Speech-This I Believe

'You Have To Be Your Biggest Believer'

In this world you constantly hear cheesy mantras and quotes about how you need to ‘Believe In 

Yourself!’. Everyone has heard these phrases hundreds of times. But the truth is that I didn't believe in myself and I still struggle to. That was until I found the quote that changed the way I think. ‘You have to be your biggest believer.’  My biggest passion in life is music. I’ve loved music for many years before I decided to pursue it. For years I pushed the idea out of my mind. That changed when I found self belief. 

One day last year I was listening to an interview that my favorite musician gave. I heard them say, ‘You have to be your biggest believer.’ I learned that you can't be scared to follow your own dreams. After this, I didn't want to hide my dream from myself anymore, just because I found it stupid. I wanted to be known, admired, but above all, I wanted to be an artist. 

I admitted to not only myself that I have a serious dream, but to others as well. Yet, I felt as if I'd never make it and some people thought this as well. Each time I felt defeated, the quote would form in my mind. I have to be my biggest believer. Everyone has dreams that they think are embarrassing, stupid or far fetched, I know I do, but in reality these dreams are attainable. Attainable by believing in yourself before expecting others to believe in you.You have to follow your dreams, only then will people start to believe in you. This is why I believe that you have to be your own biggest believer.

Final Reflection

Final Reflection - Please incorporate these nine questions into your final reflective blog for the school year. Keep in mind these questions should be focused on your time in Mrs. Larson's Accelerated English Language Arts classes.

1- What are the three most important things you learned this year?

2- What is something we did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life?

3- What was the nicest thing someone in our class did for you this year?

4- What is something you taught your teacher or classmates this year?

5- In what area do you feel you made your biggest improvements? What is something you accomplished this year that you are proud of?

6- What was the most challenging part of this year for you?

7- What was the best piece of writing that you did this year? Why do you think it is your best?

8- Of the books you read this year, which was your favorite? Why?

9- What advice would you give students who will be in this class next year

Yikes! So, graduation is in 10 days (or 6 school days). Which is kind of surprising. At first the school year felt like it was dragging but the past two months have gone by really quickly. Since the year is ending that means that a finals reflection on the year is due. So here goes nothing!

This school year I learned many valuable things in this ELA class, but there are some things that have been more valuable to me than others. One of the most important things I learned this year is how to fully experience a book. Each time we read a book for class, we didn't just read, we experienced the book. I learned how to take notes, generate meaningful questions, and valuable connections. I found this very important because it changed the way I read and how a book affects me. The next two things that I learned that I found important was learning how to write grammatically correct and to write in many different types of writing styles. I found these two things very important because it has made me a more versatile and skilled writer, which will no doubt help me in the future.

Our Socratic Seminars for Tuesday's With Morrie is something that I think I'll remember for the rest of life. I think I'll always remember this because it had such a big impact on me. In these Socratic Seminars I got to hear everyone's opinions and views on the novel. I think I'll also remember this because it was only of the only moments where we were all being genuine with each other about our lives and fears. As middle schoolers everyone tends to coat over real emotions and opinions, but at this point everyone was being very real with each other about how we perceive the world, and that really changed my views.

The nicest thing that someone in this class did for me was help me keep up homework and class work. I'm a very paranoid person when it comes to school work and get terrible anxiety if I forget what the work is/due dates. I can say that atleast once a week I would text Justin asking about homework or to clarify what our work was. Every single time I sent Justin a text he would always respond immediately, or answer calls whether they were late at night or at six in the morning. I think that this was very nice of him because he could have just ignored me but he always did his best to help me out.

I think something that the class as whole taught Mrs.Larson were really memorable things. One thing was when we taught her was 'Salty' meant and now she constantly uses on other students (95% of the time it's Sam). Another thing that the class taught Mrs.Larson was that it's really okay and funny to expose kids in class (Omar, Nick and Evie), I think this because up until the last couple of months I feel as if the class and Mrs.Larson didn't have much of a relationship, but once we taught her that things like this were funny to us she seem to give out different vibes.

I think the thing I made the biggest improvement in this year was how I write and my quality of writing. Something I accomplished this year that I'm proud of is my essays and final blog I wrote for TKAM. I feel proud of this because it was something that I had struggled with but I did it very well.

There have been many difficult times during the year but the most challenging part of the school year by far was first getting into Mrs.Larsons class. This was particularly hard for me for many reasons. Since I had transferred to Heritage in very late September I was randomly placed in classes that were too easy for me and not challenging me. After about two weeks into me being here I was randomly informed one morning that my schedule was changed and that I'd have to go to Mrs.Larsons class. This was challenging for many reasons. Everyone else had Mrs.Larson before and I hadn't so I didn't know anything about how she ran her classes or her expectations which was really difficult for me.

