Writing has always come fairly naturally to
me, and is definitely one of my favorite things to focus on in English class. There
is no end to the knowledge that you can acquire about writing, because there
are so many different styles and genres of it. This year, I was introduced to many new kinds of writing,
such as literacy narratives, profiles, literacy analysis, and research
papers. Since these were all new
and unfamiliar concepts, some components of these essays were especially
challenging and confusing to me.
Fortunately, I received insightful, and helpful feedback on my papers that
made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses in my writing, and also gave
me ideas about how to expand on them.
Throughout my English career, I have become
very familiar with the 6 traits of writing. I cannot remember the last time I wrote an essay without
first referring to a rubric that elaborated on them. While the concepts remain the same each year, the
requirements to achieve a perfect score become more difficult. As I was looking back over my essays
from this year, I noticed patterns in my writing that displayed my strengths
and weaknesses in the categories of ideas, organization, voice, word choice,
sentence fluency, and conventions.
My essays this year were consistent in the
categories of voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions, but my
performance in the categories of ideas and organization varied. Voice and conventions are things that
have never really burdened me when writing. I am usually good about using an engaging and unique voice in
my writing, and keeping the essay “business professional”. Working with peer groups throughout the
process of writing our essays was especially helpful when it came to checking
for convention errors. Since you
read your own writing so many times, you often miss small errors when editing. But when others read it, they can catch
those mistakes more easily. I
think that acting as an editor for my peers made me more aware of how easy it
is to make mistakes when writing, and that knowledge is what helped me earn
high scores in this category. I
noticed that I received 9.5’s out of 10 in both of those categories in my
Literacy Narrative, but in the rest of my essays, I received 10’s in them. This didn’t really come as a surprise
to me since the Literacy Narrative was the first essay we wrote this year. I guess that just goes to show that
practice does make perfect.
Word choice and sentence fluency are the icing
on the cake of a good paper. After
you have produced an essay that gets the message across clearly and you have all
of the details on the page, you can work with these things to jazz your essay
up and make it sound better. The
words you choose when writing a paper can make it or break it; this is why I
spend the most time on word choice.
Even though I have scored 10’s in this category on all of my papers this
year, this was definitely the category that frustrated me the most. It is sometimes very difficult to go
back and replace general, everyday words with sophisticated and interesting
words. In almost every essay I
wrote, I would stare off into space for minutes, racking my brain trying to
come up with vocabulary that would pull the reader in. I definitely noticed that with each
essay I wrote, the words became more challenging captivating. My vocabulary this year has improved
greatly, and I know that it will pay off on all of the essays that I will write
in the future. Sentence fluency
also increases the quality of an essay through elements of sound. You can play around with the length and
structures of sentences to create a pleasant rhythm. Often times, I used short, or repeated sentence types to
emphasize things. I didn’t really
improved or worsen in this category this year; my scores were consistent with
10’s for the entire year.
The ideas and organization of a paper change
depending on the topic. Experimenting with new and different ways to convey
ideas and organize my thoughts have allowed me to grow as a writer and as a
thinker this year. The fact that
ideas vary from essay to essay definitely accounted for the diversity of my
scores in this category. I got 10’s
in ideas in the literacy narrative, profile, and literacy analysis. In the research paper however, the
results in the category that I had always aced were drastically different. I received a B in thesis, an A in
support, and a C in source quality.
Since this was my first time incorporating a thesis statement into a
paper, I was no expert at it. My
topic also made it a little tricky to compose a well-written thesis that met
all the requirements, without confusing the reader. Regardless of the grade, the comments from my peers and
teacher about how to correct my mistakes were very helpful and will improve the
overall quality of my thesis statements.
I was very pleased with the A that I received in the support category of
my research paper, but frustrated when I saw that I made a C in source
quality. Using search engines didn’t
give me much luck, so I migrated to “less-reliable” sources such as about.com
and shmoop.com. I know that this
probably wasn’t the best way to go about researching my topic, but these
sources did provide me with a wide range of details. The next time I write a research paper, I will be sure to
use more reliable sources such as established journals, and news
organizations. Considering that I
had no idea what a thesis statement was, or how to write a research paper
before this year, I am very proud of how far I have come in both of those
things since the beginning of the year.
The feedback I acquired about the
organization of my essays this year was a little misleading at first, but after
I discussed it more with my teacher, it became much clearer and more
helpful. I had always assumed that
the organization of a paper dealt strictly with the order that the information
was presented in, completely forgetting that it can also have to do with the content
of each paragraph. I scored a B in
organization on my literacy analysis for making that simple mistake; I failed
to effectively introduce my quotes.
This was the first time I had worked with introducing and embedding
quotations in my sentences throughout an entire essay, so it was a little
confusing. My teacher told me it
would be helpful to give more context of the story when introducing my quotes,
so it is easier to understand the significance of them.
I have taken the WrAP test every year since 3rd
or 4th grade, so I was very comfortable with the test by the time I
took it at the beginning of this year.
The WrAP is basically a writing assessment test that measures your
ability to interpret and respond to a prompt. The test is scored using a 6-point rubric that focuses on 6
traits of writing: overall development, organization, support, sentence
structure, word choice, and mechanics.
I received 4’s in the categories of overall development, organization,
sentence structure, and word choice.
I scored a 3.5 in mechanics, and a 3 in support. I am not pleased with the results of my
test because I know that I did not reach my full potential and could have done
much better; my scores were actually lower than last year! I feel that my scores are a reflection
of the short time period that we were given to work. If we had been given more time, I could have further
expanded on my ideas, and paid closer attention to careless mistakes such as spelling
and punctuation. Despite the
scores, this test was definitely a learning experience for me because the
mistakes I made this year will make me a better writer next year.
Whether you are an actor, athlete, or writer,
there is always room for improvement in anything you do. It is interesting to watch your skills
continue to develop over time as you practice those things. At the beginning of the year, I felt
that I was an exceptional writer, but I also knew that there was much that I
had yet to learn. As the year
progressed, I saw my writing becoming more mature, and sophisticated. As I looked back over my essays from
this year, I felt very proud of what I had accomplished. The goals that I have set for myself
for next year include correcting the small grammatical errors that I always tend
to make, and earning a 100% on at least one of my essays. Over the course of the year, I have
taken on new challenges and developed skills that have made me a stronger, and
more confident writer.
