The number one thing I learned in ELA would have to be introductions. Before this year my introductions were very weak and most likely would not have got the attention of the reader. I would usually just have re-stated the prompt that they gave you which would usually not catch the reader’s attention. Now I take a few keywords from the prompt and then state what i’m going to be talking about.- The second most important thing I learned in ELA this year I would say would be “Summary V.S. Paraphrase”. Before we did this unit I really didn’t know the difference. Now I know that a paraphrase is something that restates the writer’s idea in their own words. It should never be a complete recreation of the authors sentence. But on the other hand a summary is a short restatement of the mains ideas in a piece of writing.
- The third most important thing I believe I learned would be of how to write a thesis statement. Before this year I wasn’t very good at writing thesis statements but throughout the year I believe I have gotten better. A thesis statement should be included in the introduction sentence. A thesis should specific, arguable and memorable.
- We also learned about poetry this year which I had no clue what we were actually talking about last year when we did it. This year I finally understand a little bit about it like the 5 elements of poetry and how to find the voice of the poem. One thing I remember is that the speaker does not necessarily be the voice of the poet. The five elements are form, speaker, imagery, figurative language, and sound.