Grade 10 for me has been an amazing year, so far, with lots of successes and learning opportunities. English, especially, has been an amazing opportunity to improve my literary skills and is a fun and welcoming environment. I feel that I have improved in all three areas of an English student but my most significant change has been as a reader and a learner through the constant support of Mrs. Hunnisett and my peers. Being part of our amazing class has really pushed me to strive to achieve for more and help those around me.

I am proud of the milestones that I have reached as a reader through my constant dedication and love for books. It astonishes me that I was able to finish reading 12 novels within the first semester, especially since it felt as if first semester just flew by! Looking back on it, reading all 5256 pages has drastically influenced my reading identity, as they began to pull me out of my comfort zone and let me try new genres of books. In grade 8 and 9, I was really into Greek and Roman mythology, so obviously I read the entire Percy Jackson series and when the final book of the franchise came out this year (The Blood of Olympus), it forced me to find new fields of reading. I began to read different books like The Night Circus, the Divergent series, and Sky Breaker. As of right now, my favorite genres of are fantasy, mythology and science fiction, which surprises me because at the start of the year, I didn’t really have a genre except for mythology. I used to just pick up a book that had an interesting cover and try reading a couple chapters, which now I realize was a waste of time because half the books that I picked I put back in a couple hours. This year has really improved my reading habits and set me on the path of a strong, capable reader.

In past years I was an average student when it came to analyzing texts, but after learning a couple tricks about how to annotate a given piece, I feel more confident when answering the questions. This will help me in coming years and I’m glad that I was able to learn them earlier on. This helped my a lot when we read To Kill a Mockingbird because I let me make deeper connections to the text itself. My biggest “aha” moment this year was during our Socratic seminar as we were discussing themes and ideas in To Kill a Mockingbird; I realized that the death of Bob Ewell, by Boo’s gift tree, was just another present from Boo to the children. I wouldn’t have been able to figure this out without someone (I think Karl) thinking of the tree as a symbol for the children’s happiness even though it was on the Radley lot. This year has been an incredible journey and if possible, I would like to have the exact same class in grade 11 and 12!!

Looking back over this semester, I wish that it had lasted longer, so that we could all stay together, but unfortunately it has come to an end. Although we always looked like we weren’t doing any work at all, we have all learnt something and improved both our reading and learning habits in one way or another. I will always remember the fun ‘adventures’ we had in our class and look forward to seeing some of you in my classes next semester :).