Blog #11

Culminating Writers Profile

1.     Before my time in this class, writing was pretty easy for me. I didn’t have to think too hard to write essays or do work in my previous English classes. I was getting A’s without even trying my best. Since we have covered many new topics (most of which I have never heard of), I am beginning to change. I’ve learned that writing a strong essay takes lots of time and effort and that the little things are what makes it stand out above the rest.

2.      I think I have a good voice in my writing and the readers usually understand exactly what I am trying to say. I can paint pictures with my words.

3.     My weakness as a writer is whipping out an essay to high expectations in a timed situation. I need to get better at writing under pressure. I also need to have a better word choice to show that I am well-educated and learn to go deeper into what I am writing instead of being clear and straight to the point.

Evaluating your writing process

1.    If I had more time to write another draft of this essay, I would switch some things around and go into more detail on my examples.

2.   After receiving peer feedback, I found it easiest to improve my word choice and the structure of my essay.

3.   The biggest problem I had in writing and revising this essay was deciding what to write about. There was such a broad range of topics that I felt would be sufficient and it was hard to narrow it down. Once I finally chose a word, it was kind of hard to piece it all together.

Evaluating Your Successes

1. I didn’t really revise a whole lot. After receiving the grade, I assure you that revision of this essay will be in my near future!
2. I found it challenging to combine these three elements (descriptive, narrative, and illustrative) into my essay. Once I got a good train of thought, it became easier.
3. I thought I did pretty well with addressing my audience throughout the whole essay. I think I had a little bit of something that most people could relate to.

Being Honest with Self

1. I was most intimidated by the fact that there weren’t strict guidelines to write by. It seems as though there are specific things supposed to be included in essays and this one had a wide open topic. I got over this little by little as I kept writing because I gained confidence in my essay.
2. I really tried hard to focus on not using a lot of “to be” verbs, being more descriptive, and going deeper into all of my topics.
3. After reading student essay examples, I picked up on some ideas which were the springboard for my essay. I really enjoy reading the example essays because they help me understand what is expected for the essay.
4. A peer told me I should use a higher level of vocabulary to improve my essay.
5. Well currently, I am no where near where I’d like to be at the end of this year as a writer. I really hope this class will help me to not be a surface writer but instead go very deep into the subject.