Hey Book Nerds! Today was my final day of freshman classes. Although I still have a few exams/finals that I need to write next week, I finished all of my classes today and I could not be happier! My school works in semesters, which means that we take a certain amount of courses each semester. Luckily, this term I got to take English! My English teacher was funny, always energetic and she constantly told jokes that didn’t end up making any sense! She was amazing!
My English teacher ended up giving us a number of short stories, poems and articles to read throughout the semester. Although we didn’t get any full length novels, I was satisfied with everything she gave us. For the most part, they all had a killing vibe to them. And if there is anything that I read A LOT about it is killing.
So, today I wanted to share with you all of the written works that our teacher gave us to read. I wanted to do this so that I could share my thoughts on all of them, but not having to write a full–length review. Hope you enjoy!
SHORT STORIES
- The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty
- On The Sidewalk Bleeding by Evan Hunter
- The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs
- Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
- Once Upon A Time by Nadine Gordimer
I actually ended up liking quite a few of these stories. Although they were all under 10 pages, each of them ended up affecting me in some way. I’m pretty sure my teacher was slightly crazy and every story ended up having a terrible ending. Most of them ended in someone’s death.
If I had to choose which story was the best, I would definitely go with “On The Sidewalk Bleeding.” I enjoyed reading this one so much! Even though I haven’t read The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, I would definitely recommend this one for anyone to anybody wo was a fan of that novel. It is similar in terms of gangs and the 60’s vibe it gives off.
“Once Upon A Time” and “The Monkey’s Paw” all ended up giving me the absolute creeps after! One ended in the death of a young boy while the other one involved a demonic talisman that haunted every wish you made. Ahhh! So creepy!
Roald Dahl’s short story surprised me in so many ways! I grew up watching the Charlie and The Chocolate Factory movies, and eventually also read the book. And if anyone is like me, they would’ve expected this short story to be about something happy. BUT NO! There’s another killing. From a lamb leg. YUCK!
POEMS
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
- To My Son by Helen Fogwill Porter
- To Christine by Susan Forder
I actually came to love poetry after these past few months. I never really read poetry before then. It just never intrigued me to read a bunch of poetry verses, rather than a novel. But, it isn’t the intrigue in an English class that pushes you to read the content, it’s the teachers. But I am so glad that I got to start reading some poetry this past semester because I absolutely cannot wait to purchase some poetry anthologies for myself! SOme that are on the top of my TBR are Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur and The Princess Saves Herself In This One by Amanda Lovelace!
My favorite poem that I read was “To Christine.” It was about a girl who is trying to be someone that she truly isn’t. She starves herself and dresses in uncomfortable clothes to “look good.” The poem is written from an anonymous perspective that can be assumed to be someone who sees Christine frequently. I don’t really know why I liked this one so much, but it was amazing!
MY THOUGHTS ON FRESHMAN ENGLISH CLASS
I actually loved it! Moving up from a middle school class to a high school class was a huge change for me but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. The first half of the class was grammar and the second half of the class was based on reading, writing responses, and annotating. God, I hate annotating, but it is worth it in the end!
I am so excited to go into my Sophomore year of school next year! English class sounds like it is going to be pretty great since we get to read a FULL-LENGTH NOVEL (!!!) and I get to start studying Shakespeare! Every year contains the exact same set of written materials so I already know that I will be reading both To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Romeo And Juliet by Shakespeare. Sounds like fun to me!
THAT’S IT FOR TODAY! I hope you enjoyed reading about my Freshman English class! Be sure to comment down below some of the books you read during high school! Don’t forget to like, and follow for more posts!
Happy Reading
An Infinite Book World 