There almost is a sign hanging in front of the World history class: “Come in knowing nothing, come out Archimedes.” I have improved greatly in these three skills this year: thinking, writing, and reading. A terrible thinker I was in the beginning of the year. I could barely figure out why an American Indian would want to kill a buffalo. World History has greatly increased my abilities in this skill, I could easily write down why Columbus would want to cut off Indian’s hands, not speaking of the buffalo I mentioned earlier. When I came to Egan first, all I could write was a plagiarized copy of a children’s book. Now, as the year comes to an end, I can write big five paragraphed essays, like this one. During my first month in world history class, when Mr. Smith told us to read something from the A.T.C., I read so slowly that I had to take an extra book home to catch up. Today, when I read it, my eyes whizzed past the pages, yet still collected all of the needed facts.
First, I improved in my thinking abilities. I had to think critically while answering questions for “The Diary of Lady Murasaki.” When the page asked me: “What do you think was the main point Lady Murasaki tried to make when she wrote this in her diary?” Since all the people said reading is bad, and she wrote that they were wrong, I said that she meant that women should be well educated. I thought that it was kind of st#pid of them to hate reading, because reading is education, and education is one of the most important things in life! The question clearly requires the person to use critical thinking to answer it, and I think that I answered it most dramatically convincing. I learned that you can’t just answer this kind of question as a simple fact – you need to weave in some of your own opinion in order for it all to be clear. For example: I mentioned that I thought that it was not a good idea to disapprove of learning. That isn’t a fact, but rather an opinion. However, it is mostly true, which communicates the idea that I understand the question clearly, and can answer it thoroughly. I am proud of this assignment, because it made me realize how important critical thinking can be, and generally, I am proud that world history has helped me achieve so much in the thinking area.
Second, I greatly improved as a writer. This shows in the Personal Choice Pages of the Reference section. I had to basically write anything about my life, but it had to be a well-organized, pretty good report. I couldn’t always wander off topic, and had to stay on-task. For instance, when I started explaining about my mom, I wanted to start saying about how nice she is, how much I love her, etc., etc. However, I forced myself to stop, and explain shortly about the rest of my family members, since the report could only be thus long. I learned that when writing a report, you always need to stay focused and on-task, otherwise, it will be very hard for the reader to understand your main point if you meander in different directions all through the report. They might start thinking, “What does ‘blah blah’ have to do with ‘yodel doodle’?”, and that’s not a good thing. I am very proud of my Personal Choice Pages of the Reference section. Since I have written them so long ago (at the beginning of the year) when I looked back upon them to write this reflection, I thought to myself “Wow, did I really Write that?” That is because I have improved so much in writing, that the things I write teach me when I find them later. Now, when I have read over these two pages, I remembered a few of my old effective techniques that I have recently forgotten.
Finally, my skills in reading increased significantly. In general, all of the Study Guide’s increased my ability in reading, but for the sake of time, I’ll refer to a particular one called “The Golden Age.” I had to answer many questions about the text in the A.T.C., and this helped me to improve my reading skill because I had to read over the text again to find answers. A question – The new capital became a center of international trade because of developments in business such as:. Instead of answering simply “tax” as I probably would have before I came to Egan, I explained my answer, and added some additional helpful information that I got from reading the A.T.C. I learned that when you need to answer questions from text, if you read through it and then go back, it’s less effective than if you read the questions first, and then read through the text, to have an idea of what you’re supposed to be looking for. I’m really proud that I figured this out, because if I accidentally forget to answer all the questions, I remember some of the facts that I put into my head when reading to answer all the questions, instead of just the dumb old school-book gobbledygook.
I learned a great deal of things about these skills this year. I learned that you could use some of the bad things involved in doing the work that includes these skills to your advantage, and that reading and writing can be combined to do work at double rate, and many more that I couldn’t possibly list on this page. I became a better thinker, writer, and reader, and they will help me always in my life, because they can be used in many ways to decrease the amount of time spent on work and increase the amount spent on entertainment. I learned that I can be much more than I expect myself to be, but when I think that I’m less, it’s still okay, because it’s enough to satisfy others. The world isn’t perfect, and I’m not either, but I am pleased with myself anyway.
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