My Learning Fall and Rise

I walked into the class on Agust 12, 2019 mentally prepared for the workload of an AP course. I wanted a challenge since honors English became cake work for me very quickly. I was very prepared to get started on bookwork, writing essays every week, and reading books as a class. That mindset of mine completely went out of the door after being in your class for only 30 minutes. You gave us freedom and allowed us to make our own decision. The amazing part was that you were willing to teach us on whatever choice we made that day even if it was gonna go against your new way of teaching.  I admired the confidence you gave us because no other high school teacher would have left a room full of teenagers alone on the first day of school and waited outside until the students allowed them back inside.

I was looking for a challenge and I sure did get an interesting one that I wasn't expecting. I had never once heard about Open Source learning. The hardest part for me was posting every day on my blogs. I found it challenging to manage my time with something that didn't really have a due date. I ended prioritizing other things because of the flexibility the blogs gave me, but soon that let me fall behind. The story about Young Good Man Brown was the blog post that became the most memorable. It reminded me to be more mindful of the people I surround myself with no matter how well I think I know them. Writing in journals every day was both easy and sometimes difficult at times. It brought back awesome and horrible memories of me when I was young because I use to write to help keep myself calm after some horrible experiences I went through most of the elementary school.  My favorite journal Topic was about " If you could have dinner with anyone. Who would it be?". I wrote about my great-grandma because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye and she's someone I looked up to as a young girl. Her wisdom and lullabies are something I would die to hear again. Memorizing poetry for this class was very easy and came naturally to me. Since my amazing 8th-grade English teacher had us memorize and recite some of the same poetry it was a good feeling to know I was able to use that skill in this class. The laughing Heart and Dream Within a Dream post were a good trip down memory lane. I also pride myself on my memorizing skills because of her class. The only thing that was a bit uncomfortable at first was recording myself but I got over it quickly. The other thing I found the most challenging to cope with other than the blogs was not seeing a grade in the grade book. This made it hard for me to know what to work on and its something I still struggle with. I find that seeing my grades motivates me to do better.

At the begging of September is when I felt the most miserable in the class. I'm not sure if it was because of my personal problems or if it was because I couldn't get the hang of the class routine. I know I have the hardest times with change because of everything that I lived through. I tried so hard to keep up and at some point, I did give up. Giving up just made it worse because I know I'm not that type of person so I beat myself over my failure for awhile. Towards the middle of October and through November is when I finally made a change. I went through every post from the course blog and made sure I wrote down what I need to get done. I made a deadline for myself to be done before Thanks Giving Break. I was very proud of myself for accomplishing my goal and that feeling is what made me get the hang of the blogs. That process led me to write my favorite blog post. My favorite so far is my Literature analysis one. It was nice to read a book of my own choice for a class since I haven't been given the opportunity since Jr High. Then writing about something I enjoyed made it very easy. Now I get half, if not most of my post done in class and if I don't finish it, its the first assignment on my agenda to get done when I get home. My favorite learning experience for this course is when you talk about " Why are stories more memorable than lectures?" Your story about going on that road trip with your friends really caught my attention. It was so believable that in the end, I was so shocked it was made up that I couldn't help but laugh.  That moment really brought a smile to my face because I got the concept of that day. Now I feel more confident with myself and my work. I learned to be okay with my mistakes instead of being harsh on myself for them. This class definitely gave me a challenge that I won't ever forget.

My Dream Within A Dream

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