English Question 1# Write a 1 paragraph letter to Ernest J. Gaines about A Lesson Before Dying. In your response, describe the major take away that you got from the novel.​​

Explanation:

‘I did not realize that I took my routine and school day for granted until now.’

School is a place for building friendships, learning responsibility, and getting an escape from the house, but it seems as though the Coronavirus has taken that all away from us. For me, I loved getting to see my friends everyday in the school environment. Now that it’s taken away from me, I realize now that school was my main source of communicating with people. Now I feel as though I’m losing friendships I had at school since we can’t go anymore. School also taught us responsibility. I had a schedule when going to classes and when to wake up and go to bed. Now that I have no reason to have a schedule, I have been going to bed and waking up much later than I used to. There also seems to be a lack of motivation for me now to accomplish tasks because at school, we were given an hour and a half each day to get work done in class but now I keep pushing assignments back until the last second. This definitely won’t be beneficial to my work ethic in the upcoming senior year for me … Thanks to the Coronavirus, I have decided to make every moment of my senior year count and not take it for granted as I did for the past three years of high school.

I did not realize that I took my routine and school day for granted until now. My online school day consists of waking up at 10 am instead of 6 am, working on my laptop in my bed instead of a classroom, and now I make my own schedule. While this sounds pretty enjoyable for any teenager, it has made me miss school. I miss walking down the hallways with my friends. I miss sitting in a classroom with a teacher and other students, having discussions and asking questions. I miss the loud and crazy lunchroom. I truly miss things I didn’t even know that I loved about my school. If you had told me a few months ago that I would be praying to go to school, I would’ve laughed and called you crazy, but I would do anything to go back to my school.

Something I find really special about my high school is that we are really focused on student-centered learning. We use a Harkness-style teaching method where all the students and the teacher sit at a round table together and instead of learning through lecturing, we learn from each other. Peer-to-peer interaction is a really pivotal part of education at my school, and it feels like it falls so short in our distance learning. We use Zoom and can see one another and our teacher, but everyone is always muted so as not to interfere with background noise. Our classes have been cut down by ten minutes and instead of having six classes a day, we only have three or four classes synchronously. I feel like my education is not being fulfilled. I have a significant lack of motivation and I miss the thought-provoking discussions I used to have with my classmates during physical school. I am really anxious to get back to school and really foster my love of learning through my peers.

‘The workload has been overwhelming.’

“Oh my goodness … Why there is so much homework?” This was my first reaction to online study as I looked at the homework checklist. Due to the outbreak, most activities, including daily clubs, are canceled at present, thus we do not have much to do at home. At least teachers believe so; therefore, tons of homework overwhelms us everyday. However, we actually get much to do everyday besides homework: standardized tests, such as TOEFL, SAT, AP, etc., needed to be prepared; activities that could be done indoor had to be completed … Homework is the straw which breaks the camel’s back. How I hope that assignment could be a little less and more time could be controllable by ourselves! I am now in China. Online study has already taken place for 2 months so far. Sometimes I really wish to go back to school having lessons face to face with teachers and classmates. School is not only a place for study, but a place to prepare us for future life when we embark upon complicated society and interpersonal relationship. Online education cannot replace school system thoroughly in this aspect. I really miss normal school days. Is the day of returning far?

The workload … has been overwhelming. The thought process of my teachers seems to be “Oh they have all of this free time now, so I can assign them more work than I normally would.”  Or at least something along the lines of that, because my teachers haven’t let up one bit. That’s been the most challenging part of remote learning, because I get easily distracted when I try to work in my house, and that I have even more work than normal, it’s challenging to get everything done. I have been able to keep up with what we’ve been learning for the most part, but it would be nice to have a teacher that could answer my questions and help me in person.

looks alright to me