When I was younger I had a lot of creativity flowing through my brain.
I could
create stories that were long, detailed, and fun for the reader to read. Then a couple of
years later at the end of elementary school, I failed my writing SOL, I was devastated.
After that, I never felt that there was a purpose for me to try in my writing. Throughout
the time I was in middle school and the past three years in High School I turned in
papers that got average grades. They were never good and had a lot of grammatical
errors but just the right amount of good to help me pass the class. When a random
proctor told me in the fifth grade that what I thought was good failed it made me not
want to try in my writing anymore. I lost the joy that I once found in writing.
So when I first found out how many papers we would be writing in dual English I
thought to myself, “Why am I taking this class?” But my attitude has changed throughout
the years. As a class, we have written all different types of papers, learned different
writing styles, and the proper way to execute the papers from Mrs. Erskine and my
peers. Dual English has made me realize why I am writing these papers similar to the
purpose of a writing piece. From the beginning of the year to now I have found purpose
in my writing and I think that reflects in my essays. One of my favorite essays I've ever
written was my personal narrative from the beginning of the year. I like this essay so
much because it is about something personal to me but a story others are able to read.
Throughout writing this paper I found that the purpose was to tell something I have
struggled with in my life. But ends on a positive note, for example, the last line in the
essay, “I think back to that little girl in Italy and how happy and carefree she was and
strive to be like her again.” to show that she found a purpose.
One of the biggest areas I have always struggled in was using grammar in the
correct way throughout my papers. I think throughout the year especially I have learned
the correct way to form sentences and use commas but I still struggle with run-ons. For
example in my process analysis essay, The Art of Dishwashing in the concluding
paragraph the last two sentences are run-ons. “The final step of the day is to take out
the trash usually I let my co-workers do this as they always offer. Now that everything is
clean and washed I head to the Ipad to clock out, my duty as a dishwasher is done for
the day.” I typically put two long sentences together with no commas or punctuation to
properly fix the sentence. This was not just common in my process analysis essay this
is typical throughout all of them. Another example is shown in my descriptive essay,
Time machine. “My movie just so happens to be at the end of the hallway, as I walk past
all of the other rooms I hear laughter, screams, and the occasional crying due to the
unrealistic but totally entrancing chick flick.” Run-on sentences are something that I
need to work on considering that it happens in all of my essays I get graded and handed
back. One of the other grammatical areas I struggled with was in-text citations. In a
recent research paper, I wrote we had to use intext citations for the works cited. I didn’t
know how to do them but my peer review partner taught me how to correctly do them.
For example “From 1999 to 2013, wildfires burned approximately 1.3 million acres per
year across the state” (“Methane and Black Carbon”). This is a skill I have improved on
this year and something that will be very helpful for when I go to college.
The last aspect of my writing I would like to touch on is the organization of my
papers. In my paper, The Art of Dishwashing I did well on my step-by-step order. This is
just one example of the organization in a paper. In this particular paper, I decided to
give detailed steps to everything that I do as a dishwasher. Nothing was the same it’s
written in a way that you can imagine going through the steps. For example, “In this
process you will probably have to scrape the leftover mushy avocado from the plate into
the trash can, then turn the water on hot.” The organization is essential for a paper
because if there isn’t a good organization then the audience will be confused while
reading. One of my smaller pieces of writing is the color poem. The color poem was
made to be written about a color and items that were that specific color. I had a lot of
fun writing this poem. The organization of the poem is what I believe makes the poem
fun. Shown throughout the whole poem each ending word rhymes with the one from
above. This organization style is exciting for the reader as they almost bounce around
the poem. I think that I am good at rhyming in poems and is a skill I feel confident in
while writing.
This year has brought me so many new skills. I have also have been utilizing
past knowledge that I hadn’t before. My writing is becoming better and so is my
confidence in it. I hope at the end of the year I will see an even bigger improvement.