Introduction :

  English in general to me, has always been a challenging feat, always pushing me to explore new ideas yet allowing me to see the world from the eyes of many. I can honestly say that the English course coming into high school has never been my strong suit. I was only a practical reader who received much enjoyment from fantasy novels such as Castle in the Attic during my elementary years, to the Harry Potter series during junior high. My writing skills were also undeveloped, but my progression in juinor high and high school has given me more varied sentence patterns and the fundamentals to numerous essay formats that I have been accostumed to seeing. English has undoubtedly grown on me as the years have past over time. I found myself enjoying a wider netowork of literature becoming attacted to the historical fictions like To kill a Mocking Bird, and the even more thoguht provoking Native Son. My adventure into the detailings of American Literature during the 11th grade in high school has also matured my analytical skills. The Adventure of Huckle Berryfinn, was an interesting novel to analyze as I learned of satire and the value of symbolism.

  This year with our main focal point being the completion of our electronic portfolio, I find english to be a even more strenuous task requiring the upkeep of our own websites as well as getting ourselves accustomed to the the workings of the moonfruit tools. Despite this fact I can see how this extended project would benefit me in the testing of responsibility and the shift into a more college-like course of work. The topic for this year(the monster we create) is indeed very strange to me, but I find that it plays a fitting role in the pieces of literature we have been focusing on in class. My e-portfolio will also hold true to this topic as we have focused our dicussions in class on the creation of man, monster, and self among other things. I find that my grasp of literature will become even stronger with the completion of this portfolio and that my understanding of the world will become even stronger as a result. With the completion of first semester, I have learned a lot of peotry and the variety of different ways in dissecting a poem to figure out the real meaning that the author was trying to convey. I still wish that we would continue some practice with sentence patterns from sophmore year as that has really helped me over the year in writing essays. Thinking about next semester, I believe I will have to put more effort into english so that I wouldn't have to catch up the week before it was due.