Writing has never been something
that has come easily to me, nor has it ever been something that I enjoy. That
did not change this year. In fact, my writing has gotten progressively worse
throughout the year, as evidenced by my grades. Over the course of English
class, we wrote a wide variety of essays. Some of the genres I had been
familiar with, and others were completely foreign to me. I acquired several
skills needed for each type of essay, but I have trouble utilizing in the
actual paper. Most capabilities in each
graded category fluctuated greatly with each paper, except for support, in
which case I always did poorly.
Ideas, organization, and conventions
are the categories that I struggle with the most. I have a difficult time
trying to find out what I want to say and then supporting those statements.
This was the primary issue in my literacy narrative, literary analysis, and
research paper. As for conventions, this is the category in which I worry about
last. Usually, I have procrastinated writing the essay and then I am in a rush
to turn it in so I often forget about or do not have time to check for simple
mistakes. Improving my ideas and organization is a matter that will take time
and effort. I can achieve this by spending more time pre-writing. Conventions
should prove easy to refine by leaving myself enough time to review my paper
for mistakes before turning it in.
Voice, word choice, and sentence
fluency are the subjects in which I tend to do better in. I have an aptitude
for diction and syntax. The skill was especially exemplified in my literacy narrative
and literary analysis. Although I did better in these categories, they can
still certainly be improved by reading my papers aloud to myself and seeing how
it sounds. Reading your own writing aloud is a valuable skill that we learned
about at the beginning of the year. I may not know what I want to say or what
order it should be said in, but I can arrange an adequate choice of words in a
sufficient order that will hopefully be satisfactory.
The
first two essays I wrote, the literacy narrative and profile, were the ones I
did best on. The literacy narrative was about my experience writing an essay for
the Trustees’ Scholarship, and the profile was a descriptive essay that used a
unique perspective to describe my bedroom. I believe I did better on these
papers because the topics were something that I knew well and could connect
with; something personal. In these papers, I did well on voice, word choice, and sentence fluency. However, in the literacy
narrative my weakest part was ideas, specifically support, and in the profile
my organization was poor. Again, I think this could be solved, or at least
tremendously improved by better quality pre-writing.
On
the literary analysis and research paper, I received similar grades. It was not
one category that I did particularly poor in, but rather my entire paper was inadequate.
My lack of understanding and capability to complete this assignment acceptably
was the basis for this. I would also blame my lack of interest in the topics I
was writing about for the results. I was required to redo both of these papers
multiple times.
The
WrAP test this year does not exemplify a piece of my best writing. The WrAP is
a writing test that assesses your ability to interpret and respond to a prompt.
I found this year’s topic difficult to write about because it was not an issue
that I was very familiar with. This made it tough to provide enough support to
back the stance I had taken. I scored the same on overall development,
organization, sentence structure, word choice, and mechanics. Support was the
category that I scored the lowest in.
The
quality of my essays depend on the level on interest on have in the topic I am
writing about and this can be detrimental to a paper that is vital to my grade.
This is something I can strive to be better at; producing an acceptable paper
no matter the topic. Next year, my goals are to spend more time pre-writing my
essays so that I can improve my ideas and organization, along with allowing
more time for reviewing. This year has been a great learning experience and I will
be able to build on the skills that I have developed.
Common Errors List:
Unnecessary commas
Ex: The only
good writing experience I remember having happened
in the spring of eighth grade.
^ no comma
Passive
Ex: Starting at
the desk, there is a corkboard that is covered in organized notes and small
objects that were made by friends or given as gifts.
Starting at
the desk, the corkboard hides beneath the organized notes and small objects
that hang from it.
Fragments
Ex: And options
that again, public figures do not want to take a stance on.
Public
figures, again, do not wan to take a stance on these options.
Comma Splice
Ex: Approximately
40% of all pregnancies were unintended last year, if
that were fixed it would make a dramatic difference in the population. ^ no comma
Citation:
The old-man strongly suggested
that “no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below” (par.21).
