Anna Spring
Dr.deGravelles
Block 3
4/28/12
My Freshman
Writing Throughout the Year
This year has been a year of
improvement for my writing. I started out this year with my weakest paper, and
I actually ended this year with my best paper. I made improvements in areas of
writing including organization, grammar, and word choice. These are the three
areas of writing that I think I have improved a tremendous amount throughout
the year. I am pleased with my improvements, and I hope to continue to improve
my writing through out the next years of high school.
My first paper was a literary
narrative entitled “Love You Forever.” This was a very personal piece of
writing for me because I described a childhood book that means a lot to me.
Although I am proud of the subject of this paper, it was my weakest piece of
writing. I left out many commas in this paper.
I also think there could be improvement in the overall voice of this
paper. I left out a great amount of details that could have been added for the
better of this essay. However, I think that my sentence structure of the
sentences of this paper is really strong. I also got a high grade in that area
of the rubric. Overall, my literary narrative had a strong subject, however it
was not well developed.
My second paper was the WRAP
essay that we wrote in class. I got an
overall score of a 22.5 out of 36 on this essay. I am not very pleased with
this score. However, I got fours on all areas except development, support, and
sentence structure. That means that I actually had a four on word choice, which
is surprising to me because that is one area that I struggle in most. I also
got fours on my organization and mechanics. I think I have good organization
skills, and I think this actually is something that is strong in all my papers
that I write. I think I did not do so well on this WRAP assignment because we
only had two class periods to write the essay. I am the type of person that
gets pressured when it is only a short amount of time, so I felt the pressure
to finish early. My essay is also really short, so I think that if I would have
taken just a little bit more time to stretch it out, I could have gotten a
higher score. However, I read this essay numerous times, and I am actually
pleased with it.
The next paper that I wrote
after the WRAP was my profile. I wrote my profile about my mom and the way she
decorates our house every year. This was a subject actually means a lot to me.
Writing this paper was easy because I had so many ideas to put in my paper. I
got B’s in all categories except in organization. Once again, this is evidence
that I tend to have strong organization skills. While reading this paper, I
noticed that I repeated myself multiple times. This is something that I haven’t
really improved on through out the year, however I am going to continue to work
on not repeating myself. Like my
narrative, I think that I could have added a lot more detail to this paper.
Overall, I feel like I improved between my narrative and this profile. My
profile was definitely a step better than my narrative.
My literary analysis is
probably my favorite paper that I wrote. It is the one I am most proud of
because going into writing it, I had no idea what a literary analysis was. I
was surprised that it actually had a strong turn out. I got A’s in most categories,
however I got a B on voice. Voice is something that I definitely struggle with,
even now. I tend to sometimes have an informal voice, which is something that I
am definitely going to continue to work on correcting. I do think that the
voice improved between the literary analysis and the paper that I wrote after
it.
The paper I wrote after the
literary analysis was my Global Issues Paper. This was the last paper I wrote,
and I can confidently say it was my best. I got A’s in all the categories
except for source quality and source integration. Those two things were a huge
struggle for me while writing the paper, and it does not surprise me that I got
a B in those categories. I was very pleased with my A’s in word choice and and
voice, because in my papers before this one I got B’s in those categories. I
think this is a huge sign that my voice and word choice while writing papers
has improved a great amount from the beginning of the year. I am pleased with
the outcome of this paper. I think it is the icing on the cake of a good year
of writing for me.
Overall, I am happy with all of my papers
from this year. It makes me very happy to look back at my first paper and
compare it to my most recent paper. It is amazing to see how much I have
improved. I feel like I have improved so much in just one year. I will continue
to work on the things that I struggle with in my next years of high, and I look
forward to seeing what my writing will be like in a few years. If I have
improved this much in one year, I can only imagine how much I will have improved
in three years.
Common Errors List:
1. Not adding enough details.
2. Usage of informal words.
3. Issues introduction quotations and citations.
4. Forgetting to add commas.
5. Making my paper have a strong voice is something that I struggle with.
