Esmeralda Reynaga

Second Semester 2014

The second semester of my junior year I have completed many different assignments that have
helped me grow as a student by allowing me to gain more skills for academic success. One of the many
things that helped me accomplish this was the series of assignments that we did for my Chinese 3 class.
Every week we would receive a list of new characters which we would focus on learning that week. The
first things that we would do, would be to complete a worksheet in which we would write the character
itself, the pinyin, and the English definition. Once having completed that we were required to make
sentences out of these characters as a way to show that we understood both the meaning of the
character and simply how to write it. Once completing this worksheet we moved on to practice about 3-
4 sentence that Ms. Lui would provide the class with. This would test us on our pronunciation of the
characters and it would also test us on our actual memorization of both the prior characters as well as
the new characters. After being done with both the worksheet and the presentations, the final part was
completing the project. On these projects we were required to draw a picture in representation of the
character, write the character itself, pinyin, and a sentence describing what is happening in the picture.
Once completing these series of assignments we would then be given a new list of characters and the
cycle would begin all over again.
Before I never really took the time to study the things I learned outside of class. I never ever had
the habit of reviewing my notes to keep all the information that I was learning fresh in my mind. I
viewed this as pointless, I thought that if I one really learned the material in class there would be no
need to go back and keep reviewing. But after doing this process of constantly reviewing the same
material for a certain period of time, I have noticed a difference. I not see that I grasp the material and
understand it more deeply than I would before. It has helped me see that studying can indeed aid you
into learning material more in depth allowing you to be able to continue using that same material
further down the road.
Throughout this semester I have also grown more as a global citizen by recognizing different
perspectives. One way that I have grown more as a global citizen recognizing different perspectives was
through my experience with my AP classes. In my AP U.S. History class, we learned about all the major
events that have happened here in the United States even before it was the United States. But not only
did we learn things that happened here on our ground but rather every event that involved people from
the U.S. We were given an assignment in which we had to choose a significant moment throughout
World War 1. My group and I chose to focus on the Zimmerman note; we had to create a PowerPoint
which we would present to the class. In this PowerPoint we had to explain what the topic itself was,
what effect it had on the people involved, and how it was significant to U.S. history. In order to
complete this we had gather information from both of the parties involved in this event and then join
both of it up to be able to present it to our classmates.
Before taking this AP class, i wouldnt really learn material in such a deep analysis in which I
would learn every single aspect of a certain event. Usually only learning the basic information, along
with only one perspective of the even as well, I was not used to receiving as much information as I
started receiving in this AP class. Having completed this AP course, I have been able to learn about many
different events in our history through many different perspectives as well. Learning that every single
action that one takes without a doubt affects another person whether it may be a person here or half
way across the world. The responses of each person as well being just as different. I believe that this was
a very beneficial area in which I truly did grow in because by being able to recognize different
perspectives one is able to understand the situation fully allowing them to come up with a solution in
which will compromise with the needs and desires of both parties.