have expected, but they barely had any time to shop and get any presents and just told me that we would be able to go look for other things after the storm had passed when all the stores were open. I knew that it would be okay if we didn't get everything because I was happy with what I had already gotten. Finally, after we finished eating, we just had a nice, relaxing day of sleeping, watching movies, and just walking around outside finding out if anything had fallen or broken around the neighborhood. It was my second hurricane birthday. I also found out something pretty cool, that I was born in 1998, and when I turned seven that it was the day of Katrina. And seven years later it was hurricane Isaac! It will be funny and mysterious if I have another crazy hurricane on my 21st birthday!

My Free Read

                                                 Listening Is an Act of Love  
My free choice book this year was Listening Is an Act of Love which was edited by Dave Isay. This book is a collecting of stories from all over the nation that are about things from families to struggles and incidents that happened. Most of these stories were things like highlights of peoples lives that might have happened when they were very little or recently in their present lives.

Some of the stories that I liked were from work and dedication. A bus driver named Ronald Ruiz was driving his public bus in the city of New York one day when an old woman came on and said that she needed to get to a restaurant to meet her friends but wasn't sure which one. He let the woman on the bus and told her that he would check the restaurants on the street for her. As he got to each restaurant he would get off the bus and go check in and see if it was the one she was needed at. At the very last restaurant he found the one she needed to be at. Instead of just letting her out to walk there, he took the bus around and kneeled it so that it would be easier for her to get off. Once he helped her off, she told him, "Today I was diagnosed with cancer, but you made me feel like a princess today."

It was a very emotional story for me personally because many people in my family have had/died of cancer. And even though this bus driver had never met this woman before in his life, he treated her like he had known her his whole life. He stopped the bus at every restaurant just so that this old woman wouldn't get lost. This is kind of like an inspiration to me to always be nice to people because you never know what could be going on in their lives in that time.

I am Isabella Harlan, a new high schooler. I am new to blogging, but can't wait to get started! English is not always my best subject, but I love to write and hope to become a better one this year. I am very athletic and run cross country, track, and play softball. I love to meet new people try new things.

My goals this year for english class are to,
-Become a better writer
-Read different genre books that I have never read before
-Understand more about grammar (adverbs, adjectives, etc...)