Capstone Essay Reflection

When I first got accepted into Stuyvesant High School, I heard countless of rumors stating: “Oh the workload is terrible”, “The competition is so fierce” or “Out of schoolwork, extracurriculars, or sleep: you can only pick two.” I found it hard to let it faze me, since I graduated from one of the most prestigious middle schools. However, the rumors transformed into reality when I stepped into Mr. Nieves’ Freshman Composition Class. The workload at the beginning of the year was brutal, coupled with assignments from other core classes that seem unaware of the workload of other teachers. Reading assignments were a regular, and there were journal entries and occasional quizzes to keep us in line. What made it bearable was the friends I made in that class; everyone had their own opinion about the topic we were talking about, and listening to other perspectives really broadened my horizon and enriched my learning experience in Stuy. Another thing that this class has taught me is the importance of time management, a skill that I will carry on for the rest of my high school career and life. When I choose to sign up for Mr. Nieves’ AP American Literature class in my Junior Year, I was hoping to relive the discussion-based lesson plans and meet more outstanding peers. I was not disappointed, to say the least, reflecting through all the experiences at the end of the course. The lesson plans he laid out for us were an interesting mix between small lectures and class output, and what I

It is still so surreal to reflect back on my first semester as an incoming college student in the ENC1101 course, analyzing at my progression as a reader and writer in literacy. Since the first day of class I set in stone my goals for this class: receive a 4.0 GPA, develop my connecting theories skills in writing, and become more aware of objectives for each Unit throughout the course. All of these goals became achievements that not only make others proud but most importantly give me self pride. In order to earn the grades and achieve these goals, I went after every opportunity that I was given as an incoming college student, such as office hours and extra credit. By taking this course I have gained confidence with the utilization of literacy, and made an addition to my group of impactful literacy sponsors. Once students are finished with high school they assume that there is nothing else to learn beyond the stereotypical five paragraph essay, but they are so wrong. I was able to obtain so much knowledge about numerous course concepts from Writing about Writing, articles, and my professor. These concepts will carry on with me throughout a bright future of writing courses, job interviews, and any other skills that require literacy. The four outcomes listed below will help illuminate how I improved as a writer, by being a driven college student and going out of the way to earn my achievements in this course. In the first outcome I improved comprehending scholar texts,

8th grade was great I wasn’t the youngest, I was in the oldest grade. At this point I had middle school perfectly handled. Going to high school and being a freshman is terrifying you're the smallest you don’t know what a seminar B is and when you go to it. I loved middle school. I love high school; the only reason that I love it is because I have middle school to reflect off of. I have those experiences to help me have more. I use middle school to reflect and learn from everything that I did. I’m doing well in high school so far only because I have I have past experiences so that I can make choices that best benefit me now. Arnold Spirit from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the Narrator from “The Bass, The River and Sheila Mant” are reflective because they both took action while being unique making it much harder than necessary. At the end of it they learned a valuable lesson and made the best decision for themselves.

Explain how understanding specific English language learners' needs guided the choice of instructional strategies to support the content and language learning.

My name is Sammie Spisak. I was born on July 19,1999 in Bridgeport, CT. I grew up in Fairfield, CT and I am the oldest in my family. I have two younger siblings, who are twins named Matt and Molly. They both just started their first year of high school. I have two dogs Georgia and Sophie, both Tibetan Terriers. My mom and dad both grew up in Fairfield. My mom is one of 7 and my dad has a sister. There are five sets of twins on my mom’s side of the family. I am one of 26 cousins.

My names is Teresa Esperanza Ahumada. I was born in Walnut Creek on January 28th. Before I moved to Brentwood when I was 6, I lived in Antioch. I live with my mother, grandparents, and two brothers named Nick and Marcus. I am the middle child so as you can imagine it gets crazy. I also have a dog named Duke. He loves to jump on Marcus.

