Writing This Year

 

Cole Berggreen                                                                                         Block 4                       

Dr. deGravelles                                                                                        4-30-12

Writing This Year

This year, I have learned much from writing because we have written multiple papers in various categories. For example, we learned how to write a literacy narrative, a profile, a literary analysis, and a global issues paper. I feel that my writing has grown  through my experience in writing this year, however I still have much to learn. This year’s course has been much more demanding than last year’s, but it helped me improve my writing. Because it has been demanding, I have had help along the way.

One thing that helped me become a better writer is the feedback that I have received from Dr. deGravelles, as well as my fellow classmates. As I look at that feedback, I can see the improvements that have been made. My ideas are probably my strongest point in my papers because I have received either an A or a B in that grading category. If I were to develop my ideas, my writing would be much improved. On the contrary, my organization is my worst writing category, although it could be more effective if I were to organize my paragraphs in a way so the audience can easily understand the point I am trying to get across. This is my main problem with my organization, although I believe it has improved much as well because my grade in this category has improved.

Along with organization, I have developed my choice of transition words from a difficult aspect of writing to a much easier one, which has been reflected in my last two papers. Another category related to word choice is sentence fluency. As I look over my papers and the WRAP, I have noticed there is a little choppiness in my sentences and  transitional phrases. Sentence fluency is a key component to my success, so I hope to keep improving it.

The last category of writing that I will discuss is conventions. It has also given me trouble throughout my entire English career. I have noticed a few patterns in my convention mistakes. First of all, I tend to have trouble using possessive apostrophes. I especially have trouble with the word “it.” I do not know when to use the apostrophe when trying to express ownership, but also do not know when “it’s” means “it is.” I also have trouble with comma usage. I am not sure where and when it is appropriate to use a comma. Still, my use of conventions, just like all of the categories of writing, have greatly improved throughout the course of the year. My feedback has been very helpful in improving my writing.

I agree fully with all of the feedback that I have received. The way that I evaluate my papers has also changed. I look more closely at the sentences by themselves, rather than looking at the paragraphs as a whole, which has made my sentences more clear. 

I have a very obtainable, reasonable goal in mind. Now that I have read and responded to my feedback, my goal for my English career in the future is to write high quality, easy to understand, successful papers. I also want to write more emotionally, and connect to my writing topics more closely. Furthermore, I want to improve my conventions and word choice. This goal will help me become a better, more successful writer.

Common Errors List

1.) Comma splice - Literacy narrative. “But Hitler did not stop at the persecution of the Jews, he also killed many handicapped people, Gypsies, and Homosexuals.”

2.) Underlining titles - Literacy narrative “I read the book Night by Elie Wiesel.”

3.) apostrophe use - Profile “i can hear the tone of his patients.” Profile

4.) Quotations - Profile quotations not attached to sentence correctly

5.) Pronouns - Profile pronouns used to much, t got confusing

6.) Capitalization - Literacy analysis “Truman” Need to capitalize proper nouns