The following are actual comments made by members of my E2H class in June of 2004. I asked them to evaluate the class and find positive and negative things about their experiences. Not all comments follow; many students wrote several pages and I did not want this to get too cumbersome. But I did not add any of the good comments nor delete any of the bad ones.

Note to members of this year’s class: If you don’t care to read it all, at least read the advice section at the end.

General Comments:

+ This year had its ups and downs but I think one theme ran through it: options. The class and almost everything about it could be exactly what one wanted it to be.

+ This year's English journey has been filled with both positive and negative experiences. Regardless of whether or not I liked certain exercises, everything that we have done this year has impacted me not just as a sophomore English student, but in more general terms, as a person.

+ This year in English 2 Honors has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire high school career. I have learned so much about writing, books, vocabulary, and life.

+ It was a good atmosphere, laid back and not too stressful

+ I truly enjoyed the E2H class experience. I especially liked the theme that we explored: to seize the day. It is such a positive message to send to people and I really took it to heart. It made me think of new journeys I would like to take as well as pushing me to try each new adventure I encountered

+ English 2 Honors was a much better experience than English 1 Honors for me because of the atmosphere of the classroom. It was never really boring and I paid more attention to the class discussions in E2H than I did in any other class.

+ I really love just about everything about this class. I love the discussions, class structure, and webpage.

+ I liked the way class varied from day to day. We had reading one day, writing the next, and then the rest of the days worked on the books we were currently reading or something else. It gave us some variety and made it more interesting. It was really relaxed and I didn’t have to worry about a ton of tests or quizzes everyday.

+ The structure of the class was fairly loose.  You weren’t some psychotic teacher who wouldn’t let us breathe while you were talking.  I like that because hey, we’re in English, a completely NOT black and white class where we are supposed to free our minds and inhabit the heads of the characters we read about.  I think that there is a direct correlation between the rules of the class and the resulting class experience.

+ I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of the class (the freedom to eat whenever I wanted or the no test policies were great!). It was nice being able to come into a class that was not stressful but that I could still learn so much in.

- Since there was so much going on in the class, it often times felt like there was too much work to be done

+/- Our homework level was very good except when we were rushed in the end

Shared Literature:

- All the books were depressing, some were okay but Grapes was AWFUL! + It was good not having to know minute details for any picky test.

+ What I liked most about the literature was that almost all of it was BANNED at one point or another.

+ Our Town- I loved this book. It introduced all the themes we used throughout the rest of the year (mostly “innocence vs. experience”) and I enjoyed the comparison between the book and present day.

+/- The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail- I liked all the quotes from Emerson and Thoreau more than I liked this book. Maybe I didn’t like the book because I did not like Thoreau. I liked his ideas and philosophies, but they seemed to be just that; ideas. When I saw him as an actual person he annoyed me a lot; too hypocritical and unpredictable and disrespectful

+ The books we read were interesting, but they were all pretty negative and depressing. However, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail was appealing because of the insight and transcendentalist ideals found.

- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- I don’t really remember much about this book, which I think says a lot in itself. I did not connect with the main character at all. I could see the satire, but didn’t really enjoy it.

- The books this year sucked. Or, to put it in a more literary format, “The reading matter in which I was required to partake this school year was unfortunately not pleasing to me.”

- I’m not sure if I really like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The class discussions were very well organized and I felt like we went over a lot of it, but I just didn’t get a lot out of reading the book. Yes, looking up the satirical situations in the book was interesting, but I didn’t exactly know why we were doing it. It didn’t have any effect on my life whatsoever. I didn’t feel motivated or changed after reading the book.

+/- Grapes of Wrath- I liked this book, but have to admit I did not read all of it. It was assigned in too large of chunks. It’s long and drawn out, even too much for the atmosphere it was trying to achieve. It was a difficult read because of all the suffering the Joads went through, but it was a good story and sparked good discussions.

+ The book that I really enjoyed reading this year was The Grapes of Wrath. The discussions each day were so in depth and it seemed that we covered everything that I wanted to talk about even though I didn’t participate in the discussions that much, I still learned a lot.