I think my best piece of writing this year was my Life Is Beautiful/Night blog. I think this was my best writing this year for many reasons. I feel as if I had written it in a very proper way and that my formatting was very good. I also feel that my comparing and contrasting method worked very well.

Of the books I've read this year I'd have to say that my favorite one was 'Valley Of The Dolls' by Jacqueline Susann, even though I read this independently. This is actually one of my favorite books in general. This was my favorite books because it is one of the only books I've read that I felt that I could relate to characters. I loved the themes that the book involved and just the representation of the darker side of Hollywood, fame, and American culture. I am very much obsessed with American culture and the American obsession with beauty and popularity and I felt that this book represented the vanity of America and our obsession with being famous.

Some advice I would give to students that are entering this class next year is that to just to do what you have to do and manage your time. I would say that you should always start an assignment when it is assigned because due dates are always closer than they appear. I would also say that you just need to do your work. If you do your homework and assignments with quality you will not have a hard time in this class at all. Manage your impulses,time, and submit quality work. 

Tuesdays With Morrie PT.IV

Prompt-1- Explain the aphorism in detail. what was Morrie's main message?

2-     Relate the aphorism to a movie, song, historical event, current event, personal experience, etc. and explain in detail how the example you have chosen relates to the aphorism.

3-     Evaluate the aphorism by explaining why you agree/disagree with it. Give specific reasons for your position and specific evidence from the text to support your position.

4-     Take a picture of your aphorism to use as your graphic.

5- Include your own aphorism regarding life.

'The Most Important Thing In Life Is To Learn How Give Out Love And Let It Come In'. The main message of Morries aphorism was 'You Get What You Give'. This means that as a person you have to learn how to show others and the world love to in return learn how to accept love. 

I related this aphorism with the movie 'Juno', starring Ellen Page and Micheal Cera. In the movie Juno, after she gets pregnant with Paulie Bleekers baby, she relaizes that she is in love with him. She doesn't want him to know that she is in love with him, but she also doesn't know that he really does love her. After having her baby and giving it up for adoption she finally learns how to give/show Paulie love to then accept his love, whereas before she would dismiss his love as friendship or pity for getting her pregnant. 

I agree with this aphorism because I believe that this is a world of balances, in which you get an equal amount of what you give. If you give out positivity and positive energy to others, you in turn will receive positive energy as well, the same goes for negative energy or emotion. Another reason I believe this is because in the novel Mitch had to show Morrie love and care (by taking care of him, massaging him, etc) to truly recieve and really feel Morries love, and Morrie gave out all his love to the world and in turn accepted love from others. 

One aphorism I have regarding life is 'Live Your Best Life No Matter What Others Think'

Tuesdays With Morrie Pt.III

Prompt-Explain how the past four Socratic Seminars have influenced your thinking about Tuesdays with Morrie and life in general.
What trends did you notice with yourself and your personal goals for each seminar? How did your personal goal(s) change and what did you actively do to change throughout our last four discussions?
What trends did you notice with the class for each seminar? What did you notice that helped or hindered a specific seminar?


The past four Socratic Seminars have influenced my understanding of 'Tuesdays With Morrie' and just how I intake the world in many ways. When first beggining the book I thought that it was kind of morbid to be recording a mans death. After the first Socratic Seminar I began to see the book in a more positive light. During the seminars I saw how other interpreted Morries aphorisms and just the book in general and I changed my views. Tuesdays With Morrie made me want to change the way I live my daily life. I have realized that in American society and culture we are very oblivious to what goes on around us and to social interaction. I feel as if I am more aware of what is going on in our world and just an all around more aware person about our futures and how much our decisions affect the world.

Throughout the seminars I noticed some trends about myself and my goals for our seminars. Something I noticed about myself was that I made a lot of connections to other literature (Valley Of The Dolls, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) and to music (Album:Froot By Marina And The Diamonds), but I rarely vocalized these connections. I realized that I didn't vocalize these connections due to two reasons. Reason one being that my connections felt out of place in our conversations, and reason two being that I felt no one would know what I was connecting to/wouldn't understand my connections. During the seminars my goals never really changed but after the first seminar I really did try to speak more as we had more seminars.

During our seminars I noticed a lot of trends amongst the group. One trend was that it was usually the same 4-5 people talking and starting the conversations, or asking the first question. I also noticed that we were not giving many people the chance to speak. For example, many times during the seminar a person would try to talk but would immediately get cut off by someone else. I also noticed that whenever there was no speaking it would get kind of awkward and everyone would laugh and just repeat things that were already said. Some things that helped the seminar was when people would ask Indepth questions (opinion questions), and when people made connections to previous literature we have read. Some things that hindered the seminar was when individuals would call out others who rarely spoke to get them to speak.