The

1999 Final Portfolio Phase

Looking back on this year, it has certainly been an interesting one, and in some ways I think I have liked it more than any other year, while in other ways I did not care for it much, even occasionally hated it. The amount of work in general, (as in not just the work in English class) was most definitely more than I had done in any other year. And although it almost drove me insane several times, overall I think I enjoyed this school year.

More specifically, English this year was very similar. We did a great amount of work, in my and most of my classmates opinions at least, and it was quite a departure from some of the previous English years in which we would spend half a year on a single book, reading sometimes along the lines of a chapter every now and then. Here, we read books in a week.

Yet, like the school year in general, I enjoyed English this year for many reasons. Things I enjoyed were new experiences such as doing the web-page. Doing the English part [of the website] was fun, and being able to not worry about carrying around tons of paper for an end of the year portfolio was also good. Even better is the ability of the work on the web to be seen by anyone in the world. No longer is one's work constricted to simply being seen by a teacher who puts a grade on it, and then it never really gets seen again. This is most definitely a good thing. In addition, it is one of those few things that I shall continue to use after I get out of here, as I actually want to keep improving the site.

In my expectations from the Introduction that I wrote at the start of this year I said in general that I wanted to learn this year, whilst having fun at the same time. I said that I wanted to read a better variety of books and literature than in previous years, (not all first person etc.) and that also that our writing would finally expand beyond making endless Persuasive Writing. I realize that most writing ends up being persuasive in the end, even if you didn’t intend it that way, but I wanted to get back to the less strict, more creative types of writing such as stories, and plays. I also commented that I hoped we would not do too much vocabulary. (Little did I realize the utter pain and suffering; long monotonous hours, and unrelenting evil that lay ahead with Enriching your Vocabulary.)

In general, I would say English met my goals, sometimes exceeded them, and even in the cases where I was not happy with it, I wouldn’t say English failed at anything this year. The fun was there with the wepages, even though not all students thought so, and although there were many a similar formed book, (ex: Catcher, Asher, Huck etc. are all first person) it was a pretty good variety, especially with the Hobbit, Of Mice and Men, and the independent reading mixed in. Although the Spirit of the Persuasive Essay did occasionally creep his way into the room, I was also pleased with the variety of stories. I actually enjoy writing creative stories, plays, etc., such as The Understanding, the remake of Oedipus the King and The Plague. And even though I didn’t technically enjoy the Research Paper it was different, so I’m not complaining about those yet. Even the Evil Vocabulary, which was callously handed out to us, was not a total loss, as now I can speak quite articulately, with the wide array of words that I have assimilated into my mind, and I am sure it will help me write authentic, non bombastic sentences like this one.

Getting back to a more serious tone, I think that although some of my work could still obviously get better, that I have improved the style, depth, and feeling in my writing, and work this year in general. The ending of the above paragraph aside, much of the sarcastic type tone of my writing has disappeared, which is often a good thing in my opinion, however, not always., My favorite type of writing is still fiction, but I don’t see this as a weakness, as long as one doesn’t hate all other types. Which I don’t. I like writing non-fiction too, however I do still find it harder than other types of writing. The only type I am not really comfortable with (I hate strictly persuasive, but I’m comfortable with it.) is writing about myself, which ironically I am doing right now and didn’t even realize nor care till I wrote this sentence. Perhaps, more accurately I don’t like writing about my life etc. I’ve always been that way. However, as this bothers me not at all, I must be getting better. One other trait I’ve noticed that I’ve developed this year is a habit of not being able to stop writing until I feel something has accomplished what I want it to. In fact, the only reason the Asher Lev Retrospective came into existence was "my work felt incomplete." It didn’t feel write writing nine journals on a book, then stopping just short of the finish. Other evidence of this is The Plague in which I just couldn’t end the story in five pages, and ended up going considerably longer, finally ending the play with the eternal line "you shall still have your chicken."

I definitely express my true self writing more than I do when speaking etc. For some reason, most, (not all) of my shyness seems to evaporate when I write, and unless someone is looking over my shoulder when I write it, I write what I really think, really believe. I write things that I wouldn’t say in fear of "That’s stupid" type comments. etc. Even though I don’t like to write about myself, only in writing would I so often compare myself to Asher Lev, and on a more humorous note, only in writing would I put "I’m a slayer and a Player!" (From Oedipus) I generally act emotionally monotone in life, or at least as far as I can tell I do, yet when I write I get a bit more emotional. In general, writing is my strong point, as I express myself, and the ways in which I think, in writing more than I do in any of the other forms. (Writing Speaking, listening, viewing)

As a listener, I am much as I was when I wrote the introduction. If one is speaking strictly listening, I am quite good, as I don’t interrupt, don’t have side conversations, and not only listen to the person who is speaking, but also try to comprehend it as well. Sure, there is the occasional day dream, but in general, I like to listen. Quite honestly. Especially in debates and the such. Often in such a conversation with many people I shall be about to raise my hand with a view of mine, but then after a few other people are called on to talk, my view shall have shifted, and it shall do so several times before I come to a conclusion I actually stick with. It just seems to me that sometimes, if you listen allot you learn allot, and get to think things out more than if you were stating what you already knew. There are of course some major flaws to this way of thinking, such as one gets used to not talking if they never do, and if everyone used it (the way of thinking), there would be no one to listen to.

Which leads us to speaking which as I also mentioned in my introduction, once it becomes part of the listening equation, I start to falter. As that piece of work put it I still "don't say an excessive or maybe even "adequate" amount a good deal of the time." This is where I need to improve the most; this is my weakness. I often have thoughts that I do not say, and I often end up regretting not saying them. It is too bad I can’t hold conversations as well as some of my characters can. If one wished to be philosophical they could say writing is a way of speaking, similar to how in the Asher journals I constantly say "Art is Asher’s way of speaking." But I don’t think that has much to do with this type of speaking. Reading this it might seem I am paranoid about speaking, which is not true, as looking at what I have written it seems I may have dramatized this paragraph it a bit. But, getting back to topic; have I improved this year in speaking? I quite honestly can’t answer that one. I’d have to ask somebody.

Then, finally, there is viewing. I’m not quite what to make of "viewing." It doesn’t seem to have received a mention in the introduction, and it seems it would not be all too different than "listening." But if one is speaking strictly viewing I would guess that I am a pretty good one. I watch people do things, and I can pick up pretty quickly. In fact, I seem to learn quicker visually than merely using words and numbers etc. If one thinks of viewing in the "looking at things from different angles" type of idea, I believe I am fairly good at this. An example of such I believe, can be seen in my Caesar Journals:

"Yet, as the play comes about, all these stereotypes end up being at least partially untrue. Brutus is honorable, but he has more to him than that, and unlike a stereotypical honorable guy, he is weak, and easily manipulated. Caesar is possibly power hungry, we never find out definitively, but he is not a pure evil tyrant; and he is far from emotionless, as he is hurt most when he sees that Brutus is against him. In fact it seems he thought that since Brutus was against him, Rome was also, so he died for Rome, quite the opposite of what a power hungry tyrant would die from."

In the end, I would say my greatest strengths are writing, being creative, (How often do you see a sentence like: "We were the great leaders of this world, the lobsters obviously inferior. They walked differently, acted differently, and most definitely looked different.") and working really hard. My weaknesses, are as already discussed, being shy, and perhaps stressing over things a bit too much. But overall, I think I am a good English student.

Finally, I have nothing left to say other this was a fun year, I’m not quite sure what next year holds which is quite scary, and that I’m glad that it seems that perhaps I have matured, and advanced my skills just a little bit this year. The end of the 1998-1999 "chapter" is here.