Time Goes By

Aminals are More Human Like than you Think

Typically, we admire animals because we see some type of quality in them that we see in ourselves. Someone might say, "I'm lazy just like a sloth." Another reason why someone might admire an animal is an experience they had when they were younger. A person may remember going to the zoo as a child and seeing a giraffe or an elephant. These memories could stick with a person so much that they admire the animal. The last reason that someone may admire an animal is the way they look. Everyone loves how Pandas, puppies, and rabbits look. This may cause someone to become obsessed with an animal and therefore admire it. In the courage of turtles Hoaglan admires the turtles perseverance and human like qualities. Woolf admires that even though death was inevitable for the moth, it still persevered and tried to fight it's doom.
 

The animal that I admire the most is an alligator because it works hard to get it's prey, it is very sneaky, and it is so powerful.
 

A Moment in the Darkness

I chose the chunk of the essay that described the eclipse. This part of the essay stood out to me because it is a very key moment. The essay's title is "Total Eclipse", so I figured that the description of the eclipse would be the most important part. My favorite part is when Annie Dillard compares the eclipse to a dragon. She says that even though the eclipse didn't actually look like a dragon, it seemed more mythical than anything she could imagine. This made the essay more unfamiliar and unusual to the reader. Annie also used descriptions like "lid of a pot" and "materialized out of thin air" which are two great ways to describe the eclipse. The purpose of this part is to again, give creative ways to describe the eclipse. The use of different colors and descriptive words help make the eclipse almost appear in your mind when reading. This part of the essay fits in nicely. She does a great job describing in my mind the most import part of the story. Without this description, the story would be bland and harder to understand.

Like Father Like Son

 1. Once more to the lake is not in chronological order. He starts off being a boy and going to the lake with his dad. Then he brings his boy to the lake later in life when he misses the peace of the lake. Then as the story goes along, he keeps visioning himself as his own father, and then as himself again. He always says that the lake is always there where he left it, only the people are the ones to get older and change.

2. At the end of the story it talks about death. This means that as they leave the lake, a new chapter begins. He now has shown his son the lake and it is his turn in the future to show his son the lake, and so on. It seems to me that a part of E.B has died because he has to move on from the lake.

The Struggle of Marriage

"The Story of An Hour" took place back in the old days. The setting is an old apartment. The people in the story do not seem like they have much money. The heart problems it seems like are attributed to her having her heart broken and being let down all of the time. It seems in the story that Mr and Mrs. Mallard do not have a very close relationship. In the story, it said that she loved him sometimes.
It seemed like she wasn't even sure if she loved him. It seems almost that there is relief when he died, like there was some sort of weight lifted off her shoulders. By the story only taking place in her house shows me that she was sort of "trapped" in her house.

Giants Hidden in Plain Sight

These objects stand tall with the pride of Pomfret School. They seem to overlook the students traveling to and from class. Red, blue, silver, and gold. These colors seem to blend in with all of the other vibrant colors in the building. It seems like these are overlooked more often than noticed. Some are giants compared to others. 2004, 2009, 1999, and 2003, all years with one important accomplishment in common. Seeing these makes me want to work as hard as I can. These symbolize the hard work of those students that have come before us. They symbolize long, sleepless nights. There are even pictures showing the hard work of these students. These objects make teachers, parents, and most importantly students proud.

What Does it Take to be a Good Reader and Writer?

     As a freshman last year, I had a great English teacher, Mrs. Davis. She would always drive into us the importance of good grammar and having a wide vocabulary. She also instilled in us the importance of being good, active readers. When I think of English classes that I had in the past, I think of writing and memorizing vocabulary. Mrs. Davis helped me to see that there are many ways in which being a good reader is the most important part of being a well prepared English student. First of all, being a good reader includes understanding and synthesizing what you read. A good reader is able to take what they just read and explain it step by step back to you. Another way someone is a good reader is annotation. Annotation is when you make notes and underline important parts of a reading. This was, and always will be, a huge part of Mrs. Davis' class. She would stress to us every day that you can't just read, that you need to understand. Even when she would read in class, she would want us to be active readers and underline key words and ideas.
     Back in middle school I took a class called creative writing. At times, this class was very challenging for me because I never really understood how to master aspects of writing that were key to my success. My teacher wouldn't teach us how to use "elegant sentences" and how to use different writing devices in our creative stories. In 9th grade I finally understood what it took to become a good writer. A good writer will engorge their stories with descriptive words and "elegant sentences" as Mrs. Davis says. A good writer will paint a vivid picture for their audience. A good writer will give the characters and setting of the story a specific name, time, date, and place. Also, a good writer needs to have a creative imagination. I remember writing a creative nonfiction story last year in English 1. Our goal was to write about an important event in our lives, but to make an alternate ending. This is a perfect example of how you need to use the tools I listed. I needed to add descriptive language to the story so my audience would be able to visualize what actually happened. I also needed to have a creative imagination, because I needed and alternate ending. I will always remember this project because I can always look back on how it transformed me into a more creative and imaginative writer.