First Semester

Senior year has already gone by so fast. I only have one semester left of high school! Then I'm in college and real life has to start. This year in Senior Lit and Comp we covered a lot of different topics but it was never overwhelming. With a class full of seniors the first thing on our mind is college. I started the year writing my college essay. I was terrified of this part of the college application. I have never been too confident in my writing, but this essay I loved. It was so easy to write and the essay I submitted has already gotten me into CU. Colleges want to know about the person applying so writing an essay for colleges is like writing a memoir. That was the next unit. I got to pick a memoir to read and present it to the class. I chose to read Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. Her story is about her growing up and dealing with anxiety and a crazy family. It's a string of stories that she wants to pretend never happened but made her who she is. Lawson became a famous blogger, The Bloggess, and lives a great life with her husband and daughter. I loved her book and was laughing the whole time I was reading. I made one of my first Prezi presentation and told the class about Let's Pretend This Never Happened. I think it went well and, even though I don't like standing in front of the class and presenting, I've gotten a lot more comfortable talking in front of people.
After everyone presented their memoirs, which took a long time, we moved onto controversial topics. We started reading The Laramie Project. I really enjoyed the play and our discussions were much better than I've had in any other class. Everyone tried to get engaged and it wasn't just a few people talking the whole time. We all analysed the book together. My favorite part of that unit was seeing all the different views of the Matthew Shepard murder. Nothing is one sided and this case made it very clear. Then we got to draw our own conclusions about the case in an essay. It was like we were detectives or lawyers stating our case. It was fun. Then came controversial debates. I partnered up with my friend Brandon to argue about the drinking age. We are both pretty neutral about the topic but I am arguing that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 and he is arguing that it should stay at 21. I still have to finish my essay supporting my side but the powerpoint is looking really good. I spent a lot of time researching different sides of the argument and found some that I never would have thought of. For example, binge drinking is a huge problem for teens because they hide their drinking from their elders and therefore makes them more susceptible to alcohol poisoning. I give my presentation this Friday and I think it will go well.
Overall, this has been my favorite english class I've had in my four years of high school. I like what we are learning about and how it is preparing us for college and beyond. I look forward to coming to the class even though it's usually freezing! It is a hard class. It's not the easy A I've been used to in regular english but I've never been overwhelmed. I have to work hard but it's never been so much work that I am worried about failing an assignment. I have enjoyed this semester and look forward to the next one.