“…this year in honors English I learned how to write an essay much better and more efficiently with the help of Mr. Viskanta. All the paragraph outline worksheets helped me a lot. I used to not really know in what order to put my sentences; sometimes I didn’t even know how or what to write what I wanted to say. The outlines helped me to guide me in the right direction to a better essay and/or paragraph.”

“I have learned that what we learn in English happens in every day life. During the time we were reading 1984, the conspiracy of Edward Snowden was happening and even a couple weeks ago, with the injustice of Donald Sterling while reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Many things have influenced the way we learn English.”

“…I’ve really tried to make my writing more than just the assignment. I enhanced it with variations of sentence structure and word choice. I think the Kreuger Park paper was a turning point for me this year. … This assignment helped me to create realistic descriptions and setting. … I know there is still room for me to improve in my writing, but I feel that I made major strides this school year. … Overall, this class helped me to acquire skills in English that I didn’t learn earlier on in school. I feel better prepared to take AP Literature next year. Thank you.”

“My experience in English class this year has been unforgettable. I will always remember the novel “Tortilla Curtain” for I enjoyed reading it the most out of all the books this year. Also, I had a pleasure being involved in our classroom discussions and contributing different ideas on the board especially for “Life of Pi.” Overall, I enjoyed Honors English and I am looking forward to AP Literature next year.”

“Writing different prompts, at least once a week, has helped me improve my writing skills and also made me a better writer. Reading the book “Tortilla Curtain”* by T.C Boyle; helped me with the concept and the use of compare and contrast which benefitted me to have a better understanding of the book.”

“My honors English class has taught me to flourish immensely as a writer. … I gained confidence in the way I was writing. I learned how to successfully analyze a book as well as a short story to great depths. Writing and analyzing a piece of work weather it is a poem or an article has become second nature to me. I was taught that a story may not only have one main idea or purpose, but in fact have several.”

“…I’m most proud of learning how to use details and sensory language in my writing. The prompts I wrote in class every Monday allowed me to expand my imagination and include the detail my writing needed in order to improve. … I used to keep everything nice and simple but from this class I have learned that detail is very important in writing. … This year has been very fun and I’m looking forward for your AP Literature class next year.”

“I’ve learned a lot this year. For starters I never thought I would be able to read Macbeth and actually understand what was happening. … English was pretty fun this year. You have a way of spicing up things that are originally boring. I’ll remember your random outburst while listening to the audio tapes. I will also remember you dancing to the one minute music before class. I’ll remember the To Kill a Mocking Bird portion of the class.”

“One of the most important things I learned was hot to analyze a book. I learned that I could find out the significance of the word by looking at context clues. … In addition I also enjoyed learning to read shakesphere, which was fun because it’s a whole different experience rather than reading it modern day English.”

“A success in my learning this year would be the Writing Workshops. … I started writing in more detail and in a better structure than before. … The Writing Workshops gave me practice in writing a lot in short periods of time. I also sharpened my imagination.”

“I’ve learned a lot in this class. I feel that my vocabulary has improved and so has the way in which I write/organize essays. I’ve started reading more books as well. The summaries of books I’ve written in this class have helped me reflect on the book and understanding the true meaning of it. It’s also helped me to find metaphors. … I just want you to know that you’re the best English teacher I’ve ever had. I’m being serious. You’re patient with your students and your precision of expression is amazing because everything you explain makes sense. You’re a cheerful/happy and unique person. I appreciate you a lot.”

“… I am thankful for me having you as a teacher and you support me when I need that support.”

“I think that a positive learning experience would have to be when we worked with a couple of pages from Parrot in the Oven and we had to find it’s Precision of Expression. I feel that working with that actually helped me understand and relate more to myself, I actually learned more about my own Precision of Expression and how myself could help not only me but everyone around me. Also how I can improve and how to become someone even better, and try to enroll my service to my community.”

“Thank you for helping me this whole year something that I like to mention is that I’ll like to thank you for helping me improve my english. I feel my english grade matches the grading rubic and the assignments I’ve done and things I am working on. How it relates to the work that I did is I demonstrate an exemplary level of understanding of content standards and tasks.”

