How I Have Improved Over the Years
Kyler Patillo
Mrs. Lindholm
Comp. I
14 January 2015
How Have I Improved
Over the course of this year in Composition 1 my ability to write has greatly improved in my opinion. I feel like the essay concepts that I have always struggled will no longer be an issue to me. There are many things that I know I had forgotten, and the plentiful essay assignments given to us this year forced me to draw on that lost knowledge. The most prominent changes in my writing have been my attention to organization, word choice, and my audience.
When writing an essay, the most important concept to understand is organization.
Without a coherent structure to your writing, the piece will be difficult to follow. I know that I really struggled with this at the beginning of the year. My essays were jumbled and the members of my writing group often told me that I needed to focus more on keeping my information in order. For example, after reading the book
Petey by Ben Mikaelsen we were asked to pick any essay form we wanted and write about something that stuck with us. My essay was about not judging a book by its cover, and how most people saw Petey as nothing but an idiot. I found it very difficult to keep the focus on my thesis, and it showed in my writing, With help from the corrections made by my peers and my teacher, I can score perfect on organization in my essays.
Another concept of writing that I struggled with was word choice. This is just as important in an essay as organization, and can make or break your entire assignment. When I
look back on my writing, I don’t really think I have actually improved on word choice, but now it is something that I can focus on and try to do better with in my future writing.
My final improvement this year has been the consideration towards my audience. While I never really notice a point system for this concept in the grading rubrics, I can tell simply by going over my essays from this year that there has been
Mrs. Lindholm
Comp. I
14 January 2015
How Have I Improved
Over the course of this year in Composition 1 my ability to write has greatly improved in my opinion. I feel like the essay concepts that I have always struggled will no longer be an issue to me. There are many things that I know I had forgotten, and the plentiful essay assignments given to us this year forced me to draw on that lost knowledge. The most prominent changes in my writing have been my attention to organization, word choice, and my audience.
When writing an essay, the most important concept to understand is organization.
Without a coherent structure to your writing, the piece will be difficult to follow. I know that I really struggled with this at the beginning of the year. My essays were jumbled and the members of my writing group often told me that I needed to focus more on keeping my information in order. For example, after reading the book
Petey by Ben Mikaelsen we were asked to pick any essay form we wanted and write about something that stuck with us. My essay was about not judging a book by its cover, and how most people saw Petey as nothing but an idiot. I found it very difficult to keep the focus on my thesis, and it showed in my writing, With help from the corrections made by my peers and my teacher, I can score perfect on organization in my essays.
Another concept of writing that I struggled with was word choice. This is just as important in an essay as organization, and can make or break your entire assignment. When I
look back on my writing, I don’t really think I have actually improved on word choice, but now it is something that I can focus on and try to do better with in my future writing.
My final improvement this year has been the consideration towards my audience. While I never really notice a point system for this concept in the grading rubrics, I can tell simply by going over my essays from this year that there has been