+ Catcher in the Rye- I know everyone says this was their favorite of the year and as much as I don’t want to say that it was, it really was. Salinger just did such a wonderful job creating Holden’s voice.

+ I think the only book that I liked was Catcher in the Rye. 

+ Death of a Salesman- I loved this also. People said it was confusing, but I thought it was very interesting how Willy’s illness was portrayed.

+ Death of a Salesman, prior to our discussions, was confusing. Once we talked though, it made much more sense, and by the end, I felt like I truly understood the themes behind this book much better than any of the others.

+/- Death of a Salesman was a good book and I wish that I could have had more time to read it. I did finish reading the book, just not as fast as I had hoped to. Everything was so rushed with this book and we didn’t get a lot of group activities to discuss it or projects to analyze it more in depth. I completely understand the time crunch that you were under, Ms. Kopriva, and it is no one’s fault. It just happens and I’m sorry that we had to rush this wonderful book.

- Neither Our Town, nor The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail interested me. After those two plays, I felt like I could never survive this year. It was not how you presented the books that was discouraging; it was the books themselves.

+ Aside from Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath was my favorite book this year.

+ I did like the book selection on the whole for this year's

curriculum. These kept me interested to a much greater extent than the years past. In particular I found myself the most entertained by Grapes of Wrath and Catcher in the Rye.

+ Catcher in the Rye was my favorite book by far this year. I felt like I could relate more to this book than anything else, not directly through Holden’s problems, but through the viewpoint of a cynical teenager. I also really enjoyed Death of a Salesman, but unfortunately we had to cram it all into the end of the year. There is so much meaning in the play that reading at eye level would just be missed.

Projects:

+ The Catcher in the Rye journals assignment was very interesting because I opened up so much more in those than I did in the regular daily journals.

+ The Great Depression assignment was a lot of fun because I liked doing the interview and incorporating it with my research done about the great depression.

+ The persuasive speech project was probably the most intense of them all. The research for this project demanded a lot out of me but in turn made me learn so much. I had never really done a speech as important and challenging as this one.

- My least favorite project this year was the reading workshop project in where we had to e-mail back and forth with a partner. Not only was it difficult due to the fact that I don’t have the internet at home, but my partner was not the easiest person to work with

+ I thought that the projects were well planned out and I had fun taking part in them. I especially liked the persuasive speech along with the free choice project we did for Reading Workshop in the week following Winter Break.

Discussions:

+ I think class discussions were great because nothing seemed “taboo”. As I’ve said many times, the atmosphere of the classroom (at least for me) was very relaxed, so nothing felt completely off topic. But if something DID happen to be off topic, we could say it anyway because we were allowed to go off on tangents. I think that is when English class is the best because you can relate literature, sometimes in obscure ways, to real life and it makes the class seem so much more important than just a grade.

+ I found the class discussions to be very interesting

+ I remember walking out of class every single day thinking about what was discussed in class that day and reflecting those things on my own life. This is pretty unusual for me because I almost never do that with my other classes. It was so shocking to me in the beginning of the year but then I got used to it later thinking about transcendentalism and seizing the day after class.

+ Discussions were great, I loved how they weren't too structured and we just let them go wherever made sense

+ I really enjoyed the discussions we had on our books this year. I liked having the discussions because we were free to wander from topic to topic within the book without an extremely strict guideline. That way we could develop our own ideas instead of just having the themes of the book spoonfed to us.

+ The one thing that kept me alive while reading some of the more "dull" novels were the class discussions.  I've always loved how in English we can, as a class, talk forever about different levels and meanings of great novels.  I like giving my input and coming up with the occasional thought that you were looking for.  That's a good thing and I really enjoyed our class discussions for the year.   Please continue with them, they’re really the best way to delve into deeper meanings of novels.

+ Good analysis, seemed that some people were overly called on, others not very often at all. They were almost always helpful and gained me further understanding.

