First Semester Reflection

Last year, I forgot to do my Latin homework approximately 14,000 times. It wasn't that I couldn't or didn't want to do it, but my complete lack of organization allowed me to routinely forget smaller assignments. When I began ninth grade, aware that such mistakes would be consequential in the long run, I adopted a more hyperorganized system which made it virtually impossible to forget to do an assignment. While it took a little getting used to, using this system of planners and assignment tracking allowed me a more easy transition to high school, and it worked in its goal of  avoiding avoidable mistakes.

This semester, I felt particularly proud of my Twilight Project Monologue, for a few reasons. When I first left our interview and transcribed it, I had 20 pages of text from a 30-minute interview. My interviewee had talked about a wide range of subjects, so narrowing them down to a few connected but individual topics was an important but daunting part of being successful with the project, and I did so as best I could. Also, it was my first assignment which involving an interview or recorded discussion with someone other than a Poly student, and planning how to guide the discussion while allowing our interviewee to speak freely seemed like a challenge, but I feel that I ultimately managed it somewhat well. When I received my grade for the monologue, it affirmed that the time which I had spent developing my project was worth it.

While not all of the content which I learned in this class ended up being useful to me,  I utilized the study schedules which we made for the last assignment when actually studying for each exam. I planned each free day hour-by-hour, and also penciled in time for studying during homework time during Dead Week,  and having a clear and visual structure for my week when dealing with my first exams allowed me to avoid being overwhelmed. I could also track how many hours I had spend on each subject, which allowed me to set realistic goals for what I would accomplish within a certain amount of time.

This semester, my method of studying for my Latin mid-term exam was not as effective as it could of been had I started earlier. The week before the exam, I scheduled time to study for Latin, and I used that time reviewing forms and vocab, but I focused most of my time on studying for Math and Physics. However, I didn't take into account that, to maintain skills regarding language, practice over a sustained period of time is important, and I should've started reviewing older concepts much earlier. The concepts which we had learned were each tested on one or two specific tests, for which I had learned and memorized each concept, but, as the end of the semester approached, I realized that I hadn't retained much of the information, and I needed to study much more than vocab in a short period of time. To fix this problem, I will begin studying for Latin and reviewing concepts several weeks before the test itself, to make sure that I am comfortable with each concept before the test looms on the immediate horizon. 

Image Credits: top right, http://www.thecollegegirldaily.com/2015/05/how-to-color-code-your-bullet-journal.html, 

bottom left, http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-latin-writing-image19352416