I knew it was going to be a hard year going into high school
especially since there was going to be a new curriculum and a new teacher.
I tried to mentally prepare myself for this class because English is
my worst subject. Unlike the other subjects we take on in high school
English just does not come to me as naturally as the others. I have
always had trouble with writing papers and I did especially bad on the Literary
Analysis receiving a 77 C. The
first paper we wrote in Dr. deGravelles class was the Literacy Narrative. I remember writing that paper especially because
it was all about my 7th grade experiences in English. I thought that paper was very well
written. The grade I received was much
unexpected I believed I deserved a better grade. That was until I looked
through Dr. d’s comments and noticed just how many mistakes I made. For one thing I didn’t turn in most of the
materials that were asked for so that kept me from having a higher grade on the
paper. I also failed to place correct
punctuation marks like commas and sometimes semicolons.
Then we wrote the Profile Assignment. This writing assignment was the hardest paper
we’ve had all year. It required you to
either interview or observe something closely to infer characteristics about
the person or place that the author does not say directly. I did horrible. My ideas were screwed up and I ended
receiving a D in that area. When it came
to everything else it was a mixture of B’s and C’s. I literally bombed this paper. The paper was not organized at all, my
sentences were choppy, short, monotonous and predictable which made the paper
boring and hard to read. Once again I did not do well at placing commas in the
correct places, I didn’t conclude my piece of writing, and I failed to turn in
all the necessary materials.
On the Literary Analysis we were to choose a short story annotate
it, create a thesis statement, gather quotes that supported our thesis
statement, and interpret what those quotes meant to us. I feel that I did especially well at
interpreting the quotes. However, I did
not do as well when it came to relating the information to my thesis statement
to support it, using the correct punctuation at the at the appropriate time,
and I did not create a proper conclusion.
On the Literary Analysis my conventions were not as great as I thought
they were. I made simple mistakes which
caused more harm than good. My Sentence Fluency and Organization both received
C’s and looking back over the analysis I can tell why. Some of the sentences were choppy and hard to
read, some sentences should not have been in a certain paragraph, or I just
overused a certain sentence structure. For example, while analyzed quotes I
continuously started each new analysis with “This quote means…”.
The last paper we did was
our Global Issues paper. This paper was
by far my best typed paper. I did almost
everything that was asked of me in a very correct manner. I was surprised that I got a B in the Voice
category, but then it dawned on me that in certain parts the required voice
which was business formal was not there. Other than that there is nothing else
that I can say about that paper. I
worked hard and I got the grade that I deserved.
Overall
I did pretty well on most of the assignments assigned to me. I believe as the quarters passed by my
organization of my writing improved greatly, my sentences flowed a little
smoother, and became a little brighter.
Out of all the traits of good writing I believe my conventions, voice,
and word choice were the ones that showed the least amount of improvement. I also think that I need to work on how to
conclude a paper for that has been one of the main causes of my grades being so
bad on most of my papers.
Common Errors List:
1. COMMAS
2. Conclusions
3. Ideas
4. Quotations
5. Citations
6. Turning in required materials