+ What I liked was the amount of discussion we had. Last year in English discussions were rigid, and controlled by the teacher. If you didn't give him the answer he was looking for, he ignored you and went on to the next voicebox with a book. But in your class we could say what we thought, and you would work with it. People had identities (whether it be tractor chainsaw loudmouth, or tree hugging hippy). This is the first class where I knew who the class was and saw their personalities tie into the conversation.

Technology:

+ I really liked having the website. It would have been really interesting use the message boards more often, but also to have it more relaxed when we did use the message boards.

+ The website was a very nice thing to have. glad we didn't have to do too much bulletin board stuff though

+ It was a very convenient way to keep everything organized. I tend to be very organized anyway, but it eliminated a lot of paper and you always knew where you could find an assignment because it’s nearly impossible to lose the internet. I found it very helpful while putting my portfolio together; being able to see examples was great.

-/+ Another aspect of E2H that I'm not sure I liked was the homework page. Although it was helpful at some times, at others, it was confusing. I think that the homework page could end up being very beneficial, if updated each night.

+/- The web page was pretty cool.  I had mixed feelings about the postings.  In a way I thought it was cool and I guess “futuristic” if you will that we were doing an assignment via the internet.  However, it became frustrating when posts didn’t work and there also was something embarrassing about having everyone read what you wrote.  Maybe I’m just hypersensitive though.  Also, I know how odd it is that I’m ok with the whole class hearing what I have to say but I can’t bear to have them read it. 

+ The web page was pretty helpful at times. I never really looked at the homework page a lot (because I don’t have the internet) but I did look at the rubrics and guidelines for specific projects such as, the portfolio, great depression assignment, and many others. It was very helpful having those available to read at any time and I liked having them posted on the internet rather than having to take very quick notes if you explained them in class.

+ I loved the use of the webpage. I used it frequently to look at examples given to us from other classes or to look up homework. It was good to have everything laid out nicely there so if we missed anything basic during class we could get the information. It was good to make sure you were up to date when there were various assignments and deadlines. Having the vocabulary listed was a big help too, especially on a night before a quiz and you forgot your own notes in your locker (not that I would know from experience).

Journals:

+ Obviously MY favorite part of the class (the record is 378). I enjoyed the experimentation aspect of journal writing. It was definitely the easiest part of class for me.

+ Sometimes I just had nothing to write or couldn't seem to write about anything but it was a good concept and fun to do occasionally, maybe allow for more time to develop idea in it though.

+ I loved the use of the journal all year. The topics were sort of random, but it always led to something interesting to write about. Honestly, at the beginning of the year, I never thought that I would use a journal and actually enjoy it. By the end, I used it in my spare time and during class. We obviously weren’t given time in class everyday, but we did have a good amount of class days when we used it.

Writer’s Workshop/Portfolio:

+ This was the best WW I have ever had. Conferences were sometimes a pain to schedule and get to, and they always sneaked up on me, but it was beneficial to conference so often.

+ The portfolio was my favorite part of the year in general. I worked so hard and was so proud to have a wonderful way to display all my work. It was a lot of work, but it all paid off in the end.

+/- I thought some of the conferences were repetitive as the portfolio dragged on but I do feel like I learned a lot this year.

+/- The portfolio definitely crept up on me. I was working on pieces throughout the year, but I never really had the thought that they had to be perfected for the portfolio floating in my mind when I was making revisions.

+ Writing workshop was unlike any that I had seen or experienced.  It was totally up to us if we succeeded which gave me a whole new level of responsibility.  You didn't hold our hands and while this was at first an annoyance; I grew to appreciate the freedom I had in creating my pieces.  

+ The Workshop Summary, although annoying at times, actually turned out to be a life saver as far as organization is concerned.

+ One thing that I really liked was that we never had to turn in any of our pieces prior to the portfolio. Most other classes would have one piece due every month or so. Because you didn't collect the pieces, it was possible to start one September and put it aside until March. I know that for all of my pieces there was a span of time where I didn't look at the piece at all and then when I came back to it, I had more ideas and was able to make a lot of changes.

+ I also really liked the conference schedule. Having a conference every other week was very beneficial.

