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Writing has
always been one of my stronger areas in school, but I think this year has helped my writing become
more sophisticated. In English 12 Honors, we’ve had a lot of writing assignments, not only to improve
our ability to effectively write a paper in college, but also to help us understand what we never did in
our previous years in high school. Personally, when I look back at junior and sophomore year, I know
that my writing was not anywhere near at the level it is now. When I took my SAT’s, the writing
section was my best, with a score of 700/800. I think my self-preparation for writing concrete essays
Personally I feel that writing open responses was good practice for me this year. My writing
has improved because I learned what not to do, and how to incorporate evidence so that I can
effectively get my message across. I think I’ve become a lot better at this, and my skills have improved
immensely especially from sophomore year to now. My ability to write dialectical journals has also
improved. Rather than just straight summarizing, I know what makes a DJ concrete, and what
classifies a DJ as sloppy. For example, my journal entries for The Bean Trees show my ability to think
outside the box, because I actually took the time to think deeply about the passages that I chose. In my
entries for Chapters 5-7, I pointed out a major theme relating to the challenge of womanhood, and I
noticed a connection starting to emerge between the two characters, Taylor and Lou Ann. My
observations show that I do have the ability to produce a concrete, effective journal entry rather than
just lazily throwing something together. I never used to be able to expand my thoughts in journal
I also think my improvement is obvious in my Chapter 10 and Chapter 13 journal entries for
The Bean Trees. I demonstrated a good understanding of the book in general, and I took notice of
important symbols and patterns that were important to the plot. I find that when I enjoy a book, I have
a better ability to analyze important passages. My Hamlet DJ’s were very weak, and I am perfectly
aware that I was lazy. In one of my Hamlet journal entries for Act 3, Scene 2, my analysis seemed to
be completely off. I sort of just summarized what the attitudes of the King and Queen were during that
scene, rather than pulling out important information that was probably right in front of me. I know that
I am capable, but sometimes when I don’t like a book, my work for that book isn’t very good. This is
Writing the college essay was also something that helped my writing skills. I wrote and revised
about three or four versions of my essay before finally coming up with a polished final draft. I worked
on my college essay with complete independence, which is why I am proud of how the final copy
came out. I put a lot of effort into it, and ended up being successful with what I wanted to say. I find
that when I draw a blank or have “writer’s block”, brain storming helps a lot. Whether it’s an outline, a
web, or just a list of my ideas written out, it helps to have a blue print before starting an essay,
especially an important one. It’s important to be organized so that you know where to start and have a
pattern to follow so that you don’t lose track of the main idea of the paper.
Finally, I feel that the research paper, although it was somewhat a challenging and long
process, helped my writing skills and experience. I actually did not mind doing the research, because I
liked the fact that we could pick and musician or artist we wanted. I chose Jonathan Larson because he
wrote my favorite musical, so it makes it easier when the topic of the paper is someone whose life