Dear Ms. Langley,
For personal reasons, these past six weeks have been the most challenging for me physically and mentally. Despite this, I did what I could this six weeks and had both some successes, as well as some things that I need to improve on in the future. Throughout these past six weeks, I have learned multiple things about myself that I was not able to see before, and I am glad that I now have the time to reflect on it.
To begin, a learning goal that I believe I did well on is by being a positive community member, student, and peer. When it came to being in a breakout room and discussing our book, I would put forth my best effort to be sure that I was contributing and participating, while also making sure that I did not dominate the conversation. I encouraged my peers that did not often contribute to do their best to share and express themselves in any way that they felt was comfortable. In whole group conversations, I alternated with my group members in discussing who would summarize and share what we discussed in our breakout room. On the subject of breakout rooms, I believe that the second learning goal that I had and achieved was asking complex questions and persisting to research them. I would constantly come prepared with questions for my group, and if these questions were not answered, I would do my best to research them on my own and discover answers as well as provide them when we all returned.
In addition to the previous learning goals, my third would be seeking out mentor text to grow as a better student. Throughout the six weeks, I referred back to numerous books, readings, poems, and the overall writings of others to get a better understanding of how I could improve as a writer. When writing my essay, I wanted to get a good understanding of the kind of person I was writing about, to discover what may have inspired them and encouraged them to produce the idea that was constructed into a beautiful piece of writing before writing my essay. These three goals have helped me prepare for the AP exam as I was able to truly focus on communication and participation, being a curious student willing to research and ask for help to better my understanding, and use mentor texts to discover ways to better myself as a writer.
Despite the positive learning goals, there are areas in which I need to improve in, such as maintaining my writers notebook. I want to be able to use my notebook outside of class to capture ideas, samples of writing, quotes, and any inspiration that comes up. As I mentioned in the beginning, these six weeks were challenging for me, and I think that in the area of having successful student habits, I need to improve here as well. Specifically, when it came to deadlines, such a the Toni Morrison essay, I was finding it hard to meet them. I was letting outside of school issues over-influence me rather than prioritizing my classes and work first. Next six weeks, I do not want to make the same mistake again.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for providing me the opportunity to be my best and get better every day. Thank you for reading, and my apologies for the late work this six weeks. I will definitely do my best to make the next six weeks better.
Thank you again!
SaNaya White
SaNaya's Poetry Blog 