+ Seemed to be a little more extensive than what other classes did but it was a great way to express creative ideas. I wish we could have been assigned things to do, to have a little more structure earlier in the year to make sure progress was being made

+ The portfolio was probably my favorite exercise all year. Although it took many painstaking, frustrating hours, it was well worth it. It is not only a bunch of writing pieces clumped together in a binder, it is my whole sophomore year condensed into a two and a half inch binder. I know that for years to come, I will look back on my portfolio and be reminded of my year. I am very proud of it, especially since I did well on it.

+ I liked the way the conferences were scheduled so they really didn’t have to change all semester. The consistency was nice and it helped to plan yourself out when working toward the ultimate portfolio due date. The portfolio is massive and takes a ton of time and effort, but is so worth it in the end.

+ All of the conferences that I had on my pieces were very beneficial. I really have nothing bad to say about how writing workshop was organized. + The portfolio…wow! That took a lot out of me. I feel like every ounce of energy and willpower went into that thing.

Reader’s Workshop:

- This was my least favorite part of the class. I never like Reader’s Workshop because during the school year I just don’t have time to read outside of what is assigned for class! The projects took a lot of time too and made RW worse because we had to do all of that work on top of just reading. And working in groups made it difficult as well.

+ Reading workshop was always a great way to start off the week. The projects that followed were relatively simple and did not take excessive amounts of time.

+ My favorite project this year was the reading workshop project that was due after winter break in where we had to create a visual to represent our book.

+ I liked the laid back style we used for Reading Workshop. I had the freedom to read everything from war novels, to mysteries, to satires. We were given a large amount of time to read on Reading Workshop days and that helped a ton. It was really helpful to have a day when all we did was read.

+ I liked the different book projects from the interview, to the free choice project, to the online discussions, to the final culture project. These assignments required me to understand the books better than if we just read them or only had to write an essay about a character.

+ I thought the projects we did for the books we read were enjoyable, and wouldn’t mind having to do similar projects in future English classes I may take.

+/- It was too hard to find time to do the e-mail project with me and my partner doing multiple sports. The 4th quarter one was good but too much work for a compact and stressful time. The 1st semester things were much more reasonable. Reading on certain days was good too.

Vocabulary:

+ Someone on (last year’s) website said “It was an easy A” and it really was, as long as you remembered the quizzes. And even the 100 word test wasn’t that awful –because we got to do make up work for it.

+ At the beginning of the year, I hated the vocabulary. It seemed that every week we had another vocabulary quiz. Even while we were taking the quizzes in class, I hated vocabulary. I still disliked it when we took the 101-word test. Now though, when I look back on vocabulary, it was a useful experience. I have always had bad vocabulary. At least I can walk away and say that I have learned 101 new words this year, and they are common words at that. I have seen or heard so many of the vocabulary words outside of class.

- Quizzes seemed difficult even if you really knew and studied the words. more just straight definitions might be better

+ Well, I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed having to learn all that vocabulary, but now I am glad that I was forced to learn it for SATs, etc.

Advice to next year’s class:

· Read the books, you’ll be surprised how much easier papers are to write and how much more interesting class becomes

· If you act (or like to/want to act), be glad you have Ms. K

· Don’t break my journal record or I will hunt you down

· However, do write in your journals once a day (class time is the easiest) and don’t write about how much you hate writing. You’ll have nothing to choose from when you start to put your portfolio together.

· Everyone will say start on the portfolio early, but I disagree. The portfolio is a lot of work, but if you keep up on all of your pieces and workshop summaries (rather than just focusing on one all year and forget about the other three …like myself…) then all you have to do is gather journals, write about fifty (OK, six) reflection letters, and make it all pretty.

· Your portfolio does not have to be over the top to receive an A+, it just has to be original, organized, and thorough.

· Plastic sheets on the portfolio –trust me.

· Read everything you have to write out loud to yourself, you’ll realize how stupid you sound and be able to fix it.

· Honestly, start the portfolio early and do the conferences.  You will thank yourself in April.  If not, prepare for a mental breakdown....

· A lot of the books are depressing and boring...sorry.