Business Policy: A Team-Based Approach is the capstone that I selected for my degree plan. This course will round out all of the business core and concentration requirements by integrating their business principles and should provide me with a firm foundation in business decision making and problem solving. The prerequisites for this course are management principles, marketing principles, human resource management, corporate finance, or equivalents. All of which are addressed in this essay.

After reading my first reflection, I realize I was very hopeful about high school in the beginning of the year. However, now I have mixed feelings about high school, since my first year did not go as I had anticipated. My first reflection mentioned how I thought the first month of high school was quite unexpected. Little did I know how unexpected ninth grade would turn out. I could never have imagined what would happen to me this year. Certain aspects were thrilling, exciting, hilarious; however, other aspects were depressing, anxiety-inducing, and highly stressful. I was incredibly naive and starry-eyed in the beginning of the year. However, I feel as if I am now an experienced adult looking down upon a young, innocent child, while secretly knowing that my younger self has yet to face the brutal, harsh, and unforgiving world. Nonetheless, there is always a wiser, more experienced elder looking down upon me.

At the beginning of the semester I was overwhelmed by the idea of having to present for such long periods of time in front of my peers. I was confident in my ability to understand the CRISPR/Cas9 topics that I chose to research, but was unsure of my ability to present that information in a way that was made sense to my classmates. Discerning how I was going to put together each of the presentations after having gathered all of the information was one of the most time consuming aspects of this course.

Have you ever just felt like high school was too easy? Well I have because I felt like the teachers just passed you on. They didn’t give me a challenge like I was supposed to have and from that being, now I have to prepare myself for the college life and teach myself the things I was supposed to be taught in high school. The school I came from didn’t have a math teacher or a history teacher all year so we just sat in the class rooms and played everyday all day and I still ended up passing and that school was Albany Early College. They told me that I would finish high school with an associate degree but all I got was a discombobulated school and an uncontrolled school. The next school I went to didn’t care either. They showed me that I can skip class everyday and still pass with an A average. Despite all the things I didn’t get taught in high school, I did learn some unique aspects that I can reflect on and use for college. The skills I reflect on are annotating, using the Cornell note-taking system, and how to be on time for school.

Throughout the time that I was in high-school I have taken many English classes leading up to this Ivy Tech class. During my freshman year I was required to participate in English 9 which required students to do more reading than writing. During my sophomore year I took English 10 that involved more reading. Then last year I took AP Language and Composition for college credits. Reading and writing were split 50/50. We were required to read a new book every nine weeks and be quizzed. We also wrote a total of six MLA formatted essays to prepare for the AP exam at the end of the year. I think my classmates and I were taught well which resulted in a good score on my exam.

When i first entered this class I didn't know what to expect because our school’s english teachers are so unique in character. I knew for certain that the class was gonna be challenging just because it is an Ap class, but I never expected it to change how i see the world. I have never experienced the type of environment we had as a class in my thirteen year, pre-kinder to eleven grade, of learning. From forming a cult, to engaging in rigourous conversations, to just having moments where we go on off topic and this has brought us closer. I can't forget to mention the fact that we actually learn a few things. Well a lot of important things actually. The course has elevated my English skill in comprehension, writing, speech, and has shifted the way I interact with the world as i search for a deeper meaning because of the influence of the class’ environment.

Is the glass half full or half empty is a question that many people ask themselves to determine whether they are more optimistic or pessimistic. It is easy to see every glass as half empty, but with a change in your mindset, you can see every glass as being half full. At every football game, cheerleading competition, and band competition, having an optimistic mindset has helped me have a lot more fun than I would have had with a pessimistic mindset.

As i a still learning i am/did have trouble with this. This time I am going to connect it into one section(I will try and split them up but they may run together)

Throughout the course of my high school career I have primarily been intellectually interested in the evolution of the law and the role of legal institutions in modern society. I was first drawn to the law when I realized that it often goes beyond punishing or compensating individuals and considers, more broadly, the interests and goals of society at large and the community in which we live.