My favorite English class I have ever had in 9th grade

In Global Ed. English, I learned many things that I did not know.

For instance, I learned that I can actually be a good writer. In the beginning of the year, I wrote three papers and got 2 D’s and a C. But after being told that I needed to develop my papers and I needed a focal point about a million times, I finally got the idea. I took a couple months but I got a C+ which was above average. Then we started to write a blog every week and that helped me out to get used to writing papers. Since the blogs, I’ve amazingly got only B’s and A-‘s on my papers. From the beginning of the year, I thought that I would drop the class and it would be a very long semester. It still is hard but I have gotten the hang of things and I am a much better writer now.

Another thing I learned was how to take notes. I just figured notes were writing down things that I thought were interesting. I was right but there was way more to it. From the beginning we margin noted a lot which is pretty much like highlighting with some writing in the margins. That was boring but sort of easy. The notes that really bothered me were Q.C.V.I.’s (Questions, Connections, vocabulary, and Interesting/Important facts). First taking them, they were easy to me except for the connections because I could find a way to connect with the stories in many ways. We always had to do 5 of each and one day, Mr. Fielder changed it to 2 questions and 2 connections. I was happy but he said the questions had to be discussion and the connections had to be developed. Now the connections were easier but discussion questions were hard to find. I eventually got the hang of it though.

The third thing that I learned was that there is a lot more to capitalization than and the beginnings of the sentences and proper nouns. There turned out to be many properties of capitalization that I didn’t know about. I then got the capitalization thing and after you understood it, you understood it well. Or so you thought. We had a pop quiz on capitalization and I blew through it but it turned out that I got a lot wrong. I had more wrong than I had right and I didn’t know what was going on. We got another packet and we had to practically memorize the rules. After studying the rules of capitalization, we took a third test on it and I did pretty well on the third test.

After the capitalization, I learned something yet again, How to research on the computer. Yes, I know researching sounds like the easiest thing to do in school, but when you have Mr. Fielder, that is a whole different story (in a good way). He made you look for a source and he had to check it. I only had a bad source once so the researching was pretty easy for me but without learning what a credible source would be, I would have probably just picked the first topic I saw. But then we had to search stories for our topic on South Africa. I thought like it would be the Rwanda articles (the articles that were easy to find). It was for the first two I found. I googled the topic, printed it out, and he checked it. But then I couldn’t find any more that he would okay so I kept looking. It took a while but I finally got Mr. Fielder to check a third article.

What we spent most of the semester on were foreign countries. The foreign countries we studied were Australia, then Rwanda, and then South Africa. I used the things that I learned to learn about these foreign countries. We read a novel about Australian Aborigines called Walkabout and watched a movie called Rabbit Proof Fence. We had to write a paper comparing the two and because of the writing skills I learned, I was able to do a good job on the paper. Then for Rwanda, that was the most difficult for me because there was so much going on in the genocide of Rwanda that I was confused. But the movie Hotel Rwanda helped me get a better understanding of what was going on. And we last learned about South Africa. This was probably the easiest for me to understand because it was semi-modern day and the only time that there was too much going on was the Anglo-Boer war. But research helped me understand the topic more. I understood my topic, which was the first and second decade of freedom but the movie Invictus helped me understand it more. My learning help me learn even more in this class.

The Native I would be

If I was a native to any country we have learned about, I would be a native to Australia.

I would be an Aborigine of Australia because of the fact that they were not brutally murdered and because they still live today after being the longest existing tribe in the world. They have been around for about 50,000 years and they are still around. The Aborigines being around for 50,000 years is one reason that I would be an Aborigine. Most natives from countries don’t last even a hundred and they have lasted more than 500 times that amount. They have lasted longer than your great X5,000 grandparents and they were treated poorly by the British and almost eliminated their culture. Another reason I would be an Aborigine is that they stand out from the rest that they have an ancient culture in a modern time. They have passed on their cultures for all those generations. That makes it seem like the Aborigines are a very strong group of people and care a lot about their culture. They seem dedicated and strong so that is something I like about them.


Some people would argue that the Aborigines were treated more poorly than other countries and that they would rather be some other country. First of all, it is their opinion and they can think what they want. I still think that being an Aborigine is the safest bet. Looking at how both the Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtered. Native Americans were kicked out further and further to the west then some were slaves while others were killed. In South Africa, the people were forced out of their homes and moved north. Yes, some Aborigines were killed and were forced out of their homes but not nearly as much as other countries and they were able to stand up for their culture and their land and are still around today. Natives Rwandans have only been around for about 200 years, Native Americans are barely seen anywhere now, and South Africans were never heard of again so Aborigines are the most successful because they are still around. Rwandans and Native Americans are also around but have not been around anywhere close to 50,000 years.