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Emily Lim

Dr. Malashewski

IB English, Period 2

11, December 2023

IB English Fall 2023 Self-Assessment

As the first semester of being an IB Diploma student comes to an end, I look back upon

this semester to reflect on my growth as an IB English student. This semester, we’ve touched

many topics, perspectives, and explored different concepts and ideas.

In a broad sense, IB English has allowed me to rediscover my love for English classes that

was lost in my first few years of high school. I had forgotten how much I loved reading and

learning from novels of things happening in the world that I wasn’t aware of. This semester has

re-opened up that love for reading, writing, and learning through literary texts back up, which I

am so appreciative of. I think the work of literature that re-started this would be The Truth

About Stories because of how personal the novel was to the author. This work allowed me to

really connect with the author, something that has never happened before. I also really enjoyed

writing the Pastiche Paper, which was directly related to the writing style of the author of The

Truth About Stories: a story from a direct personal perspective. I think that this paper also

exemplifies my growth as a writer, as it showcases a passion I have for a topic through writing,

and utilizes different literary techniques.

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As a reader, I feel as I have developed more skills in annotating and understanding my

annotations. Before this semester, my annotations would be all over the place, and mostly

re-iterated what the literary text had stated. Now, I feel as if I use my annotations as a thought

process of what is happening, to help me understand something that I’m having trouble

understanding, or just connecting pieces of information together. As a writer, I feel that my

go-to-book of vocabulary has expanded and grown more advanced. I feel as if my writing has

improved because I am using words that aren’t as blunt and am able to use “the right words” at

the right times– if that makes sense.

I’d like to continue expanding on my annotations and my annotating habits, specifically

annotating more often in texts. I tend to hold back because of fear of damaging the books or

because I don’t have the time to annotate every page or every time I read. However, I’d like to

really push myself to expand on how comfortable I am with annotations. Additionally, I’d like

to work on refining those annotations into annotations that are actually useful. Sometimes I

feel like I’m annotating something that I won’t use later on in the future, which adds onto the

feeling that my annotations are a waste of time and I shouldn’t be bothered to do them.

However, I know annotations are helpful for a lot of people– and I’d like to get to that point

too.

Overall, this first semester has been amazing and eye opening in every way possible. I

look forward to the remaining three semesters of my IB Diploma!