“Practicing the mindfulness at the beginning of class actually supported my learning during the class period. It helped me relax before doing my work. I feel like I have improved so much from having a bad grade in the beginning of year to having a better grade in second semester.”

“The biggest dificulty I have had with material and/or work is finding a quote from the parott in the oven book and then write a paragraph about how that related to manny. … I just wanted to tell you that I am thankful that you Mr. Viskanta does really think that if I want to do something I could acomplish it and I am thankful for that.”

“Mindfulness in the begining of class helped me calm down when I came back from Nuetrition. It helped me get back on track. I some times use mindfulness when I am really stressed out or when Im mad so I can calm my self down. I think mindfulness is a grate way to releve your self from stress.”

“A positive learning experience in class that I had was when we read Parrot in the Oven. It was really interesting and I got to learn things about it. I also got to learn new vocabularry words. I also learned how to write a essay about the main point of the book.”

“You are the best English teacher I ever met. I thank you for understanding my English skill. You always helped me out and try to understand me.”

“…a positive learning experience for me was learning about the concept of “race”. I’d been learning about it already in Anthropology, but the content in this class was also fresh and new. The videos and the articles had interesting points because of the different perspectives they also offered. That was my favorite part of this class. … Thank you for expanding my knowledge and being my teacher.”

“In this class, I feel like I always experience positive learning experiences because of what we’ve learned. One of those experiences includes when we were learning about Martin Luther King Jr. I liked that assignment because usually, especially with teens, people don’t fully remember his speech or what he’s said. Learning about him was positive because it was something new and I was genuinely intreagued about it. … I learned about the importance of being mindful in my advisory. I have tried my best to be mindful everyday by not getting caught up with negativity I see or focusing on what I don’t have. I try to just take a moment to reflect on how I’m feeling and how grateful I am for the life I’ve been given. … Thank you Mr. Viskanta!”

“A positive learning experience I had in class was reading the books like Malcolm X and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time. That helped my reading level get better and I also thought the books were interesting. … Practicing mindfulness at the beginning of class helped me alot because it would set my mind that even though I’m having a stressful day I can do good and get my work done.”

“I enjoyed the materials we went over such as reading the two novels. The biggest difficulty I had in this class would be to fully understand the complex text of Malcolm X. It seems that his use of language, his way of thinking is just mind boggoling, philisophicoly engineered. … It was a wonderful year with you Mr. Viskanta. Thank you for all you have taught me and thank you for such a positive attitude.”

“Some learning experience I’ve had is when doing the . . . writing. It was very fun and I was able to learn about the struggles of other people. Mr. Viskanta said I did a great job of interpretating a female role in my writing.”

“But the skill I am most grateful for learning this year, is how to write a thesis statement. In the past, I had learned what it was, but had no knowledge of how to write a good one with the required elements.”

“I improved in reading comprehension and actually understanding what I was reading because I had many different sources and way to understand the book, that really helped me. … Mr. Viskanta really seeked out to help everyone understand everything and make sure no one was lost and I really appreciate that. For example, for all the books we read, we had an audio book for it and Mr. Viskanta would stop and talk about the parts that were hard to understand, and we would watch things related to the book and we had many worksheets and sources to help us, especially for Macbeth.”

“This semester I have learned many things. For example, I have learned how to read books by William Shakespeare. … I also learned how to read between the lines. Often times, authors put hidden meanings in their places. Ive learned to look deep into whatever im reading now instead of just taking everything at face value.”

“I try to practice mindfulness at the beginning of the class to support my thinking and my quantity of work. But, I have also use my mindfulness outside of class, when I have to deal with problems at my house.”

“I really liked the books that we read they really caught my attention. I also really liked what the stories were about.”

“What I learned in this class is that I learned to be more patient especially on writing essays which is one of my weaknesses. But I was able to overcome it because I know in myself that I can do it, and because of your help.”

“One thing I learned in this class is how to start a good paragraph. To start a good paragraph, you need to gather evidence first, then have a topic sentence, and a main idea.”

“I think learning here was a positive experience since I got to learn new things. … Practicing mindfulness did help because it got me more relaxed at the start of class.”