· Keep up with the books or try to read ahead. 

· Don't be scared, you'll learn a lot.

· Read all of the books. Not only will it help in class discussion, but it will also help you relate to the other books that you read in the class.

· Don't wait until the last minute to start your portfolio. Write continually throughout the entire year. Write more pieces than you plan to put in the portfolio so that you have a choice of what you want to put it. Also, begin putting the portfolio together around spring break (it will save you sleep in the long run).

· Use the journal time wisely

· Study for the vocabulary quizzes. They are not easy.

· Use your writing workshop class time to conference with your peers. If you don't, I doubt that you ever will have more than a few peer conferences.

· Go to your scheduled conferences instead of blowing them off. Even schedule extras.

· Read Death of a Salesman slowly and carefully. You will get confused if   you don't.

· START ON THE PORTFOLIO EARLY!!!! If you don’t, you will be staying up sitting at the computer for 31 hours straight like what I did. You don’t want to turn such a wonderful experience of putting together a portfolio a tiring and exhausting one because then, that ruins all of the fun. It really is enjoyable and in order for it to stay that way, you have to get sleep. Also, make sure that your printer works in advance before you do your portfolio!!!

· Keep up with the reading! If you don’t, you’ll be totally lost in the class discussions and it is not fun!

· Don’t throw away anything! In the end, you may really need something and if you don’t have it, it is hard to retrieve and believe me, you will probably need it.

· If I had any advice to give to future E2H classes I would tell them to actually WORK during the first semester or they’ll be regretting it by March. Also, don’t think that the class will be easy as the beginning of the year because the further along the year goes, the harder the class gets and much more things are assigned.

· Most people will say ‘start the portfolios early’ and though that is accurate, it needs to be done throughout the whole year. As long as you use the conferences you have and even just a little work in between them, you should be on a good track towards the end. The extra things on the portfolio take a while, but hopefully if you have been writing the pieces consistently all year, you will be able to start the reflection letters the week it’s due and still fit in a conference on them. Another word of the wise, don’t over look English. It’s been one of my flaws, and I sometimes find myself putting work from every other class above it, but I try to avoid that the best I can. Some of the work is easy to say, oh, well I can just work on Writing Workshop tomorrow, but honestly, you will just keep saying it until you realize that there is a conference the next day and you have done nothing

· Talk. It'd be so stupid to go through the class and keep silent, you won't understand the material as well, and you won't get feedback on you own thoughts. Another bit of advice, don't try and not read the book and still discuss it in class, you just look stupid.

· Be prepared to actually talk in class (even if you haven't read the book entirely you can still contribute something, though I suggest reading the books...)

· Have as many conferences on each piece as you can, especially with Ms. Kopriva because these can really help your pieces.

· Do a couple of extra journal entries a week so you will have more of a selection for your portfolio.

· Keep up with the new draft a week goal; it really helps.

· Learn to write in a journal and if you don't like it, tough luck, you have to do it anyway (though it doesn't mean you have to like it)

· Although we have discussions in class without things being written on the board,. Students still should take good notes for the 2^nd semester final (which covers the whole year).

· First, don’t be a crazy grade person who couldn’t care less about the meaning of our books and the subsequent discussions.  I am not a literary psycho but you have to go into this class with a need to get something out of it.  If you do this you will enjoy E2H tenfold.  Also, don’t be afraid to talk.  Say what’s on your mind and if the class thinks it’s funny, then they think it’s funny.  Try (and I know it’s hard) not to care so much about what your peers think.  Just take it easy but focus and you’ll have an awesome time with Ms. K in E2H.

· Start your portfolio early and make sure to have new drafts and conferences each week, if you don’t, when it is due, there will be chaos and loads of work and stress

· Have an open mind when watching “Harold and Maude”

· Be aware of long-term projects and work ahead because there are normally always a lot of different assignments going on at one time

· Remember when vocabulary quizzes are because you won’t be reminded

· Start conferencing with many different people on your writer’s workshop pieces early

· One more thing, have fun!! This class is one of the best classes that you will ever be in and make sure that you appreciate every moment of it.