Writing Reflection - Julius Caesar and Alchemist Essay

Ideas & Content
In my Alchemist essay, I showed good ideas and content because my writing usually makes sense making it easy for the reader to understand how Santiago's personality traits helped him achieve his destiny. I usually had a clear and focused paragraphs clearly based on the topic and I appeared to know the topic pretty well. I included relevant and interesting details occasionally in my essay to further develop the readers understanding on Santiago's personality traits and how without them, he wouldn't have achieved his destiny. In my paragraphs I included related quotes to prove my statement and I explained how the quotes related to the main idea of the paragraph. I could improve my ideas and content in the essay by including more relevant and interesting details to further prove my statement and have a more clear and concise topic.

My Julius Caesar essay did not improve compared to the Alchemist essay but my grade went down. My writing only sometimes/occasionally made sense to the reader but sometimes had to figure out what I was trying to say in my paragraphs. I usually had a clear and focused topic and I seemed to know the topic well, but not really well. I sometimes included interesting and relevant details to further enhance my readers understanding on Antony's motivators, but could have done better on that topic. The place where I needed much improvement was explaining my quotations and providing good context about them and explaining them. In some of my quotations, the reader was left guessing of how this was relevant to the paragraphs topic.


Organization
In my Alchemist essay, my organization was pretty well thought out. I began with an interesting quote to hook in my reader into my essay and what it was mainly going to be about. I had a very clear and concise thesis statement communicating what my essay was going to be about and what they would expect later on while reading it. My body paragraphs began with good and clear topic sentences clearly showing what the paragraph was going to be about and how that certain personality trait helped Santiago achieve his destiny. But I only sometimes provided context prior to introducing the quotation, but the quotation proved my statement but I only sometimes provided context before it. All of my body paragraphs ended with a good summarizing statement or smooth transitions into the next paragraph. My conclusion was strong summarizing all of my ideas in the essay and putting them all together to prove that these character traits helped him achieve his personality. The place where I could work on is establishing context prior to introducing my quotations so that the reader knows how the quote I'm providing them helps them create a better understanding of proving my statement about Santiago and how his personality traits helped him achieve his destiny.

In my Julius Caesar essay, my organization wasn't as good compared to my Alchemist essay where I had more time to revise and gain ideas for my whole essay. Here we just had 80 minutes and not that time to read through my essay to make sure my organization improved prior to my previous essay. But my essay still demonstrated appropriate organization with a hook in the beginning to grab the readers attention with a quote about Antony showing a motivator of his. I had a clear thesis statement in the beginning paragraph telling the reader what my essay is going to be about and what I will be talking about. My body paragraphs also began with clear topic sentences explaining what the following paragraph will be about. There were also room for improvement in my essay. I could have done better on providing context before introducing the quote so the reader is not left guessing what the quote is about and how it helps develop the readers understanding of the essay. I also could have improved my conclusion of the whole essay clearly concluding my main point in the essay and I could have revisited my introduction to make it more clear.

Personal Growth

From my Alchemist essay to my Julius Caesar essay, I noticed a fall in my grade showing I didn't improve the way I wanted to, instead it went the opposite way, hoping for improvement but there was not much improvement to see. This might have happened to the limited time provided for writing my Julius Caesar essay with only 80 minutes to draft, revise and come up with a final version of my essay. Whereas in the Alchemist essay we had weeks to prepare for it and we could have asked for help from the teachers/parents to make the best piece of writing we could make. Since this time, I wasn't able to do this, my grade went down significantly with writing it on my first try with planning but no opportunity to improve it by asking for help from the teachers, parents and not having enough time to revise it and to make it better.

SLR Reflection

The SLR I'd have to choose for drafting these essays would be "Learning Enthusiastically". Because for both of these essays before writing them, I asked for help with my parents and sometimes teacher to write the best piece of writing I could. I learnt enthusiastically because I used all the recourses I could to write the best piece of writing I could. Before the Alchemist essay, I looked through the book trying to find the best quotations to prove that Santiago was determined to achieve his destiny and before the Julius Caesar essay, I looked through the book for good quotations to show Antony's motivations.

Revengefulness and Loyalty Brought Out the True Antony

The Revengeful and Loyal Antony

“O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!” (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 254 – 258) Antony’s loyalty towards Caesar shows how he respected him so much and he called Caesar the noblest man who ever lived and how he was sorry for his death. His loyalty towards Caesar lead to his revengefulness towards the conspirators when he says that suffering will come to the hand who did this to Julius Caesar. Mark Antony was devastated when the news struck him of Caesars death, he was fueled with revenge and vowed himself to get back at the conspirators all due to his loyalty towards Caesar.

