Mrs.

Jenkins,

This year has been one of my most successful years overall. I have acquired more
knowledge this year, not just on the curriculum, but on life as well. As this year comes to an end
and I have been reflecting back, I see how much progression I have made becoming a better
reader and writer. I also now see how much these books and writing assignments have
changed my views on life, society, etc.

As a reader and thinker, I have improved much more from past years to this year.
Starting with ​Siddhartha​ this summer, I learned about the importance of finding one’s self. Even
though it was a difficult book to get through, I still feel like the concept of the book was easily
comprehensible. I believe that with the increase of reading difficulty throughout the year, we, the
students, have learned more collectively and individually about multiple completely different
topics. Even though they were all on different topics, they all related back to the evaluation of
self, leadership, or overcoming obstacles. All of our books related to AT LEAST one of the
topics. I feel as if there were some books that could have related to two, maybe even all three
topics from this year. As we evolved through the year and read the different books, I feel that I
have evolved and improved as a person. I think my favorite book this year was ​The Fifth Wave​,
my dystopian novel choice, because it changed how I thought about things. In this book, I was
able to see the effects of too much control over a society. I think my least favorite and hardest
book would be Lord of the Flies because it was hard to get into and it was a difficult read.
Because I was not interested in the book, i feel like it was harder to read and complete activities
on it. I found the dystopian novel and the EBA nonfiction independent reading novel most
beneficial to my growth as an EBA student. As said before, the dystopian novel changed my
view on society; I saw how much a “perfect” image affected everyone. In the EBA nonfiction
novel I picked up multiple key points that could help me in the business world. Some of these
points include persisting through challenges, making strong connections, etc.

This year, I have also drastically improved as a writer. This year I have written essays on
novels, a spring research paper, and many more. I think the most challenging piece I wrote this
year was the research paper. I feel not only that there were more steps and requirements, but it
was difficult to meet the deadlines with everything else going on. Yes, it was eventually
manageable, but it was difficult to plan everything with only a few classes. This year, when it
came to writing, I learned new things when it came to sentence structure, word choice, and
essay structure. I started incorporating new vocabulary words that we learned throughout the
year. I also incorporated these new sentence structures that we reviewed and learned. In my
ending research essay, I incorporated the new sentence structures such as participial phrases,
nonrestrictive clauses and phrases, appositive phrases, etc. Before this year I had never even
thought of writing single paragraphs about books. Before, I was used to writing full essays at the
end of reading a book. This year, we would write paragraphs (PPEs) about certain sections of
the book instead of the whole book. I feel that doing this not only increased our writing skills, but
allowed us to comprehend the book easier. I think these would be considered good challenges
and changes because they allowed us, as the students, to grow and improve in English.
 In my five pieces, I only made a few changes. I did not make any changes to the
summer networking project because I think having that from the beginning and then one of my
ending pieces really shows my growth. My business slides were good, they did not need any
changes either. In the literary analysis I fixed some punctuation errors and grammar errors.
Finally, I edited some of my punctuation errors in my research essay before posting it. I knew I
needed revisions because of the grades and edits from others on some of my pieces. I don’t
think these minor revisions made any major changes to my pieces it just made them
grammatically correct.

Looking ahead to my future, reading will play a big role in my life. I see books playing a
big role in my future by introducing me to new concepts, ideas, and characteristics. I like reading
my own books so I feel that I will read for pleasure often. I would love to read more because I
make connections to the books and it increases my knowledge. I feel that people write to
portray different ideas. Whether they are talking about a culture, an idea they believe in, etc.
they are spreading their ideas to the rest of the world. Writing is an important skill to have
because it can help you in whatever career you chose to pursue. Next year, I see myself doing
more writing because I am taking AP English. I do not know that I am going to have time to do
personal writing because of my class load, but there will be enough writing in that class.

After this year, I felt that I have grown as a reader and a writer just in this class alone. I
know that continuing English at Kempsville will only improve my reading and writing skills. If just
one year has done all of this, I cannot wait to see what the next two years hold. One of my goals
over the next two years is to maintain the knowledge I obtained this year while learning new
stuff. The books that we read this year make me want to start writing, but it's all about time. I
find it is easier to complete writing assignments now because I enjoy writing more. The pieces
from this year have really broadened my idea of what writing actually can be. It doesn't just have
to be a non-fictional report. You can do persuasive or educational within this "non-fiction" piece.

Sincerely,
Alyssa Sherwin