Mark Antony’s revengefulness was surely triggered by Caesars death. The conspirators completely underestimated Antony, but now, Antony filled with revenge from the death of his best friend, Julius, he will practically do anything to get the conspirators killed for doing what they have done, murder Caesar. “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.” (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 273-275) He will do anything, even slip the dogs of war to take out whoever is left from the war, the war is going to be so brutal that even dead men would wish they were buried, this shows Antony’s feelings towards the conspirators at the moment and how his revengefulness will lead into war. The murder of Caesar surely generated Antony to become more angry and arrogant. This is significant because he can easily get the people angry and arrogant with him with his skills of getting the crowd to go against the conspirators for they are very gullible, which makes them want to kill the conspirators even more. When Caesar was killed, Antony was enraged and he spoke to Caesars dead body about how he will start a fierce and destructive civil war. “A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy; blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar, that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered with the hands of war.” (Act 3 Scene 1 Lines 262-268). This clearly shows Antony’s revengefulness against the conspirators because its meaning displays that there will be a bloody and destructive civil war against the conspirators and their followers and Antony and his followers all because of Antony’s revengefulness towards the conspirators and loyalty towards Caesar.

Antony was not only revengeful but also very loyal at the same time towards Caesar. His love and affection for Caesar really drived him into being loyal towards Caesar and how he respected him like a god. “That I did love thee, Caesar, O, ‘tis true!” (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 194) He truly loved Caesar and respected him greatly, he did not ever do anything behind Caesars back, he was always with Caesar, because he was a loyal friend and was never against him, he would do anything for him and do it straight away. “Over thy wounds now do I prophesy (which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips, to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue)”. (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 259 – 261) Antony and Caesar were good friends and Antony did what he thought was right for Caesar, speaking for Caesars wounds who can’t have a say because Caesar has fallen. Antony being a loyal friend had to speak up for those wounds and make sure nobody involved with this gets away with it, and he took action straight away. Which also brings up his revengefulness towards the conspirators and whoever was part in Caesars death. Antony’s loyalty resulted him into become very confident and determined because he kept going for his goal, trying to get back at the conspirators and to speak for Caesars wounds, he never gave up. He did all of this by putting himself into danger. This shows his confidence and determination in doing what’s right for his best friend Caesar, leading to great loyalty.

Throughout the play of Julius Caesar, Antony was always loyal towards Caesar, always with him and never against him and never seemed to be a big threat towards the conspirators. But when nearing the end of the play, Caesar’s death triggered Antony into bringing out his true loyalty and love towards Caesar and revengefulness towards the conspirators for doing such a tragic thing. Antony started being a bit more arrogant, confident and determined about what he was going to do after Caesars death always trying to achieve his goal which was to get back at the conspirators and make sure no one gets away with Caesars death. In the end, Antony manages to achieve his goal wholly by creating a civil war against the people for and against Caesar, and Antony with the Roman people by his side and his evidence of why Caesar’s death was not an honorable act grew out a big army and slowly overcame the battle, and with the conspirators slowly giving up on fighting against Antony and under so much stress that everyone was dying, eventually killed themselves helping Antony achieve his goal. The main things which helped Antony achieve his goal was his confidence and determination, he did not give up on his goal of getting back against the conspirators for killing Caesar, he made sure they suffered for what they have done. He even risked himself by putting himself in danger to achieve this goal, these two traits of Antony really drove him all the way into achieving his goal, which in my point of view was neither worthy nor noble. His goal of trying to get back at the conspirators for what they did to Caesar was not worthy because no good comes out of killing the conspirators, they wont gain anything, what they wanted had already gone. It was neither noble because Antony wanted to kill everyone who was against Caesar, he would even slip out the dogs of war to kill the ones who were left. He also did not fear to destroy Rome and damage his own country, this was not a noble act. Antony got what he wanted, but what he wanted was not worthy or noble.

Collage iMovie Reflection

Think Creatively

Thinking creatively was a main point in my collage trying to come up with ways to make a unique poster. Some creative elements in my collage are the countries itself, I cut out Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya all in one and pasted pictures on the countries about the boys experience in Africa and their stepped migration with war, killing, death, shooting and much more difficulties and chaos. I also cut out the shape of America and put pictures of how the Lost Boys assimilated into the American culture in American and how their life was over there and how it differed from their previous life. Their cultural shock.

Reason Critically

The images that I wanted to express more than others, I made it reasonably larger than other pictures so the eyes are focused on that particular picture more than others. The pictures that weren't as reasonably important as others, but still had an impact on the poster I made them much smaller that the more important ones. I also tried to put some of the important pictures on the 3D countries so that they are more noticed.

Communicate Effectively

My collage demonstrates awareness of the Lost Boys plight with some pictures increasing the awareness of Sudan, at the bottom of the poster, it also shows lots of the problems in Sudan and the conflicts the Lost Boys are facing with war, chaos, death and starvation. It shows what the journey of the Lost Boys was like and how hard it was for them to survive just trying to reach safety from all the violence around them not letting them live in peace. This is demonstrated in my Africa on my collage with violence all over where the Lost Boys had to travel. This creates awareness about the problems happening in Sudan and people will start to help.

Live Ethically

My collage definitely demonstrated empathy through all the troubles the Boys faced in Africa from Sudan to Ethiopia to Kenya all the way to America. It was a courageous journey and was very hard to survive around an environment of war, death and starvation. The pictures on my collage show how bad these problems were and people just collapsed as they were walking from exhaustion and starvation. They went for days without eating because they left their land to get to a safer place but with no food. The photos clearly show this and how really was for the lost boys and how hard it was to go through.

Lost Boys of Sudan

The documentary, "Lost Boys of Sudan" is a story about Santino and Peter struggling in Sudan with everyone being killed due to the civil war, wildlife and starvation. They had no where to go. They fled to Ethopia where they were held in Refugee camps. But the problem of Sudan slowly drifted into Ethopia, whilst Ethopia was having their own problems within their own country and couldn't add more problems just to help the Sudanese orphaned children and the Sudanese people with their trouble. The country stopped them from fleeing into Ethopia and out of their country into Kenya. Loads of them died crossing the Gilo river with many people shooting, crocodiles and some didn't know how to swim and drowned. In Kenya, the lost boys found out that they were going to have a chance to go to heaven, America and Peter was thrilled to have the chance to be educated and hope for a better life for him and his family back in Sudan who he never forgets about. Sudan is very important to him and he doesn't forget his family and roles in his family while trying to assimilate into the American culture. This makes Peter a very unique man and making him stand out, out of all the lost boys in America.

Life for Peter in America was a bit odd for him as they were completely new to the American culture and didn't know how to do numerous things and what to do, when to do them and where to do them. All they knew was that they were in the "heaven" of Earth and they were excited to be there with loads of food and a good shelter. This was like a dream come true for the lost boys. They thought of America, as a heavenly place which you will love, but as they stayed there for a bit longer, they realized how hard it is to live a sustainable life to support yourself, to pay the rent, get educated and help your family back home at Sudan, and make sure they're getting money and education there and not to forget about Sudan. This is really hard for Peter as he is in his senior year in high school from 7:00 in the morning till 3:30 in the afternoon and basically spends the rest of his day on homework and feeding himself. He does homework till 1:00 am in the morning and repeats this everyday. But Peter is successful to help his family back home and doesn't forget his culture at all. He's a careful man who loves Sudan with all his heart and his family and tribe and will never forget them. They mean a lot to them. It was for them he came to America to help himself and the others back home in Sudan. Peter has to assimilate to the American culture which is very difficult for him at first but slowly easily fits in into their culture without pushing the Sudanese culture out of their minds. Whereas on the other hand, Santino struggles a bit more assimilating into the American culture. Peter gets friends, plays basketball and gets good grades with a good education in Kansas city. Some difficulties for Peter was getting a girlfriend. When he was with all his friends they would all be with a girl and he would feel left out without anyone by his side, and that was a challenge for him. Another difficulty for Peter was education, in the beginning when the arrived in America, Peter realized he wasn't gaining any education and what he was doing wasn't going to help everyone back in Sudan much. When he realized this, he decides to move to Kansas and solve his problem by going to school and helping out everyone back in Sudan. Before going to school, Peter had some difficulties with friends, money, language, jobs and robbery. But slowly solves all of these problems by moving from Houston, Texas and moving into Kansas going to high school over there and gaining education. and by playing lots of basketball. With this he got lots of friends. He was also determined to join the basketball team, even though he tried his best and put all his effort into it, he didn't make it. But that didn't stop him from playing basketball, he still plays basketball with all his friends and always tries his best to achieve whatever he can. Peter was surely a successful and unique lost boy who came through a long, stressful, compressed and rocky journey all the way from Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and made his way to America. He was a very determined man who almost never gave up, and never forgot about his home country and did what he was supposed to do in America.